A nu metal love song, a dance craze, and a tune about expensive teeth highlight this list of unlikely #1s.
Taste is subjective. That said, in the ‘00s we occasionally, as a nation, had some odd tastes when it came to music.
Sure, there were plenty of great songs that we embraced, but we also liked some singles that we wouldn’t dream of adding to a playlist today, and no radio station in their right mind would think of playing as a throwback.
We combed every Billboard Hot 100 from the first decade of this millennium for the most random #1s we could find, and the following 12 songs, some good, some we had totally forgotten about, are what we came up with.
Crazy Town – Butterfly
Year: 2001
With all the great nu metal bands that existed, it gets no more random than having Crazy Town being the one that saw this kind of chart success.
Make no mistake, “Butterfly” is a fantastic song, but to put “Butterfly” reaching #1 into perspective, Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie” only reached #80.
D4L – Laffy Taffy
Year: 2006
How much were we, as a people, obsessed with southern hip-hop in the ‘00s? We were so obsessed that we vaulted D4L to the #1 spot with “Laffy Taffy.”
The song is now considered by many to be one of the worst #1s of all-time, but it made it to #1, so the joke’s really on us.
Akon w/ Snoop Dogg – I Wanna Love You
Year: 2006
This song qualifies as a random #1 because the album version is about wanting to have sex with a stripper, and the word “love” was originally “fuck.”
One has to wonder how many school dances came to a screeching halt when the DJ accidentally played the real version of the song.