This may be the most difficult task in music appreciation

[Super Dude]

In 100 songs or 25 artists, sum up the previous decade (2000-2009).  What were the hits?  What were the songs and artists that defined the Digital 2.0 Age?  Working on my list now, should have one up by the end of the day (as mine won't be in order, yours need not be).

Edit: Like I said, given the rise of pop culture tribalism, this may be one of the most difficult tasks in music appreciation and analysis.

[Perpetual Change]

What is pop culture tribalism?

[kári]

Sums it up for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[jsem]

[names of some random pop stars, rappers, djs, some brit pop rock bands, a few "indie rock" bands - done]

[Perpetual Change]

This is the sort of list people on prog metal boards commit suicide after creating.

[Super Dude]

What is pop culture tribalism?

It's the splitting up of pop culture into scenes so fragmented, that it becomes increasingly difficult to agree upon what music is universally accepted as the 'hits.'

As seen here:
https://culturemagazine.ca/music/2000_2009_making_sense_of_musics_lost_decade.html

I don't agree with everything the guy says, but to some extent I think he's right.

[Perpetual Change]

Well, I will say one thing. The pop "stars" are becoming more and more transient, and more and more irrelevant. Seems like record labels are willing to dish out 15 minutes to anyone nowadays.

[ZKX-2099]

Yeah I think most people (IE: not people here) would be hard pressed to do something like name their favorite release from 2006.

[kári]

Some sounds of the 2000's (in Europe at least):
- Electro/house song with a melodic theme, which will stop, and then a silent pause, and then theme will start again. Often, in the short pause, one word of short phrase will be spoken. Examples: (I could only think of recent songs...) Barbara Streisand, Bonkers, ... there are many more, but I don't know the titles.. For example there's a song where 'mitsubishi" will be shouted, also one with "mars".
- Also Electro/house music, and the melody will kind of 'float' over the rest of the song and change pitch... Like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7K3wFXJFsQ at 1:05 and onwards. There are numerous songs that will do this but I have no idea what they're called, I just know they're insanely popular... (Actually that Black Eyed Peas song also fits in the previous category )

[Super Dude]

Well I'd say in the US anyway that the early 00s ('00-'01 and some of '02) was a lot of the same late 90's soft rock, teeny boppers, and R&B (i.e. Destiny's Child), which was followed by a (very) brief resurgence metal and punk ('02ish-'04) such as Linkin Park and Yellowcard, P.O.D., Evanescence, New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, and their ilk.  At the same time we have a new sort of hip hop arising (at least to my ears hip hop of '02 and later sounds like somewhat of a departure), and so that's people like Fat Joe, R. Kelly, OutKast, B2K, etc.

After that was the rise of emo and other forms of throwback music like garage rock and punk-gone-straight Green Day (so that's '04ish-'07) and that includes Panic!, FOB, The White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, the Killers, RHCP (i.e. Dani California), etc.  At the same time we had what will probably become some of the decade's most recognizable hip hop and R&B tunes (and I consider it to be the decade's best, but you're free to disagree of course): Yeah! by Usher, Golddigger by Kanye, Crazy by Gnarls Barkley (I know it's closer to soul), Apologize by Timbaland and OneRepublic, Justin Timberlake, etc.  For the end of this era I'd point to songs like Hey There Delilah, Paper Planes by M.I.A., Handlebars by the Flobots, etc.

And then we have the 2008-2009 era, which I consider some of the worst and weirdest of the decade.  This is Lady GaGa, Rihanna, the Black Eyed Peas' new (terrible) electro-hop sound; I remember at one point these artists were labelled on Wikipedia as the rise of "nu-disco."  Also I feel like there was a brief period in which indie music became pretty popular, but I'm not sure if that's a product of my going to college, my piqued interest in indie around that time, or something else.  The most solid evidence I have for the indie resurgence is in film of the late 00's, such as "indie-style" films such as Juno and Where the Wild Things Are, in which such music is featured very prominently.  I also think I remember a couple of "dance" groups such as Metro Station becoming pretty popular around 2008 or so.  That's the best I've got for the latter era though, as I have no idea what was happening in straight-up pop, country, and rock.

