12 Songs All Aussie ‘00s Kids Remember From School Discos

The ‘00s was a great time for music. Lady Gaga had just come into our lives, Missy Elliot was getting her freak on and JLo was still Jenny from the block. Party songs were thriving, and we were loving it.

And if you went to school in Australia, you definitely spent most of the year looking forward to dancing to some bangers at the school disco.

It was the most revered time of the year, when you and your friends would get together to do your hair, overdo the sparkly eye shadow and dance all night long to songs that spoke to your angsty teen hearts.

These party songs are so iconic that they were guaranteed to be played every year and even now they live on in our angsty adult hearts.

Here are 12 of the songs that were immortalised at school discos:

‘Umbrella’ – Rihanna

This was the song that convinced us that Rihanna was a good girl gone bad, and was probably the turning point for a lot of us realising that we were into bad girls. If nobody at your school relentlessly sang “Under my umbrella-ella-ella” then we need to have a word with your irresponsible music teachers because they didn’t teach you about one of the most important songs of our generation.

‘Poker Face’ – Lady Gaga

These days, we might be all about playing ‘Shallow’ on repeat, but back when ridiculously talented icon Lady Gaga first emerged, we lived for Poker Face. It’s a banger, it’s timeless, it’s going on the Punkee office playlist right now.

‘Untouched’ – The Veronicas

This song is iconic and made us want to play the violin. End of discussion.

‘Single Ladies’ – Beyoncé

Nobody can dance like Queen Bey. But that didn’t stop us from trying to replicate the ICONIC ‘Single Ladies’ dance whenever it came over the speakers. In my experience, this never stops happening, so get used to it.

‘Hey Ya!” – Outkast

What’s cooler than being cool? Literally only this song. With this song, Outkast created an entire generation of budding photographers who thought that shaking Polaroid pictures was an a-okay thing to do (please don’t shake Polaroid pictures).

‘Girlfriend’ – Avril Lavigne

The ’00s were a simpler time, before MAFS took over our lives and before we all realised that Avril Lavigne had died and was replaced by a clone. ‘Girlfriend’ was one of the best products of those simpler times – a pop-punk banger that had us all tearing up the dance floor.

‘Party in the USA’ – Miley Cyrus

Before she dated Liam Hemsworth (we don’t want to think about a time before Liam Hemsworth) and before she came in like a steel demolition ball, this was the Miley Cyrus anthem we were obsessed with. Just me? It was fun and a bop and silly enough to be played at a silly night where awkward school kids are put in a room and expected to dance together.

‘Since U Been Gone’ – Kelly Clarkson

This song was definitely on the soundtrack for all of our angsty teen breakups. Please, name one thing more satisfying than belting the chorus out in the middle of a group of your closest friends. Go on, we’ll wait.

‘Fergalicious’ – Fergie

Before Fergie’s iNtErEsTiNg rendition of the American national anthem last year (which was so bizarre that it won her a place in our hearts) she conquered the disco hall with this dance track. We might not have understood the lyrics (not because they were too mature, but because they were wild), but we loved dancing to it for some reason.

‘Call Me Maybe’ – Carly Rae Jepsen

It’s been described as the perfect pop song (by me and by music critics) and continues to come out on top of Best Of lists – it’s no surprise that ‘Call Me Maybe’ rose to fame from such humble origins as a school disco banger.

‘I Gotta Feeling’ – Black Eyed Peas

Whether or not anyone actually liked the Black Eyed Peas didn’t change the fact that this party song was a title track to the soundtrack of our school days. I also begrudgingly accept that it does make a dance floor come alive and that’s the only good thing that I’ll ever say about this song, shut up.

‘All The Small Things’ – Blink 128

Even though this song came out in the 90s, it lived on well into the 00s (and beyond, and forever) and made us all feel like dying our hair, joining a punk band and slapping our best chain jewellery on. Safe to say, it made us feel edgy and cool and we’re still chasing that high to this day.