Top 20 - 2009 Vh1

Alicia’s voice filled the room. Mia had never been to New York, but this song made her believe she could go anywhere. Concrete jungle, green lights, dreams all that. She closed her eyes and imagined her future self—older, cooler, living some big city life. 2009 Mia had no idea what was coming. But this song felt like a promise.

She labeled it with a sharpie:

Here’s a good story built around the countdown—focusing on the emotional and cultural moment of that specific year in music. Title: The Last Night of the Decade

Because on that last Saturday of 2009, someone was. VH1 was. And that was enough. 2009 vh1 top 20

December 26, 2009. A basement bedroom in a suburban house. Posters of Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, and Kings of Leon on the walls. A clunky desktop computer with iTunes open. A TV tuned to VH1.

And it had been okay. 2009 wasn’t perfect. The economy was a mess, her parents argued more than before, and she’d lost touch with her best friend from elementary school. But the music—the VH1 countdown—was a time capsule. Each video a photograph. Each lyric a bookmark in her memory.

“This is it!” he announced. “The final countdown of 2009… and the final countdown of the decade !” Alicia’s voice filled the room

The video was all glitz and drama. Mia’s older sister had just come home from college crying over a breakup. They’d played this song on repeat, eating ice cream straight from the carton. For one night, they weren’t fighting—they were just sisters.

She cringed now, but in July? She’d danced to this in her room with a hairbrush microphone, pretending she wasn’t terrified of starting high school in the fall.

Mia smiled. Of course. The song that started it all. The one that leaked into her friend’s iPod touch at a middle school lock-in, and suddenly everyone was jumping on a hotel bed, shouting “ Just dance! Gonna be okay! ” She closed her eyes and imagined her future

Then she hit play on “Poker Face,” turned up the volume, and danced in her basement like nobody was watching.

Mia remembered hearing this on a bus ride to a field trip last spring. The way Caleb Followill’s raspy voice cut through her cheap earbuds—it made her feel less alone in a crowd of classmates she didn’t quite fit in with.