The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #218

#218: "The Way It Is" (2007) - Nicole Atkins

It's a jazz song, it's a torch song, it's a power ballad, it's a girl-group love song, and it's powered by the most powerful, most controlled voice anywhere on the charts: Nicole Atkins's voice. The gal can wail like nobody's business--deep, full-throated alto, forceful enough to shatter glass--and then as quick as you can say "David Lynch," she can bring it back down to a whisper, a sultry vibratto, riding the notes and the scales like Liszt on his keys, with expert pitch and a master thespian's sense of dramatic timing. She counts Angelo Badalamenti and Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash and the Ronnettes as influences, and they all show up here, on this perfect vehicle for Atkins's vocals, and the ghost of Phil Spector shows up, too, with sleigh bells--just in time for the Christmas season, kiddies--and chimes and strings and electric guitar all over the place, and even then, the kitchen sink approach doesn't overwhelm her, her vocals strong and adept enough to overcome whatever her producers throw at her. Crank up the speakers on this one, loud enough to drown out the sound of your own voice as you sing along with her. Heck, you could even go caroling around the neighborhood with this one. I know I'm going to (if my wife lets me).