Top 100 - Songs Of 2008

It was December 2008, and Alex’s entire world had been reduced to a 160-gigabyte iPod Classic and a folding chair in the basement of his parents’ house.

He stared at the screen. For all his cynicism, he couldn't write the dismissive, ironic takedown Jen wanted. He couldn't call 2008 a mess. It was a mess. The housing market had cratered. He owed forty thousand dollars. The last Bush administration was limping to a finish. But on the dance floor, for three minutes and fifty seconds, nobody cared. top 100 songs of 2008

He was twenty-two, a recent graduate with a degree in "Media Studies" and no job prospects. The only offer he had was from a dying blog called The Frequency . His assignment: write the definitive retrospective on the Billboard Top 100 songs of 2008. The pay was seventy-five dollars. The deadline was New Year’s Eve. It was December 2008, and Alex’s entire world

The hours melted. The basement grew dark. #22: "Disturbia" by Rihanna. #18: "Love in This Club" by Usher. Each song wasn't just a track; it was a time-stamped photograph. The sticky floors of the club. The smell of cheap vodka. The feeling of a flip phone buzzing in his pocket. The absolute, terrifying, beautiful uncertainty of being young before the economy collapsed. He couldn't call 2008 a mess

He scrolled higher. The middle of the chart was a warzone. #72: "Low" by Flo Rida (feat. T-Pain). He’d heard that song at every single stoplight, every house party, every sad trip to the grocery store. The "Apple Bottom jeans" had become the universal background noise of his senior year. He wrote: This song isn't music. It's a cultural event horizon.

#99: "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay. He’d listened to this on the bus ride to his last final exam, feeling like a medieval king about to conquer his destiny. Now he was a peasant sweeping up the castle.

He started typing.