Beyonce: Newsweek’s Top 10 Most Impressive Debut Of The Decade

#4 Beyonce: That unrelenting horn hook, those no-nonsense, jump-rope syllables—from its first seconds, “Crazy in Love” sounds like the sort of song that’s meant to pump from your car speakers. Which is exactly what happened all through summer 2003. After three albums with her bandmates in Destiny’s Child, Beyonce broke out in ‘03, hitting both high notes and the cultural sweet spot. While everyone had expected the girl-group frontwoman to be the music scene’s new Diana Ross, “Crazy in Love” established her as something else altogether: a fusion of Ross’s perfect-pitch vocals and Madonna’s pop instincts. This duality has been exploited by Beyonce as her career has continued—she even released I am … Sasha Fierce, a double album devoted half to slow ballads and half to dance jams like the inescapable “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” But her debut single is so memorable, still, for fusing her musical double-consciousness into something truly next-level. While hearkening back to R&B’s past with its Chi-Lites sample, it’s as dense and rewarding as a song engineered by some musicologist from the future. Which is exactly the point—for the rest of the 2000s, the music industry belonged to Beyonce.

Check out the rest of the Top 10 here.