9. The Black Eyed Peas feat. Justin Timberlake - Where is the Love? (2003)

"Where is the love?" lamented Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway back in 1972, when the sixties dream faded, and the US awoke into a bleak reality. The Black Eyed Peas resurrect the question, and put it to the whole world to answer. But while the original record is steeped in despair, the atmosphere here is a lot warmer. The sense of healing evades this record as well.

For starters, you only had to look at the band to realize that something essential has changed. Its members numbered an African-Mexican-American, an African-Filipino-American, a Mexican-Shoshone-American, and a white female rapper/singer who also has Mexican and Native-American blood. It was the fulfillment of the dream put forth by Sly & the Family Stone, and the greatest thing was that nobody even raised an eyebrow. Without anyone noticing, the sixties won. When I saw the Black Eyed Peas back in 2003, I started to believe that I would live to see the day when blacks and women contend seriously for the role of President of the United States.

This unprecedented group, inconceivable just a decade earlier, employed the musical options opened up in the beginning of the decade, and merged every possible musical style to create a pop concoction that stomped the charts. Too often their pop was too cheesy, but it also contained many moments of fun. This remains their best record of the decade. Granted, the production is quite standard and the rap is a bunch of cliches, but on the emotional level, what can I say, it works.