As for 2009 in particular, this is what I've got: Lady GaGa's fame continues its ascent and is joined briefly by Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown, a smaller hit than its predecessor, and then the death of Michael Jackson.  At this point my trail through popular music at the time gets hazy amid all the Jackson hype, and then I remember some Taylor Swift, and that the #1 hit going into the new year and decade was Hey, Soul Sister by Train, which stayed very high in the charts well into 2010.

This is all the product of intense research and really making an effort to expose myself to popular music when I got into college.  If anyone has found any holes that need to be filled in or I'm just dead wrong about something, the help would be greatly appreciated.

[PixelDream]

Well I'd say in the US anyway that the early 00s ('00-'01 and some of '02) was a lot of the same late 90's soft rock, teeny boppers, and R&B (i.e. Destiny's Child), which was followed by a (very) brief resurgence metal and punk ('02ish-'04) such as Linkin Park and Yellowcard, P.O.D., Evanescence, New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, and their ilk.  At the same time we have a new sort of hip hop arising (at least to my ears hip hop of '02 and later sounds like somewhat of a departure), and so that's people like Fat Joe, R. Kelly, OutKast, B2K, etc.

After that was the rise of emo and other forms of throwback music like garage rock and punk-gone-straight Green Day (so that's '04ish-'07) and that includes Panic!, FOB, The White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, the Killers, RHCP (i.e. Dani California), etc.  At the same time we had what will probably become some of the decade's most recognizable hip hop and R&B tunes (and I consider it to be the decade's best, but you're free to disagree of course): Yeah! by Usher, Golddigger by Kanye, Crazy by Gnarls Barkley (I know it's closer to soul), Apologize by Timbaland and OneRepublic, Justin Timberlake, etc.  For the end of this era I'd point to songs like Hey There Delilah, Paper Planes by M.I.A., Handlebars by the Flobots, etc.

And then we have the 2008-2009 era, which I consider some of the worst and weirdest of the decade.  This is Lady GaGa, Rihanna, the Black Eyed Peas' new (terrible) electro-hop sound; I remember at one point these artists were labelled on Wikipedia as the rise of "nu-disco."  Also I feel like there was a brief period in which indie music became pretty popular, but I'm not sure if that's a product of my going to college, my piqued interest in indie around that time, or something else.  The most solid evidence I have for the indie resurgence is in film of the late 00's, such as "indie-style" films such as Juno and Where the Wild Things Are, in which such music is featured very prominently.  I also think I remember a couple of "dance" groups such as Metro Station becoming pretty popular around 2008 or so.  That's the best I've got for the latter era though, as I have no idea what was happening in straight-up pop, country, and rock.

As for 2009 in particular, this is what I've got: Lady GaGa's fame continues its ascent and is joined briefly by Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown, a smaller hit than its predecessor, and then the death of Michael Jackson.  At this point my trail through popular music at the time gets hazy amid all the Jackson hype, and then I remember some Taylor Swift, and that the #1 hit going into the new year and decade was Hey, Soul Sister by Train, which stayed very high in the charts well into 2010.

This is all the product of intense research and really making an effort to expose myself to popular music when I got into college.  If anyone has found any holes that need to be filled in or I'm just dead wrong about something, the help would be greatly appreciated.

The 00's is definately my least favorite decade of music, when it comes to mainstream artists. Lil' Jon wasn't even the worst thing that happened to popular music. In fact, I welcome that style back. The last two years have been extremely bad, and I think the worst things that have occured are Lady Gaga, Swedish House Mafia (check out the tune, you'll recognize it), and the new Black Eyed Peas sound. That's why I think Kanye West's latest album is great. It sums up the decade when it comes to urban music (and that was THE style of the 00's as far as I'm concerned), but the music doesn't SUCK! He shows that you can take the style, but still be musical and original. On the other hand we have John Mayer, who made his breakthrough in Europe over the last few years. I'm not crazy about him, but he's a fresh breath of air between all the auto-tuned, soulless music acts. But when you think about it, all he does is a throwback to the 70's when it comes to sound and style.

