Top 100 Songs Of 2008 -

"The Top 100 Songs of 2008 is not a playlist. It's a life raft. It's the sound of millions of people pressing 'shuffle' on their anxiety. It's Auto-Tuned, it's ridiculous, it's painfully earnest, and it's the only reason we didn't all go insane. This was the year pop music looked at the end of the world and said, 'Okay, but first, let me finish this dance.'"

Alex put his headphones on. Song #100 was "Closer" by Ne-Yo. He remembered dancing to this at a frat party, trying to impress a girl named Maria. He’d spilled a entire beer on her shoe. He winced, deleted the sentence he’d just typed, and moved on. top 100 songs of 2008

"Just scroll through the list and call it a mess," his editor, Jen, had said over a crackling Skype call. "Say it was the year the wheels fell off." "The Top 100 Songs of 2008 is not a playlist

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. He remembered dancing to this at a frat

He hit 'publish' at 11:47 PM.

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.