I get asked what's playing in my videos more than anything except the nails. It's almost always something between 1999 and 2006, and I want to defend that properly rather than pretending it's a joke, because a lot of these records are genuinely better made than people remember.
The production was doing something strange
Early 2000s pop sat in an odd gap — the tools had gone fully digital but the habits were still from the analogue era. So you get records with real drums layered under programmed ones, live bass, actual string sections, and then a completely synthetic top end over the whole thing. That combination is why it still sounds expensive.
The other thing is space. Those mixes leave gaps. Everything currently in the charts is compressed to fill every available moment, and going back to a record that lets a beat breathe is a genuine relief.
The ones that hold up
Anything Max Martin touched in that window, which is more than you'd guess. Nelly Furtado's Loose, which was ahead of its time and everyone has agreed on that in retrospect. Gwen Stefani's solo run. The Sugababes, who were doing something harmonically far more interesting than they were credited for. Timbaland's entire production output across that period.
Also, unfashionably: the ballads. The 2000s could build a chorus, and there is no shame in a key change.
It never really left
A significant amount of what's charting now is either directly sampling this era or reconstructing its production from scratch. The 2000s pop revival has been going for years under various names, and half the artists doing it were born after the records came out.
Which is my whole argument, really. If it were only nostalgia, it wouldn't work on people who have no memory of it. It works because the songs are good.
Put on Loose, start at the top, and tell me it doesn't sound like it came out last year.