GOATvs

GOATvs › Stories › Songs

Best songs of the 21st century: Poker Face, Mr. Brightside or In the End?

20 October 2026 · Songs

On GOATvs right now

In October 2025 Rolling Stone published its list of the 250 greatest songs of the 21st century so far, chosen for originality and influence rather than for how often they were played. That is one way to do it. On GOATvs there is no panel: every song is picked or passed over one face-off at a time, by everyone, and the box above shows where the century's biggest songs stand today in the world's list of the greatest English-language and global songs ever recorded. We count only songs released in 2000 or later, which is why Nirvana, Queen and Michael Jackson, who sit around them in that list, are not in the box.

Two of the eight belong to one artist. Lady Gaga released Poker Face in 2008, from her first album, The Fame, and it reached number one in more than a dozen countries and won the Grammy for Best Dance Recording. A year later came Bad Romance, the lead single of The Fame Monster, with a video full of white latex, bathtubs and a burning bed that won a Grammy of its own. Poker Face against Bad Romance is the first pair above, and Gaga's fans have never agreed on it.

The century's rock songs are just as well remembered. The Killers, a band from Las Vegas, put out Mr. Brightside in 2003, and with their debut album Hot Fuss it became the song that never quite went away: years later it was still in the UK singles chart, carried by weddings, pubs and every late-night playlist. The same year The White Stripes released Seven Nation Army. Jack White's riff sounds like a bass line but is played on a guitar pitched an octave down, and football crowds turned it into a chant that Italy's fans sang through the 2006 World Cup. Mr. Brightside against Seven Nation Army is the third pair.

Linkin Park have two songs in the box. In the End, from their debut album Hybrid Theory (2000), split the song between Mike Shinoda's rapped verses and Chester Bennington's chorus, a formula that defined nu metal for a generation. Numb, from Meteora (2003), is the quieter, angrier one, and its mash-up with Jay-Z's Encore later won a Grammy. Bennington died in 2017, and both songs found a new audience in the years after. In the End against Numb is the second pair.

The rest of the box shows how wide the century has been. Evanescence's Bring Me to Life (2003) put Amy Lee's voice over metal guitars and won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. Gorillaz, the cartoon band created by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, released Feel Good Inc. in 2005, with a verse by De La Soul and a laugh everyone remembers. Coldplay's Viva la Vida (2008), sung by a king who has lost his kingdom, became the band's first number one in both the UK and the US and won the Grammy for Song of the Year. Coldplay's Yellow, from the summer of 2000, is close behind.

Just outside the box are songs that each owned a year: Eminem's Lose Yourself, the first rap song to win the Oscar for Best Original Song, Adele's Someone Like You, Psy's Gangnam Style, the first video on YouTube to pass a billion views, and The Weeknd's Blinding Lights. Pick your side above: Poker Face or Bad Romance, In the End or Numb, Mr. Brightside or Seven Nation Army. Then see how this century compares with the Beatles, Queen and Nirvana in the Songs Top 100, ranked by everyone.

Vote: Poker Face vs Bad Romance

More stories