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The 100 Greatest Songs of 2004: Staff Picks

2004 songs: Staff picks for the 100 best singles.

“The Rat” sees the group conjuring the elements in a way that few of its peers could even imagine, with downpours of guitar, thunderous drums, and a singular electrical-storm vocal from Hamilton Leithauser that makes a quarter-life crisis of romantic yearning and social alienation sound like it might literally split the earth’s core in two beneath him. Joanna Levesque had officially been a teenager for all of two months when her debut single was released, but “Leave (Get Out)” did not sound like an angry missive from a middle schooler: The rhythmic pop cast-off, which alternates between its two titular commands in its chorus, is seething with hurt, as JoJo sings about dashed dreams (“Hope you know that when it’s late at night/ I hold on to my pillow tight / And think of how you promised me forever”) and shocking betrayal (“How could you ever be so cold?”). But more than its sonic impact, the “99 Problems” lyrics would become embedded in the public consciousness, from its bombastic, Ice T-borrowed hook to its brash, indignant verses, each taking on a different target: the first, his haters and critics in the rap game; the second, a BS police traffic stop that illustrated the Black experience with law enforcement that still characterizes the country; the third, celebrity itself and its consequences.

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