top 100 of the '00s | 89. s3rl - "pretty rave girl"

Happy hardcore music was invented in Europe in the early '90s, but it had a surge in popularity in some U.S. subcultures in the '00s, probably due at least in part to the popularity of rhythm games like Dance Dance Revolution. It has sonic similarities to trance, jungle, and drum n bass music, but is characterized by high BPMs and melodic riffs.

This particular track encapsulates everything that I like about happy hardcore music. It's insanely fast, it's happy, and it makes you want to move. Listening to it actually increases my heart rate. A friend once told me that this played when he was at a rave at age 16, and someone wrote the word "BROTHERHOOD" on his arm in a highlighter. I think about that every time I hear it.

S3RL is an Australian DJ. He built this track around a late-'90s French eurohouse track called "Daddy DJ" -- the same one that Basshunter later turned into "All I Ever Wanted."

top 100 of the '00s | 90. paramore - "misery business"

The whole "I like him but he doesn't like me back" story has been told in every way humanly possible. This is not one of those stories.

This goes to a new level: I like him, and the girl he's dating knows it, and she is actively aggressive to me.

It's a cocksure reply to an insecure lover who's in over her head. She probably spends a lot of time shooting catty glances, starting rumors, engaging in PDA in front of the right people, etc., but the singer just doesn't give a shit, because she knows she's got the dude in the bag.

And that's a great feeling.

top 100 of the '00s | 91. blu cantrell - "hit 'em up style (oops!)"

R&B of this era was really big on mixing in electric guitar motifs (see also: "Let Me Blow Ya Mind") and themes of female empowerment, and this fabulous track features both prominently.

I suppose thievery is the best kind of revenge? I mean, you're still stealing things but at least no one's getting hurt. Plus, if your dude didn't want to buy you stuff for the crib and the car, then he shouldn't have messed up. Typing it out like that actually does cause it to make a frightening amount of sense.

This was Cantrell's debut single and earned her two Grammy nominations (!). She had one more hit everywhere but the U.S. with the song "Breathe" after she cut a duet version with Sean Paul, but faded into obscurity shortly thereafter.

top 100 of the '00s | 92. nine days - "absolutely (story of a girl)"

2016 Max realizes that this is a douchey, problematic song that is dismissive of the titular girl's feelings and finds the singer asking for a cookie for "staying" and "putting up with this shit day after day" (yikes -- he really says that??). He knows that it is lyrically reductive and repugnant. Just getting that out of the way.

2000 Max loved this song for being a perfect alt-pop-rock crossover from a band that was so obviously doomed to one-hit wonder status from the opening chords.

2016 Max holds this song in fond memory despite its awful lyrics because he recognizes that, musically, it is a culmination of everything that pop rock got right in the '90s.

2016 Max also promises that in tomorrow's post he'll go back to referring to himself in the first person.

top 100 of the '00s | 93. zeigeist - "dawn/night"

Swedish music/art project Zeigest formed in 2006. They started out as a menagerie of musicians, artists, and fashionistas, focusing on sharp, dark electronic music and elaborate live performances. The following year, they released their only album, The Jade Motel.

My favorite expression for this kind of music is "hard candy" -- light on the ears, but having some quality that is gruesome, grotesque, or macabre. I love the juxtaposition of airy synth motifs over lyrics like "your dead meat taste like piss."

I wish I could have seen one of their notoriously extravagant live performances before they called it off, but Sweden certainly wasn't in my college student budget. Thus is life.

Also of note: Check out their unusual yet excellent cover of Kylie Minogue's "Giving You Up."

top 100 of the '00s | 94. andrew thompson - "we're in business"

Summer 2005: I check my school e-mail one day, and a friend I have made during my just-completed freshman year of college has sent me a song and says I need to check it out immediately. I click the link he's sent me to this indie label's website and am quickly grinning ear to ear listening to it.

During my first visit back to campus, I head up to the campus radio station, where I spent most of my time. Our newly hired music director was hanging out in a production booth adding new music: Perfect. I tell him I have a song for him. He skeptically begins to listen, but as soon as the robot growls, "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU," he leaps out of his seat and says "GET THIS IN ON THE AIR NOW!"

We went into the on-air booth and, after I gave it a brief introduction and explanation, he played it. From that one play, it became the most-requested song throughout my five-year tenure at the station. I'm pretty sure it was never even officially added to the rotation logs; people were just nuts about it and called to request it all the time. Each new semester, at least one freshman would re-discover it, play it during their shift, and the cycle would begin again.

It's really hard not to love this song. It's irreverent, it's cute, and it's pretty funny. It's just an electronic drum kit, one keyboard, and his voice (though the live version is performed with a full band, and it's pretty awesome).

After the song took off, I tracked Thompson down and did a phone interview with him. He told me that he wrote this simply out of a fear of technology that he was being forced to use but didn't want to (computers, cell phones, etc.).

top 100 of the '00s | 95. the jezabels - "disco biscuit love"

Everybody knows someone who makes bad decisions when they're intoxicated. It's that friend that you always feel obligated to keep one eye on even when engaged with others at the bar, lest they do something they'll regret later.

The hushed opening lines of the song refer to a girl named Trudy in the past tense. Our singer begrudgingly says that her friend "is in self-destruct mode," in search of "one big night to end it all." We get the sense that she's had this conversation with Trudy before. We can't tell if she's annoyed, worried, or both.

"He only loves you when he's on pills," the singer pleads with her friend. A "disco biscuit" is (slightly outdated) slang for ecstasy, after all.

The singer refers to Trudy in both the present and past tense throughout the song, but the closing remarks about "falling asleep at the disco" suggest that her fate was not a good one. It's a great lyrical device, because after you've just lost someone it can be incredibly difficult to refer to them as if they are no longer there.

Just a really nice piano-driven, heartfelt track that is very relatable if you've ever loved someone who never learned to love themselves. It touches all of the exhausting emotions involved.