1)50 Cent, “In da Club”
SONG: “So come gimme a hug if you’re into gettin’ rubbed,” what a lyric. Did “bottle of bub” enter the lexicon because of this? I don’t remember. The music is a simple beat and eight keyboard notes, which become eight orchestra notes and, toward the end, a single nagging eighth note on guitar. Now That’s What I Call Music, Volume 57! No, this song is really simplistic shit that I’d forgotten about, except that when he became famous the joke was “Fitty can’t count to fitty.” I’m not a hip hop enthusiast to save my life anyway, but he doesn’t seem like much of a rapper. Maybe Slick Rick should have done this song.
VIDEO: Some of this is just people in da club, and some of it is set in some laboratory with Eminem, and footage of Eminem, some sort of meta commentary or something. The video forgets about the latter for the most part. As memorable as the song it’s accompanying!

2)R. Kelly, “Ignition” (Remix)
SONG: Very lightweight R&B/hip-hop song with about one and a half chords in it. Mercifully over with in three minutes. Was I supposed to listen to the non-remix instead?
VIDEO: People partying. At one point a nerdy white guy gets out in the middle of a club floor and looks about himself really awkwardly for four seconds, then dances. That’s the only interesting moment in either the video OR the song.

3)Sean Paul - “Get Busy”
SONG: His Jamaican accent doesn’t bother me but the nagging repetitive one-chord nature of this song kind of ruins it. It’s better than the first two songs in this list but not by much.
VIDEO: More dancing, with some old guys having their dinner wondering around. A little kid shows up in his pajamas and dances, that’s sort of cute. Viewer comment: “People don’t remember just HOW HUGE Sean Paul was when we were kids.” Neither do I–I would have been 21 in 2003, but I don’t remember this song, just when he was on SNL and Adrien Brody was the host and Brody introduced him by doing this stupid rasta-accent bit that got him banned from the show for life. Go look it up, it’s hilariously cringey.

4)Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z, “Crazy In Love”
SONG: The little 70s horn sample that the song is known for is cute enough, I guess. From a Chi-Lites song. So I can listen to this without getting sick of it. But that’s sort of like thinking Quentin Tarantino is good for stealing shit from the 70s and making it seem like he came up with it, no? That’s a boring debate and one we all probably got sick of 30 years ago. And this is only 23 years ago.
VIDEO: Well she sure had nice legs at least. Camera man needs to slow down a bit near the beginning, some of the worst editing I’ve seen in an MTV video this side of the godawful Metallica “Enter Sandman” clip.

5)3 Doors Down, “When I’m Gone”
SONG: Yep, alt-rock was really dead and GONE by this point, wasn’t it? Completely dull four-chord post-grunge with dull post-Eddie Vedder post-vocals. I remembered a couple of this dull band’s dull songs, like “Kryptonite,” but not this one, and never would have stood the chance of remembering it, because it’s bland forgettable shitfuck. It’s an IMITATION NICKELBACK SONG. How LOW can YOU GO, bro?
VIDEO: I’ll give them some points for the weird artistic concept of the video though: they’re out in the woods, and for whatever reason, a bunch of guys who are dressed like Amish or Mennonites or the guy with the bundle of twigs on his back from the Led Zeppelin IV cover or something from the 1920s are shovelling mud all over the place, including all over the lead singer. Hah! Almost made the shitty song worth it.

6)Matchbox Twenty, “Unwell”
SONG: I vaguely remembered the chorus to this song, but it doesn’t matter. More bland mainstream rock of the era, right down to the stereotypical angsty lyrics and “how I used to be” hook. ZZZZZZZ.
VIDEO: Rob Thomas’ bangs, earrings, “LOVE ME” T-shirt and befuddled confused facial expressions make him look like he’s preparing for the inevitable SNL parody of himself. There’s weird CGI effects and cartoony stuffed animals and other oddities in the video though, but none of it adds up to anything.

7)Chingy, “Right Thurr”
SONG: Annoying-as-fuck one-chord hip hop song with “there” indeed pronounced as “thurr.” I’ve never been happier to be an irrelevant, out-of-touch old man in my life as when I realized that I don’t remember this song. Seriously, I didn’t even recognize his name. “Chingy”?
VIDEO: They’re on a white background with nothing in it whatsoever. Betrays no more directorial talent than the song betrayed Chingy’s nonexistent musical talent. “A minimalist masterpiece. I give it a 2.” - Prindle

8)Aaliyah, “Miss You”
SONG: She had been dead for two years by this point. I’m not really into this song but I’d feel like a douche saying anything bad about it. I guess it’s better than the other stuff on this list though!!
VIDEO: DMX is in the video and he’s dead too now, I’d forgotten about him being dead (but remembered that Aaliyah had died.) Of course the video was just a tribute to Mrs. Aaliyah and everyone looks quite sad. RIP

9)Kid Rock featuring Sheryl Crow, “Picture”
SONG: Bland-ass acoustic ballad featuring two people whose music I’ve never liked in any context that I know of. Kid Rock was the kind of celebrity that we kids all sort of liked at the time just because of the general idea of him. Of course, it’s impossible for me not to know better now. In keeping with its generic title, there is nothing distinctive about this song musically (except for a mildly pleasant guitar solo near the end), nor about his singing, which is completely plain vanilla (except for a hilarious big melodramatic moment about three minutes in where he yells out one line.) As with a lot of the songs on this list, in addition to it being miserably generic, I don’t remember it at all. “I found your picture today, I swear I’ll change my ways,” great lyrics you MAGA dipshit.
VIDEO: He looks real sad at the camera a lot like he’s trying to become an actor, though the only movie role I remember him getting was Joe Dirt. His hair seems to be made to look like Kurt Cobain’s a bit, but that may be coincidence.

10)Evanescence featuring Paul McCoy, “Bring Me To Life”
SONG: Wasn’t there some controversy about whether these guys were “Christian rock”? That’s about all I remember. None of their other songs can I recall, either. I will say that the chorus to the song is vaguely listenable. So it’s not entirely a loss. The first minute of the song actually reminds me a bit of Dream Theater, in a bad way, if Dream Theater had a female lead singer and were completely de-progged (they tried lots of sad piano parts like this song has, mind you.)
VIDEO: Shots of people in windows in a dark fake looking cityscape. The female lead singer wears a clingey cleavagey gown and crawls about on ledges about to jump, the rest of the band is in one window. The girl falls, which produces no dramatic effect whatsoever.

SONGS I’M GLAD I DON’T HAVE TO RELISTEN TO AS A RESULT OF THEM NOT BEING IN THE TOP 10:

Lil’ Jon & The Eastside Boyz - “Get Low”
Avril Lavigne - “I’m With You”
Christina Aguilera - “Beautiful” (die)
Dixie Chicks - “Landslide”
Santana & Michelle Branch - “The Game Of Love”
Train - “Calling All Angels” (so they have FIVE terrible hit songs! I could only name four)
Jennifer Lopez - “Jenny From The Block”
John Mayer - “Your Body Is A Wonderland”
Toby Keith - “Beer For My Horses”
Coldplay - “Clocks” (no “The Scientist”? That’s the only thing by them I could ever stand)
Jewel - “Intuition”

Really, the only thing in the entire top 100 I care for is “Lose Yourself” and that’s a 2002 song anyway. Fuck you 2003, I spent you listening to the Replacements and Smashing Pumpkins and U2 like an old fart and playing a bunch of PS1 games from seven years earlier!