30 Unforgettable Club Tracks of the '00s (VIDEOS)

​Ten years ago when the '00s sputtered into existence, this writer was not one. Instead, what is now barely a shell of a memory recalls a wide-eyed college student working part-time at the mall and using this very paper's gracious internship to attend raves and chronicle them whilst wearing -- I'm going to regret this later --  hot pink phat pants and a forearm rendered nearly immobile by plastic bracelets.

Several crucial fashion tips, a couple wars, an incredible recession, the collapse of the "rave scene" and about 65,091,881 DJs and producers later, here we are. Here I am. Back at City Pages (after a handful of years away) as editor of this web site and attempting to recap the entire decade of the music that's at the heart of both my personal and professional life. Not looking for sympathy, but what a task -- and  after 10 years of parties that go until noon the next day, who's to say anyone in the Twin Cities scene or beyond would remember it even remotely the same way?

Still, here's one humble recollection of 2000-2009 in club music, which quickly became "recession music" as the decade progressed: It's cheap to make and most importantly, it makes depressed people dance. And as long as the latter is true, we don't need the big crazy arenas and drafty urban retreats that once housed our offensively enormous parties before the suburban housewives and politicians finally cried foul.  Our prideful basslines will continue to be the scourge of the authorities, our neighbors and guitar-humping super-purists no matter where they're being dispensed, and we wouldn't have it any other way.