1000 NUMBER ONES GANGSTA'S PARADISE (FROM "DANGEROUS MINDS ") (oolio Featuring LV. FANTASY Mariah Carey EXHALE (SHOOP SHOOP) (FROM "WAITING TO EXHALE') Whitney Houston ONE SWEET DAY Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME (FROM "UP CLOSE & PERSONAL ") ( eline Dion ALWAYS BE MY BABY Mariah Carey The 'OOs THA CROSSROADS BoneThugs -N- Harmony HOW DO U WANT IT/CALIFORNIA LOVE 2Pac Featuring K-Ci &Join Timberlake. YOU'RE MAKIN' ME HIGH /LET IT FLOW Toni Braxton MACARENA (BAYSIDE BOYS MIX) Los del Rio NO DIGGITY BLACKstreet (Featuring Dr. Dre) Producers. UN -BREAK MY HEART Toni Braxton WANNABE Spice Girls CAN'T NOBODY HOLD ME DOWN Puff Daddy (Featuring Mase) Black Eyed Peas. HYPNOTIZE The Notorious B.I.G. MMMBOP Hanson `Stronger.' I'LL BE MISSING YOU Puff Daddy& Faith Evans Featuring 112 MO MONEY MO PROBLEMS The Notorious B.I.G. featuring Puff Daddy& Mase HONEY Mariah Carey op music" has long had the most vague of 4 SEASONS OF LONELINESS Boyz II Men definitions. Unlike rock or hip -hop or coun- CANDLE IN THE WIND 1997 Elton John try, it has never been characterized by sonic, TRULY MADLY DEEPLY Savage Garden It in TOGETHER AGAIN Janet ideological qualities. exists accordance NICE &SLOW Usher with popular -and more recently- techno- MY HEART WILL GO ON (cline Dion logical demands. The No. 1 hits of the 21st century were GETTIN' JIGGY WIT IT Will Smith and still are defined by information conglomeration and ALL MY LIFE K -(i & Join TOO (LOSE Next overload. The sound of now isn't a single aesthetic, but a MY ALL Mariah Carey tangled mess of them. THE BOY IS MINE Brandy & Monica In the mid- to late '9Os there was a tug of war for No. 1 I DON'T WANT TO MISSATHING Aerosmith THE FIRST NIGHT Monica between Hanson (1997's "MMMBop ") and Ricky Martin ONE WEEK Barenaked Ladies (1999's "Livin' la Vida Loca "), as well as Mariah Carey (1997's DOO WOP (THAT THING) Lauryn Hill "Honey ") and Will Smith (three weeks at No.1 with 1998's LATELY Divine I'M YOUR ANGEL R. Kelly & Celine Dion "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It "). In the end, everything blurred seam- HAVE YOU EVER? Brandy lessly. Rappers turned to singing (OutKast's 2003 No. 1 ... BABY ONE MORE TIME Britney Spears "Hey Ya! "), singers turned to rapping (Gwen Stefani's 2005 ANGEL OF MINE Monica BELIEVE Cher No.1 "Hollaback Girl "), and many of the decade's biggest NO SCRUBS TLC hits, such as Usher's 2004 No.1 "Yeah!," fused the two. Ricky Martin LIVIN' LA VIDA LOCA This blur was inevitable. Music is now recorded directly IF YOU HAD MY LOVE Jennifer Lopez BILLS, BILLS, BILLS Destiny's Child into the same boxes from which it's consumed. Producers WILD WILD WEST Will Smith Featuring Dru Hill & Kool Mo Dee share similar software setups and plug -ins while listeners GENIE IN A BOTTLE Christina Aguilera and artists all seem to be tapped into the same global BAILAMOS Enrique Iglesias UNPRETTY TL( playlist. Niche genres that were once difficult to access -like HEARTBREAKER Mariah Carey Featuring Jay -Z European dance music and hyper -local underground hip - SMOOTH Santana Featuring Rob Thomas hop -now fill the same iPod space, and both have left their 2000s WHAT A GIRL WANTS (hristina Aguilera share of fingerprints on what is in fact a new non -genre. I KNEW I LOVED YOU Savage Garden THANK GOD I FOUND YOU Mynah Carey Featuring Joe & 98 Degrees Kanye West absorbed the French house of Daft Punk AMAZED Lonestar with his 2007 No. 1 "Stronger" while Justin Timberlake SAY MY NAME Destiny's Child adopted the syrupy sounds of Southern rap on his 2006 MARIA MARIA Santana Featuring the Product G &B TRY AGAIN Aaliyah chart -topper "My Love." This musical evolution seems BE WITH YOU Enrique Iglesias quaint in terms of one -world, post -race idealism, but the EVERYTHING YOU Vertical Horizon WANT inevitable sameness of it all can prove frustrating. Live in- BENT Matchbox Twenty IT'S GONNA BE ME 'N Sync strumentation, and just about anything resembling rock INCOMPLETE Sisgó music, is scantily heard in the new menagerie. Janet DOESN'T REALLY