What had the greatest impact on music in the 2000s? The Internet and digital devices, of course! Marshall McLuhan might have been right after all when he said, "The medium is the message." The rise of digital music and electronic distribution changed the face of music forever. So many institutions and the old way of doing things went out the window, that it's only accurate to say that music media reinvented itself. Based on feedback from the Songfacts Community, here's why the 2000's were the best music decade ever.
The Rise of Underground and Independent Music
That's kind of an oxymoron now. Bands can simply record on a home studio, post the recording on the Internet, and there they are, just as famous as 99,000 other bands.
In fact, you could argue that there are more people listening to today's top YouTube video than there are listening to any given radio station. After all, a radio station only has the reach of a large city, on average. The most populous cities on Earth top out in the 13 million range. The current most popular video on YouTube right now? "Charlie bit my finger - again !" - at 148 million views! There, two kids with a camera at home just outdid every radio station that's ever existed. For another example, the rapper Pitbull's "I Know You Want Me" has 92 million views (about 7 times the population of Mumbai, India) - but he doesn't have a #1 Billboard Hot 100 single!
Anyway, it goes to show that there's a huge drop-off between old media and new media. Independent artists are taking over.
The Return of Garage Rock
As a result of all this new freedom, bands are more free to experiment and play around, making what they like to play and letting the fans decide what's marketable - without some pushy record executive getting in the way.
The next big music genre will come from the garage. There is no question about it. Bands like The White Stripes and The Von Bondies have already started a scene in Detroit, Michigan of all places. Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have embraced indie distribution. Dozens of bands are slipping away from the traditional music genres and categories to simply play whatever they feel like and let the audience figure out what to call it. New bands start out this way, and old bands have gotten more so as they have more room to experiment. Quick, what genre of music does Primus or The Pixies play?
Digital Distribution
BitTorrent, iPod, Grooveshark, streaming video, podcasting, peer-to-peer, eDonkey, Pirate Bay, the "darknet"... We had none of this a decade ago – at least not developed. When will we see the very last "album" stamped on a disc, be it vinyl or plastic? The day is coming, although to judge from the hobbyist collector scene, there will always be some market for physical/ analog media.
MP3: The Gamechanger
The digital age gave us more access to singles, more channels to discover new artists, and a chance to broaden our horizons. More freedom and a wider reach means that we can throw off the yoke of oppression from big industry.
The electronic format that made this possible was the MP3 – a tidy little file that plays on just about anything, and thanks to a consumer backlash, is almost always free of any restrictions. And for most of the decade, you could get them for less than a buck.
And by the way: We've all heard that auto-tune, synthesizers, dynamic range compression, Guitar Hero games, and all the other modern developments are ruining music, blah blah blah. That could be correct - you'll find lots of support for that point of view. But it's also true that every single music technology development since the Victrola has been the target of the exact same criticism. Every new music-producing gizmo suffers from overuse and plain bad-taste use when it first comes out, and bad use of auto-tune and synthesizers can sound just as horrible as bad use of electric guitars and organs can. But we'd like to put a friendly reminder here that automatically complaining about every new invention makes you sound like a senile, grouchy, old grump who needs a nap. If it sounds good... (and we mean good) who cares how it was made? Let them make music with a cast of robots and a set of wooden spoons if they want to!
Great Music Came Out of the 2000s
Here's what the majority of our Forum dwellers agree are the best bands to come out of the 2000s. Note that if an artist got their "official" start by the late 1990s, we'll toss them in as long as their success came in the 2000s:
The White Stripes - Without a doubt, The White Stripes have started something big. They've come out of Detroit, with a seamless fusion of blues and punk, and then turned it into their own authentic home-made style. What Nirvana did for grunge, this eccentric rock duo might just have done for garage rock.
Gorillaz - This is what we mean when we say something came out of the 2000s. A "virtual band" created by a fusion of pop artists and the guy who did Tank Girl (wait, what?), the Guinness Book of World Records now lists them as the Most Successful Virtual Band. They've been buried in awards and recognition, especially in the UK, and all this while being the kind of thing that couldn't have existed 15 years ago.
Queens of the Stone Age - Hugely successful, with a hard rock sound that's not quite classic, but not quite all-new either. True to their mission statement, they create a heavy sound based on a solid jam, and just pound it into your head. Great! At last, a good band that anybody can understand!
Franz Ferdinand - Every now and then, somebody from Scotland comes along and knocks the music world on its can. "Where did that come from?" everybody says, but all they know is that they can't get enough. Like Simple Minds and Nazareth, Franz Ferdinand has jumped on the current prevailing winds and ridden them right back across the Atlantic. Only with a kind of glam-rock/ new-wave/ synth-pop sound.
The Decemberists - Imagine if Green Day cheered up, learned more chords and a diversified set of instruments, and Billie Joe Armstrong quit inhaling helium and putting a clothespin on his nose before every take. That's the Decemberists, almost more bards than singers, with the colorful story-lines of their songs. But it's all set to the hookiest, catchiest, most toe-tapping tunes you could ask for - and yet, they're serious about their art!
Goldfrapp - Well, OK, we'll let a British electronic trip-pop act in. Go ahead, crank up the synthesizers and lets get on the dance floor. After all, as Goldfrapp reminds us, it is fun to do.
Arctic Monkeys - Silly name or not, they've impressed! They've set fast-selling album sales, won awards, and topped charts all over Europe. They've taken alternative rock and slapped their own unique secret sauce on it. Maybe with a side of cheese, but hey, cheese is nice sometimes.
