2000s in music
This article is an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 2000s.
In American culture, various styles of the late 20th century remained popular, such as rock, pop, metal, hip hop, R&B, EDM, country, and indie. As the technology of computers and internet sharing developed, a variety of those genres started to fuse, and new Styles arose from them. Terms like "contemporary", "nu", "revival", "alternative", and "post" are added to various genre titles in order to differentiate them from past styles, with nu-disco and post-punk revival as notable examples.
The popularity of teen pop carried over from the 1990s with acts such as *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera dominating the charts in the earlier years of the decade. Previously established pop music artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna made a comeback in the early 2000s with successful releases such as Invincible and Music.
Contemporary R&B was one of the most popular genres of the decade, with artists like Usher, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, and Rihanna. In 2004, the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 had 15 of its top 25 singles as contemporary R&B.
The decade was dominated by the garage rock revival and the birth of a new indie rock style. In this decade, grime and dubstep were genres invented in the UK, while chillwave became popular in the United States in the latter part of the decade.
In Britain, post-Britpop, post-punk revival, and alternative rock were at the height of their popularity, with acts such as Coldplay, The Libertines, Travis, The Hives, and Radiohead topping the major charts worldwide. 1990s Britpop-era acts also released new material, such as Oasis and Blur.
Hip-hop achieved major mainstream status after the 1990s including Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans mainstream success. Popular rap movements of the 2000s include crunk, snap, hyphy, and alternative hip hop.
File:Dave Grohl.jpeg|thumb|240x240px|Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters performing in 2005. Foo Fighters achieved major commercial success and won multiple Grammy Awards in the 2000s, including Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 2001, 2004, and 2008.
Despite the hip-hop dominance, such as Southern hip-hop which lasted for most of the decade, rock music was still popular, notably alternative rock, and especially genres such as post-grunge, post-Britpop, nu metal, pop punk, emo, post-hardcore, metalcore, and in some cases indie rock; the early and mid-2000s saw a resurgence in the mainstream popularity of pop rock and power pop.
Even though the popularity among the mainstream audience dipped slightly, country music continued to rise in sales, having a strong niche in the music industry. The genre saw the rise of new front-runners like Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, and Miley Cyrus, who was able to score top hits on all-genre Billboard charts, apart from the country charts, by appealing to a wider audience outside the genre.
Electronic music was also popular throughout the decade; at the beginning of the 2000s, genres such as trance, chillout, house, indietronica, and Eurodance were popular. By the end of the decade, late 1980s/early 1990s inspired dance-oriented forms of electronic music such as synthpop, electropop, and electro house had become popular.
By the end of the decade, a fusion between hip hop and electronic dance similar to the freestyle music of the late 1980s and early 1990s, known as hip house and electrohop also grew successful.
In many Asian musical markets, with the increase of globalization, music became more Westernized, with influences of pop, hip hop, and contemporary R&B becoming ever-present in Eastern markets. American and European popular music also became more popular in Asia.
Genres such as J-pop and K-pop remained popular throughout the decade, proliferating their cultural influence throughout the East and Southeast of Asia. In other parts of Asia, including India, Indian pop music, closely linked to Bollywood films and filmi music, was popular alongside Western pop music.
In Latin America, whilst R&B, hip hop, and pop rock did have influence and success, Latin-based pop music remained highly popular.
Reggaetón became a definitive genre in 2000s Latin music, as well as salsa and merengue. Subgenres fusing Latin music such as merengue and reggaetón with hip hop and rap music became popular from the middle of the decade onwards.
In the mid-2000s, Narcocorrido music initially becomes a regional musical preference in many parts of Mexico and the southwestern United States. By 2006-2007 the genre had racked up sales averaging over $2 million per year beginning in 2005. No other regional Mexican music genere had garnered more sales and radio play as did Narcocorridos during this era.
The continued development of studio recording software and electronic elements was observed throughout this decade. One such example is the usage of pitch correction software, such as auto-tune that appeared in the late 1990s. The internet allowed for unprecedented access to music and made it possible for artists to distribute their music freely without label backing. Innumerable online outlets and sheer volume of music also offers musicians more musical influences to draw from.
