We’re throwing a 2000s party in Sydney at the end of the month and you can bet your bottom dollar that we’ll be giving Paris and Lindsay some air time. Get the deets here, buy tix here, it’s going to be so hot.

There was a time in the early ’00s when a pop career was open to anyone with a little bit of a status. Locally, Neighbours and Home And Away stars came in droves to try their hand on the mic and internationally socialites were trying their luck at the charts. You don’t get any bigger in terms of early ’00s socialites than Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. Lohan made a name for herself through her acting and partying while Paris created an empire around her, “that’s hot,” lifestyle and lavish behaviour. In 2005 and 2006, respectively, Lindsay and Paris tried their hands at a music career with iconic debut albums that have stood the test of time…kind of.

We’ve decided for literally zero reason whatsoever to pit the two up against each other and see who comes out victorious.

The Best Single

Lindsay’s debut album had three singles and so did Paris’. Lindsay went down the rock/pop route for the majority of her album but she was introduced to the music world with the pop-centred Rumors, a track that very aptly depicted her hard life as a socialite. It’s an unapologetic banger and the only single off the album that throws up competition to Paris’ singles. Paris started her charge with Stars Are Blind, an island-flavoured bop that highlighted her very few musical strengths. She then unleashed Nothing In This World which probably should’ve topped the charts but didn’t. Stars Are Blind is great but cult fans of Paris’ album will always choose the latter and so this becomes a decision between Nothing In This World and Rumors. It’s worth noting that Lindsay didn’t manage to get one song on the charts in the US and so we’ve gotta give this one to Paris.

Winner: Paris Hilton – Nothing In This World

The Best Album Track

The opener to Paris’ album Turn It Up is almost as bad as Kim Kardashian’s Turn It Up but it also sets the tone for the rest of the album which is worrying. Nearly every track on the album is paper thin like it would blow away with the slightest breeze but there is one that’s memorable – Screwed. Screwed basically steals the beat from Miley Cyrus’ See You Again and turns it into a nothing left to lose anthem that manages to encapsulate her likeable quirks. Lindsay’s album has far more passable album tracks like the glam rock Speak and the soaring Anything But Me but it mostly comes off as a Kelly Clarkson b-sides album. Lindsay is better when she sticks to her pop sensibilities and Magnet does that. It sounds like a Demi Lovato single and could actually be a single in 2017. For that reason, we’ve gotta give this one to Lindsay.

Winner: Lindsay Lohan – Magnet

The Best Cover Art

Lindsay’s album cover is very much of the time, channelling that punk aesthetic that artists like The Veronicas passed off then. It looks totally ridiculous now while Paris presented us with a timeless, classy masterpiece that could still be hung in The Louvre. If you’re going to argue that Lindsay should take this one out then honestly, you’re beyond saving.

Winner: Paris Hilton

Biggest Writer On The Album

US songwriter Kara DioGuardi is guilty of working on both of these projects but she’s not the biggest one featured. Paris managed to rope in Scott Storch and even Barry Gibb, thanks to a sample, but somehow Lindsay managed to nab the biggest songwriter, tapping Kelly Clarkson for Something I Never Had. It’s likely this was an offcut that didn’t make a Clarko album but we’re gonna hand it to her anyway.

Winner: Lindsay Lohan

The Critics Choice

Needless to say, critics weren’t overly kind to either but they were favourable with Paris. Rolling Stone called Lindsay’s album, “a mannered cash-in” but they were a little kinder to Paris praising it for being “sleazier” than the debut single Stars Are Blind. The Observer went as far as to give Paris props for her, “degree of self-mocking self-awareness.” Slant Magazine said that Lindsay’s album didn’t have, “one iota of originality or personality here,” but they obviously hadn’t made it to the final song Rumors.

Winner: Paris Hilton

The Best Lyric

This one is hard to decide because Lindsay went for melodrama while Paris went for sleaze. On Turn You On, Paris sings, “Tonight, I’ll be your liquid dream,” while on Stars Are Blind she sings, “When I walk they talk of suicide.” “Cause baby all I do is suffer from the symptoms of you,” is a classic Lindsay line from Symptoms Of You but “My tears are turning into time/I’ve wasted trying to find/A reason for goodbye,” from Over is pretty hard to beat. Although, “I can’t comprehend what I understand,” from Disconnected is so painfully convoluted that we’ve gotta give her the win for that.

Winner: Lindsay Lohan

The Best Music Video

We didn’t even have to watch any Lindsay videos to know that Paris’ Nothing In This World is the winner of this. It’s a classic girl next door story that is just so wrong it’s right. It made up for the disappointing Stars Are Blind visual and is still to this day one of the greatest videos in pop music.

Winner: Paris Hilton

The Biggest Seller

Lindsay’s Speak sold 4.5 million copies worldwide and managed to get to number four on the US charts. Paris only managed to get to number six on the US charts and has only sold 600,000 copies worldwide. This information is taken from Wikipedia but Lindsay needs a win so we’ll give it to her.

Winner: Lindsay Lohan

The Longest Lasting Impact

Chances are, most people would not even remember that Lindsay Lohan released an album. She even had two of them, following this one up with A Little More Personal (Raw). Paris’ album, on the other hand, continues to become more and more of a cult classic. It sort of defined the early ’00s, socialite era and that attitude that if you’re rich and famous you can do anything. The simple fact is, Paris’ album is actually not that bad and “not that bad” is enough for it to stick around in people’s hearts.

Winner: Paris Hilton

Overall winner: Paris Hilton’s Paris