TV on the Radio - We wanted to send word from Brooklyn, New York, that in the future, music critics will look back on TV on the Radio and say things like "They were so far ahead of their time, what a shame they didn't get more popular. That was another Velvet Underground right there!" Buy one of their albums and start your own band today!
The Von Bondies - We opened this list with White Stripes; we'll now close it with the other hot garage band from Detroit, Michigan. They're a little more polished, but still have that authentic Detroit sound, that raw power that wants to rush up from the gutter to punch the stars. C'mon, c'mon, Detroit, you're on the edge of greatness!
Honorable mention: Fleet Foxes is so new, this is probably the first time you've heard of them; they're a time-warped '60s folk band - but they are the best one of those you're heard this decade, and if you listen to one of their songs twice it will haunt you 'til bedtime. Macy Gray had her day, now there's nothing left to say; but she kissed the blues goodnight for us. We can't tell if LCD Soundsystem is genius, or we just haven't heard enough "dance punk" yet to know better. The Libertines had something interesting there for a moment. We admit that there are still days when we think a nice thought about Eminem. Disturbed, Animal Collective, Scar Symmetry, The Strokes, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are all kind of nice.
Artists That Started Before the Decade, But Kept On Rocking Through the 2000s
Radiohead owned the decade so hard, it's almost not worth mentioning anybody else. They get their own paragraph. They should get their own article. Perhaps their own statue, amusement park, and knighthood. They single-handedly carried alternative rock through a minefield of a decade, all with the most unidentifiable and unique sound, remarkably composed for the whole group's participating in creating every song. Thom Yorke's mellow vocals and gloomy lyrics, plus the most diverse instrumentation since Queen (which they cite as an influence), give them an inimitable sound. Their 1997 album OK Computer by itself has been called the single most important alternative album ever. The Radiohead experience is a rich one - although their fans have been so vocal lately that it's starting to create a hype backlash, and some fans are divided whether they've reinvented themselves right out of their core audience.
And then there's The Streets, The Flaming Lips, Jay-Z, Weezer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, System Of A Down, Sonic Youth, Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, They Might Be Giants, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Marilyn Manson, and Death Cab for Cutie. Thank you, thank you, for at least staying good, and in most cases even getting better, throughout the decade of the 2000s, a time when we really, really needed it!
One more thing we have to mention about 2000s music. Leave a note for the historians: "Still Alive" was the closing theme to a video game called Portal. No, we have no idea why it got so popular even with people who don't play video games. Boyfriends would request that girlfriends sing it for them on karaoke night. Yeah, it's been that kind of decade!
Comments: 35
someone mentioned the 90's for good music? Sorry to say but the 90's was the beginning of the decline in quality recordings, gone were the days of solid albums through and through instead replaced by the few solid stand-outs with the rest being absolute filler at best. Music is supposed to be evolving with time, but since the middle of the 90's it's been mostly treading into the same path. That's not to say that all music from there is necessarily bad, but it's just seemingly the same thing with different words.
-Ben from Canada
I love how all the artists mentioned are all Indie and Alternative. I definately don't think artists like Lady Gaygay or the Black Eyed Peas should be mentioned!
Muse should be mentioned :D
-Jimmy Kane from Cydonia
Some great music this decade, of course, but the best ever? Are you nuts? I'll go with the '70s -- so many different strands and genres -- and the '40s, '50s and '60s were pretty great, too. Some real good stuff from the '80s, too, mostly underground.
-Scott from Los Angeles
you forgot MGMT thats a great band with big future
-dirk from panama
Radio put all the great bands in your head all these years. Underground music has always been there, but the stuff that goes mass appeal is and always has been generated by good ol radio. This won't stay that way with radio petering out and technology powering up over the last decade. Top forty was designed for recall of popular music. If everything goes underground, that is lost. We still need repetition and recall. The medium of radio may be fading [due to corprorate control], but the principle for how it got so big remains.
If artists think it's hard to fill stadiums now, wait until there's no hits for the vanilla homogenized masses. It's then a global club scene....which might be interesting for musicologists like you and me, but no so much for those who just like to tap their toes to a song they recognize on the radio while they drive to work. These are the people who don't even know the names of the bands. And they are in the majority.
-Jaymz from Rhode Island
Gwen Stefani merits a mention? She is just another INDUSTRY FEM-BOT like Fergie, Pink, Lady GuyGuy et al. None of which are musicians, or "artists" of any sort, and will be forgotten. Rubbish.
-duke from GA
...and then there are the people redefining music - 'Peacebone'by Animal Collective, the most important track since 'White Light/White Heat' - Matmos, Murcof, the Cracow Klezmer Band, the Budapest Klezmer Band, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, A Silver Mt Zion, Venetian Snares, Deerhoof and TV on the Radio (though they are not really experimental enough)...
-felisgris
Amy Winehouse? Lily Allen? Madeleine Peroux? Camille? Emilie Simon? Keren Ann? Portishead 'Third'? Big Blood & The Bleedin' Hearts? Marissa Nadler? Alela Diane? Andrew Bird? Hello?
.
I'm 54 and have been right into music since 1965. And as far as I am concerned, this is the best decade ever. By far.
-felisgris
why in the world does gwen stefani get an honorable mention? No 30-something year old woman should be getting skanked up and dancing around on a pirate ship, to sing a song that should be considered off limits...
Morgan from Norway: Although I don't particularly like either McCartney's or Starr's new stuff, it is nice to know they are still with us! Those are two of the saddest days the future holds.
-bethany from richmond va
The 2000s definitely were not as good for music as the 90s, but there are some bands out there that show some potential. I'm pretty confused as to why Modest Mouse wouldn't be put up there though, they're great.
-NS from Toledo