2006: #1 - "Promiscuous"

When you can mine vintage Prince and Madonna as successfully as Timbaland and Nelly Furtado do here, throwing in some thoroughly modern bass beef and a perfectly pointless and weird guitar coda that you'll be humming forever, a cringe-worthy line like "Can you be M.V.P. like Steve Nash?" can be easily forgiven, and even explained away (they're both from Vancouver, duh!)

So despite some near awful lyrics, on par with Gwen Stefani at her best/worst (depending on how you look at it), "Promiscuous", with its stellar production and chill-inducing choruses, was the song of 2006, a return to chart dominance from the generation's greatest producer, and a confident proclamation of newfound sexiness from a budding superstar coming out of her shell.

2006: #8 - "Maneater"

When Timbaland joined forces with pop stars Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado, the results were as unexpected and memorable as any of the avant-R&B or experimental pop-rap he had done in his career (Think "Pony" and Aaliyah, or "Get Ur Freak On" and "Big Pimpin'").

In 2006, we heard some of the greatest Top 40 art-dance tracks ever on JT's FutureSex/LoveSounds and NF's Loose, whose lead single, "Maneater", was a classic example of Timbaland's ability to make something totally inaccessible-sounding into a mainstream hit.

The beats are all over the place, the melodies are slightly dissonant, and sometimes the music - a minimalist art-funk - even drops out entirely. For these reasons, we guess, you rarely hear this one on the radio anymore, so if you've forgotten it, go back and give it a quick listen.

2007: #1 - "Say It Right"

In the ambiguous, mysterious and irresistibly catchy "Say It Right", Nelly Furtado sneaks up on you, whispers into your ear, asks you to stay, then vanishes into the night without warning. When we first heard this, we were caught off guard and bowled over, but it still has the same hauntingly memorable quality to it, nearly three years later; perhaps only "Poker Face" and one other song this decade can boast its mix of superior melody and playful mystery.

2007: #8 - "Give It To Me"

"Give It To Me", a cross between an early Madonna dance anthem and an easily digestible version of the stuff Timbaland used to do with Missy Elliott and Aaliyah, is the forgotten stepchild of Tim's most recent spate of #1 hits. While songs like "Apologize" and "The Way I Are" (and also any number of hits by guests Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake) continue to garner a fair amount of airplay on dance and Top 40 stations, this one seems to have been lost in the abyss of summer of '07 radio playlists.

That's a shame, as a massive yet snaky beat, and a stunning double tracked chorus laid down perfectly by the inimitable (for better or worse) Furtado, more than make up for some ludicrous rapping by the chart-topping trio. Though Timbaland has one good dis (the "I'm a producer and you just a piano man" line that almost started a producer feud between him and Scott Storch), the rhymes almost do it in; one can't help but think how much better this might have been with Missy Elliott, or even Jay-Z (think "Big Pimpin'" or "Dirt Off Your Shoulder"), singing over it.