The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #129

#129: "Yeah!" (2004) - Usher, featuring Lil' Jon & Ludacris

In a re-worked--and much improved upon--version of Petey Pablo's "Freek-a-Leek," Lil' Jon and Usher take tha' Dirty South's rough and tumble crunk music and give it the ol' mainstream sheen, and with Usher's smooth R&B tenor, it works to marvelous effect, almost like some mythical marriage of Stax and Motown. The music here ain't nothin' but synth and drums, more simplified than Prince's best stuff, but it works just as well, as the Dirty South finally celebrates its arrival onto the national music scene in full force, with as happy and joyous and bouncy and slinky a record as has been on the charts since the Purple One lost his way about a decade-and-half ago.*

"Yeah"'s titular shouts--well, sometimes when it the excitement builds and builds and it finally arrives, then exclamation is all know and all we need to know, especially when the excitement is over tomorrow's 2009 NFL Draft!

Football's not over; it's only just begun. Yeah!

NOTES

*Yeah, but he's making his way back!