As Remembered By Music Dude: Unleash the Dragon, Sisqo: Seeing Sisqo—about 52 inches tall—do flips on the sandy beach and prance down rows of sunbathing beauties in thongs is so 2000. That’s what the new millennium brought us: Not stuff off the Jetsons, but Sisquo and his bleach-blonde caesar unleashing his dragon, singing about thongs.

Let’s be real: “Thong Song” popularized and lionized a sexy-garment that has been around for years. After this ridiculously popular single, chicks started wearing their jeans just a tad lower on their hips so that everyone could get a peak at that seductive, lacy, red thong underneath their dungarees.

The reach and saturation of this one song in 2000 is almost impossible to describe. Chances are, 96.7534576% of Americans can associate this song with no less than 14 memorable experiences in 2000.

Even though three landmark recordings (Voodoo, Mama’s Gun and Who Is Jill Scott?) that changed the face of black music (and sold well) were released this year, nothing can approach “Thong Song”, and therefore, Dragon, as a soundtrack candidate. I think that says more about us as American consumers than it does about the artists and their music.

The rest of Dragon was a forgettable string of R&B tracks. This song alone, however, is the hallmark of the new millennium's first 12 months. Is that sad or amazing?

As Remembered By Music Dude: Vol. 3...Life and Times of S. Carter, Jay-Z: “Big Pimpin” was much like “Thong Song”, in that it was not just popular, but pervasive. Radio, videos, clubs, SportsCenter highlights. The song title became a pop-culture slang word.

Artistically, Jay was one album from his lowest depth (The Dynasty: Roc La Familia), but his popularity wasn’t waning. Vol. 3 went 3x plat and joints like “Big Pimpin” and his duet with Mariah, “Things That You Do” kept him hot while his peers—Wu-Tang, Nas, Puff, Snoop—were at risk of becoming relics.

The formula was simple: If I kill ‘em in the clubs, I’m killin ‘em. Other than, “Thong Song”, what was bigger in the clubs in 2000 than “Big Pimpin”, “Do It Again”, “Things That You Do”? As an album, this was the score for 2000.

As Remembered By Music Dude: Fantastic Vol. 2, Slum Village: Those T-shirts that say “J Dilla Changed My Life”, I subscribe to that notion in the realest of ways. The same way my dude Vino said, “This album changed my ear forever,” I say it changed my ear and my life, since so much of my life is tied to music and this album changed my ear so vividly. Beginning with this album, I expected more musicality out of hip-hop. Boom-bap was essential, but Dilla brought progression. The same way Miles changed jazz with his ‘modal’ style, Dilla did virtually the same thing to hop and it mesmerized me.

I moved to D.C. in June. The first night I spent in an emergency room, getting my asthma subdued (those darn D.C. summer allergens), the next night, my crew came through and Uncle let me hold the new Slum.

I spent the rest of the summer and the rest of the year obsessing over this album, mostly alone, because my D.C. crew wasn’t feeling it like that and never has. I contend that this joint is not only a classic, but an important-classic, since Fantastic Vol. 1 was never released and this was Dilla’s sound in fuller bloom than his public introduction on Common's Like Water for Chocolate.

This may actually be the MOST ‘soundtrackish’ of all the soundtrack albums for me, since I spent 2000 in a new city, living alone, without transpo. So I was either in the crib, bumpin’ this, or on the bus and subway, bumpin’ this through some headphones.

There were tons of albums this year: Voodoo, Mama’s Gun, Supreme Clientele, Like Water For Chocolate, Train of Thought, Ecleftic, Aijuswannasing, Who Is Jill Scott?. Across the board, it may be the greatest year for music in our lifetime and I mean that sincerely.

With all of this classic music to choose from, the fact that I continued to put Fantastic in my CD walkman and stereo speaks to how much this affected me. When I did my laundry, the joint was on. When I’d walk to the liquor store and pick up a pint of E&J, it was on. Then it’d be on when I got home, sprawled out on my futon, in the dark, listening to “Jealousy” and “Forth and Back” and “Climax” and “Once Upon a Time” and all those joints repeatedly... just me and the Slum. Along with 36 Chambers this is the most monumental soundtrack of my life.