Lists of the past
At the end of 2005 Cove published a short list of the year's ten most critically acclaimed songs, counted down from ten to one. The list survives with its original spellings. Here is the same ten, twenty years later, with a verdict on each and on the list.
The Cove editorial desk · Published 9 September 2026
The original page was seventy words long and it committed to a number one that would have looked brave at the time and looks braver now. That is the value of an old list: it cannot be revised, so it tells you what a year actually felt like from inside it. We have corrected the artists' names where the 2005 page misspelled them and left the order exactly as published.
Natasha Bedingfield — "These Words"
A pop single about the difficulty of writing a pop single, which is a reliable trick and was done here with more charm than most. It was a British number one in 2004 and an American hit in 2005, which explains its place on a list compiled in America. Still played; still cheerful; the singer's most enduring record after the one that became a television theme.
Madonna — "Hung Up"
Built on a sample from ABBA, which the band had almost never licensed, and produced as a straight disco record at a point when that was a bold choice for a forty-seven-year-old star. It became one of the biggest singles of her career and it has aged better than nearly everything else she released that decade, because it wanted to be a dance record and was one.
The Killers — "Mr. Brightside"
The one entry on this list that has grown rather than faded. It was a moderate hit in 2004 and 2005; it has since become a permanent fixture of the British singles chart, a stadium singalong and a wedding standard, and it is now more played than it was in the year the list was made. The 2005 list had it at eight. It would be at one on any list compiled today, and it is the reason the album it came from scores a 24 for Song.
Missy Elliott featuring Ciara and Fatman Scoop — "Lose Control"
A 1980s electro sample, a hook from a young singer who would soon have her own hits, and a video that won the year's awards. It won a Grammy, it sounded like the future for a season, and it has settled into the catalogue as one of its artist's most played records. A fair placing.
Gwen Stefani — "Hollaback Girl"
The first single to sell a million digital downloads in the United States, which was the story at the time, and a record built on a marching-band drumline and a spelling lesson. It is remembered, it is still played at sporting events, and it is not much listened to on purpose. The list placed it on sales and noise. Both were real.
Green Day — "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
The record of the year at the Grammys, from a concept album that revived a band most people had filed under the previous decade. It is the most conventionally acclaimed record on the list and the one whose acclaim has held most steadily: a mid-tempo rock ballad with a guitar figure that every guitarist of a certain age can play.
Common — "Testify"
The list's most surprising entry from twenty years' distance, and its best-judged. A short, story-driven rap record with a soul sample and a twist ending, produced by the man at number three, from an album that was the critical consensus of its year. It was never a big single. It is on every serious list of the decade's rap records, and Cove had it at four in the year it came out.
Kanye West — "Heard 'Em Say"
The gentlest single from the second album, a piano loop and a sung hook, and not the one most people would pick from that record today. The choice says something about the list's taste: it preferred melody to event. The song is still the calmest thing in its maker's catalogue and one of the loveliest.
Usher featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris — "Lovers and Friends"
A crunk ballad, which was a contradiction that worked exactly once, and this was the time. It is sung beautifully and the production is a whisper where the same team's other records were a shout. Second place is generous but not absurd; the record has aged into a slow-jam standard.
James Blunt — "You're Beautiful"
The number one, and the choice the list would be judged on. In 2005 it was inescapable, a British number one that crossed to America and became the year's most-played ballad. Within two years it had become the record people cited when they wanted to name something overplayed, and the backlash has lasted longer than the song's run. Twenty years on, the honest verdict is in the middle: a well-made, well-sung ballad that suffered from being everywhere, and a number one that tells you more about the radio of 2005 than about the song.
The verdict on the list
Seven of the ten are still in active circulation, which is a good rate. The list's two best calls, Common at four and the Killers at eight, were the two that took the most nerve at the time: a rap record that was never a hit and a rock single that had not yet become one. Its worst call is the number one, and the reason is instructive. The list measured acclaim, and in 2005 acclaim and airplay were still hard to tell apart. A song that was everywhere looked like a song everyone loved. Twenty years later the two have separated, and the record that was everywhere is the one the list is teased about, while the record that was nowhere is the one it is admired for.
The order is Cove's, published at the end of 2005 and preserved at /bestsongsof05.html. Artists' names have been corrected to their proper spellings. Chart and award facts are as widely reported at the time; the rest is editorial opinion.