North America
Hip hop
dominated popular music in the early 2000s. Artists such as Eminem, Outkast, Black Eyed Peas, T.I., 50 Cent, Kanye West, Nelly, Common, Nas, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, Puff Daddy, Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott, M.I.A., Lil' Kim, Gorillaz, Jeezy, Lil Wayne, Timbaland, The Game, Cam'ron and Ludacris were among the dominant mainstream hip hop artists to have represented the hip hop genre for the decade. By 1999, more 2000s styled glam started coming in, along with dirty south and crunk, with artists such as Mannie Fresh, Cam'ron, Lil Jon, Ludacris, Trina, Three 6 Mafia, Ying Yang Twins, Bubba Sparxxx, Neptunes, and Jay-Z. Distinct regional differences also developed outside the hip hop/rap strongholds of the 1990s, New York City and Los Angeles. Though the Los Angeles style of the 1990s waned, gangsta rap continued to be popular through the 2000s, and more commercially oriented party rap dominated the charts. The emergence of hip-hop from the south and the Midwest was starting to take place, and by the end of the decade, hip-hop was starting to spread internationally.During the 2000s, Eminem, who is perhaps best known for being one of the few successful white rappers in the music industry, enjoyed a massive commercial success and maintained commercial relevance by attempting to be controversial and subversive. According to Billboard, two of Eminem's albums are among the top five highest-selling albums of the 2000s. After the release of his album Relapse, Eminem became the best-selling rapper of all time and the top selling artist of the decade across all genres. "Ringtone rap", which is rap music that was made popular for ringtones, which includes more "laid back" and "silly" elements along with repetitive hooks, became very popular in the later part of the 2000s.File:YOOOOUUUUU!.jpg | thumb | right | Soulja Boy's 2007 debut single "Crank That" was considered the biggest dance fad since the Macarena.
In late 2005, the Southern hip hop subgenre reached the peak of its popularity, especially its sub-subgenres of crunk and snap music. The number one selling crunk artist as well as paving the way to its popularity was Lil Jon who shot to fame in 2003, with his group The East Side Boyz. Then snap music became a staple for the remainder of the decade in hip hop with artists such as, Dem Franchize Boyz, D4L, Yung Joc, Soulja Boy, Unk, Jibbs, Da BackWudz, Purple Ribbon All-Stars, V.I.C., GS Boyz, the Fast Life Yungstaz, New Boyz, and Cali Swag District, to name a few. These artists have all contributed to starting some dance craze accompanied to one of their songs, with the most popular being Soulja's "Crank Dat" move, which gained popularity throughout 2007 and 2008. By the end of the decade this sound began to decline in popularity as well as the dance-crazes that came along with them, as pioneer hip hop artists and hip hop purists such as Ice-T and Nas denouncing the crunk and snap craze, with Nas's 2006 song "Hip Hop Is Dead" brought dislike to the new path hip hop was directing.
File:Black_Eyed_Peas_Performing_at_END.jpg|thumb|left|The Black Eyed Peas began utilizing Auto-Tune and electropop–dance in their most successful album to date, The E.N.D., which spawned five top ten hit singles.|alt=|220x220pxBy early 2000, the hyphy movement became popular in Northern California, specifically the Bay Area. Bay Area artists like Mac Dre, Keak Da Sneak, E-40, The Pack, and Too Short were prominent hyphy rappers. Hyphy culture included the use of party drugs like ecstasy, slang terms like "Go dumb" and "yadadamean", Ghost Riding, and Sideshows.
File:T-Pain 2019 by Glenn Francis.jpg | thumb |upright| T-Pain was initially criticized for popularizing autotune, which is now considered an iconic trend of the decade.
By mid-2008, the sound began to fade as indie rap and alternative began to come in with artists such as Kid Cudi and The Cool Kids, who fused hip hop with electro and hipster influences. This trend continued on into the early 2010s. Alternative hip hop, almost unknown in the mainstream, except for a few crossover acts, evolved throughout the decade with the help of artists such as El-P, Mos Def, Lupe Fiasco, The Roots, MF Doom, Aesop Rock, and Common, who achieved unheard-of success for their field. Throughout the 2000s, alternative hip hop continued its philosophical, positive, and complex lyrical subject matter, while denouncing materialism, fashion, and money. This subgenre also includes spoken word and a branch of slam poetry. The subgenre could be said to be related to both the old school hip-hop culture of the 1980s and 1990s, and the indie rock and hipster subcultures.
Auto-Tune became popular by mid-2007, with R&B artist T-Pain starting the craze. This technology was not exclusively used for hip-hop music, it was used in other genres such as pop, R&B, and EDM. Auto-Tune was popular in the earlier part of the decade as well, but then only called "synthesizer" and it was used casually as just an effect. Artists such as Daft Punk, Eiffel 65, *NSYNC, 98 Degrees, Willa Ford, and even Faith Hill have used Auto-Tune in their songs. It was first known as the "Cher effect" since it was used in the song "Believe" by Cher in 1998. The Black Eyed Peas began utilizing Auto-Tune and electropop–dance in their most successful album to date, The E.N.D., which spawned five top ten hit singles: "Boom Boom Pow", "I Gotta Feeling", "Meet Me Halfway", "Imma Be", and "Rock That Body". Due to hip-hop's increased moulding with pop music, some, such as rapper Nas have declared the death of the genre.