As far as non-mainstream, my album of 2010 was definately Karnivool's 'Sound Awake'. For the rest of the decade, we got a shitload of awesome PT/Opeth whatever records. I also liked some indie stuff, like Interpol, Editors etc. I dig that sound. And ofcourse Muse have always been stellar. By far my favorite mainstream band of the 00's.

[jsem]

Swedish House Mafia makes me kind of ashamed to be swedish. But then again, we're at the forefront in so much great music so I shouldn't complain.

[Ħ]

I would say music appreciation is easier today because of the internet.  We don't have to listen to the radio to find out what's coming out.  We can just go onto youtube or grooveshark.

[Super Dude]

Well yeah, but the difficult task is figuring out what the 00s "sound" like.  That's a little more difficult to determine, especially in a world where the internet allows people to be even more particular in their tastes.

*SNIP'd*

I disagree with you in saying that the 2000s are the *worst* decade in music, but I'm with you in saying that 2008 and 2009 were the worst years.  And yes, I would say urban was definitely the dominant style, but probably not THE style.  After all, there was that brief stint of metal and punk dominance, and for a while pop rock wouldn't let go.

[Ħ]

Well that's good, right?  In the past, people listened to music based on it's popularity.  There was a great amount of historical and sociological influence.  While that may be true today, it is to a much lesser degree, and I can listen to pretty much whatever I want.

So I would say the 00s (I like that abbreviation, btw) are really defined by a merging of pretty much every style and instrumentation you can think of.

But if there was a dominant style for the decade, I would say either hiphop or dance music. 

[Marvellous G]

About a month or two or so I'd have supported the 'the 00s were not great' stance, but I've now inexplicably gotten into hip hop and loads of other mainstream crap I hated until a very short while ago, so who knows how I'll feel about all this after it's all really done with.

[jsem]

I would say music appreciation is easier today because of the internet.  We don't have to listen to the radio to find out what's coming out.  We can just go onto youtube or grooveshark.

This. I have discovered so much great music this way. And it's the reason I'm on this forum.

[Sigz]

I don't know anywhere near enough about popular music to be able to do something like that.

[kári]

But if there was a dominant style for the decade, I would say either hiphop or dance music. 

In Europe, hiphop was never big. Super Dude listed some hiphop artists and I'd honestly never heard of any of them. I also don't know anyone in real life who considers theirselves "listening to hiphop".

[Super Dude]

In Belgium they've never heard of Kanye West or OutKast?  Damn, those guys are huge.

[kári]

Kanye West has had a single recently, I might've read over him in your post, sorry. But OutKast, never heard of them.

(Kanye West received some attention because he said he liked Stromae's "Alors en dance", a big hit in a lot of European countries this year.)

[Perpetual Change]

You know, no offense to you Super Dude, but I genuinely wonder why people ask questions like "What did the last decade sound like?" We all lived it. None of us were able to escape it. We all KNOW what it sounded like and whether we liked it or not.

Questions like this are almost always better when they're focused on what happened in the last decade that wasn't completely shoved down people's throats by the media.

And before someone goes waving the finger at me, this isn't anti-pop snobbishness or anything like that. Though you'll find no love here for corporate-fabricated music in me, I realize that popularity itself is not necessarily a sign that something isn't good. But why bother articulating Kanye West's rise to fame or Lady Gaga's newest fad? It just seems like common sense to me. It's harder, on the other hand, to figure out what was really influential-- who influenced the future musicians, the future influencers, etc. I expect when all is said and done no-one will care about Lady Gaga or Kanye West. When people look to see what "defined" the 00s they will be the corny artists everyone's children laugh about and much more seemingly unlikely candidates will stand as the true artists of the time.

[Super Dude]

All good and well, but how do you know who the true greats were until you take the bigger picture into consideration? I think it's pretty important to at least know what was going on in each genre, and therefore know why the greats in each were important, and indeed why they're so great.