MATTER It has become trite to suggest that pop music is created MUSIC Madonna by its stars, a team But COME ON OVER BABY (ALL I WANT IS YOU) Christina Aguilera not but of mythical studio dwellers. WITH ARMS WIDE OPEN Creed one look at the charts of the first decade of the 2OOOs and INDEPENDENT WOMEN PART I Destiny's Child it's hard to deny the power of the unseen hand. Of the last IT WASN'T ME Shaggy Featuring Ricardo "RikRok" Ducent MS. JACKSON Out Kant 15 No. 1 singles -from artists like Katy Perry, Rihanna and STUTTER Joe Featuring Mystikal Wiz Khalifa -11 of them were helmed by one of three pro- BUTTERFLY Crazy Town ducers: Dr. Luke, Stargate or the Smeezingtons. Earlier in ANGEL Shaggy Featuring Rawon ALL FOR YOU Janet the decade, Timbaland and Polow Da Don held the same LADY MARMALADE Christina Aguilera, Lit' Kim, Mya & P!nk baton for Timberlake and Usher. Producer -driven chart nearly the same voice. Auto -Tune is a grand leveler. U REMIND ME Usher dominance certainly isn't rare -Phil Spector's dominance in If any group is equipped to thrive in today's landscape it's BOOTYLICIOUS Destiny's Child a FALLIN' Alicia Keys the '60s and the hot -and -cold reign of Jimmy Jam & Terry the Black Eyed Peas, once mediocre troupe of hip -hop I'M REAL Jennifer Lopez Featuring Ja Rule Lewis during the '80s and '90s come to mind -but it's now purists who flourished when they added European dance FAMILY AFFAIR Mary J. Bilge the norm. pop elements (and a white girl) to their equation. With a U GOT IT BAD Usher This is a disconcerting trend. It was once the producer's formula that transcends race, gender, genre and the conti- HOW YOU REMIND ME Nickelback ALWAYS ON TIME Ja Rule Featuring Ashanti job to accentuate the character of the artist. But now pro- nental divide, the quartet held the No. 1 spot for a record - AIN'T IT FUNNY Jennifer Lopez Featuring Ja Rule ducers mold songs in their own image. The vocalists on breaking 26 consecutive months in 2009 with the one -two FOOLISH Ashanti these records often feel interchangeable. Smeezington punch of "Boom Boom Pow" and "I Gotta Feeling." The HOT IN HERRE Nelly DILEMMA Nelly Featuring Kelly Rowland Bruno Mars' vocal contributions dominate B.o.B's No. 1 act's production impresario, Will.i.am, is also its frontman. A MOMENT LIKE THIS Kelly Clarkson "Nothin' on You" and vastly outshine the rapper's talents. Yet pop stars and starlets remain media darlings and LOSE YOURSELF Eminem A popular YouTube video cuts back and forth between two childhood heartthrobs. They overcome any homogeneity in BUMP, BUMP, BUMP B2K & P. Diddy recent Dr. Luke No. "TiK ToK" and Perry's "Cal- the musical landscape by more firmly asserting their char- ALL I HAVE Jennifer Lopez Featuring LL Cool ls-Ke$ha's IN DA CLUB 50 Cent ifornia Gurls" -and asks if they're "the same song." acters. Personas are magnified by the 24 -hour news /on- GET BUSY Sean Paul The rise of vocal plug -in Auto -Tune was one catalyst for this line feed. Lady Gaga's meat suit style sense may make as 21 QUESTIONS 50 Cent Featuring Nate Dogg is as - THIS IS THE NIGHT (lay Aiken charge, whether used for pitch correction or misused to cre- much of an impact as any of her mega -hits. West well CRAZY IN LOVE Beyoncé Featuring lay-Z ate the singular robot tone. While a few hitmakers pushed the known for critiquing George Bush and bum -rushing Taylor SHAKE YA TAILFEATHER Nelly, P Diddy& Murphy Lee technology to bizarre and artful extremes (Lil Wayne's me- Swift's acceptance speech as he is for his 2005 No.1 "Gold BABY BOY Beyoncé Featuring Sean Paul 1 The musical STANDUP Ludacris Featuring Shawnna chanical gargle on the No. "Lollipop," for example), more Digger." data stream that strips away identity HEY YA! Out Kaut fell to cliché. Not only are most stars singing to aggressively exaggerates personal identity. As ever, pop music eats it- THE WAY YOU MOVE OutKast Featuring Sleepy Brown similar instrumentation, many of them are doing so with self -and pop culture lives on. -Andrew Nosnitsky BILLBOARD 146 FEBRUARY 26, 2011 .