| 2000 |
- Mum's Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Is Ok mixes glitch electronica, chamber instruments and folk-rock
- Berlin's "Love Parade" becomes the largest dance event in the world, attended by almost one million people
- 27 people die of ecstasy in just one year in England
- Curtis Mayfield dies
- Tomata du Plenty dies
- 25,000 people attend the Burning Man festival at Black Rock Desert, which has become a city of art installations
- The "Midi Music Festival" is held in Beijing, the first music festival in China
- July: San Francisco hosts "Skratchcon", a conference for turntablists
- French media giant Vivendi buys Seagram. Warner is the only "major" that is still American: Universal is now French, Sony is Japanese, EMI is British, BMG is German
- Kevin Lewandowski launches discogs.com
- Hossein Sharifi launches RateYourMusic
- Other significant albums of the year: Spring Heel Jack's Disappeared
- Independent labels founded in 2000 include: Def Jux
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| 2001 |
- Larry Tee, owner of the "Luxx" club in Brooklyn, organizes the "Electroclash" festival, which establishes electroclash (a fusion of punk-rock and dance-music) as a stand-alone musical genre ⇐
- Sales for the record industry slip 5% (first decline in ages)
- Napster is found guilty of breaching copyright law
- John Fahey dies
- Sandy Bull dies
- Fred Neil dies
- Joey Ramone dies
- Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh dies
- "Puncture" ceases publication
- Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom launch the file-sharing service "Kazaa"
- 62 albums released by the Universal group sell more than 1 million copies in 2001
- The file-sharing service Kazaa is founded in Amsterdam by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis
- After reaching 26 million users, Napster is forced to shut down by the recording industry, while new file-sharing systems are established worldwide (LimeWire and Morpheus in the USA, Kazaa in Sweden)
- Other significant albums of the year: Solex's Low Kick And Hard Bop, Lofty Pillars's Amsterdam, Scott Tuma's Hard Again
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| 2002 |
- Dee Dee Ramone of the Ramones dies
- Joe Strummer of the Clash dies at 50
- Otis Blackwell dies at 72
- The top-selling album of 2002 is a white rap album, Eminem's Show
- The "Bonnaroo" festival is born as a jam-based marathon
- EMI buys Mute
- "Pulse" ceases publication
- CD sales decrease 9%
- Warner acquires Tommy Boy
- Independent labels founded in 2002 include: Eastern Developments
- The first "Projekt Revolution" tour promotes rap-rock fusion
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| 2003 |
- Apple introduces the on-line music service "iTunes", which sells 25 million songs by december
- Universal reduces the price of CDs by 30%
- Market shares: Universal 26.3%, BMG 16.7%, Warner 16.1%, Sony 13.7%, EMI 11.2%
- The top-selling album of 2003 is a black rap album, 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin'
- CD sales decrease 2%, from 649.5 million units in 2002 to 635.8 million units in 2003
- Piero Scaruffi's "A History of Rock Music" is published
- The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sues more than 260 individuals for sharing music on the Internet, including some children
- The file-sharing system Rapidshare is founded in Germany, the file-sharing system TorrentSpy goes live in the USA, and The Pirate Bay bittorrent website opens in Sweden, and a poll reveals that 50% of USA citizens have downloaded music online
- Warren Zevon dies at 56
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| 2004 |
- Ray Charles dies at 73
- Robert Quine dies
- British DJ John Peel dies
- Johnny (Cummings) Ramone of the Ramones dies
- 143 millions songs are downloaded legally in the USA
- The RIAA files 750 lawsuits against file-sharing of music
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| 2005 |
- Robert Moog dies
- Link Wray dies at 76
- CD sales decrease 7% in the USA to $602.2 million, while music downloads more than doubled from $134 million to $332 million
- 352 millions songs are downloaded legally in the USA
- The file-sharing service Megaupload is founded in Hong Kong
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| 2006 |
- Wilson Pickett dies at 64
- Syd Barrett dies at 60
- Perry Cook and Dan Trueman found the Princeton Laptop Orchestra using software created by student Ge Wang
- Arthur Lee dies at 61
- James Brown dies at 73
- Kazaa surrenders to the music industry
- Global digital music sales double to about $2bn
- The RIAA files a lawsuit against Russian-based Internet download service AllOfMP3.com for $1.65 trillion, while the file-sharing service Mediafire is founded in the USA
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| 2007 |
- Piero Scaruffi's "A History of Jazz Music" is published
- "Live Earth" concerts are held all over the world to increase awareness of climate change
- The annual "CMJ Music Marathon" presents 1,000 indie rock bands
- All four majors (Universal, EMI, Warner and Sony) start selling their music on Amazon's digital-music store in the unprotected mp3 format
- Capitol becomes the first record label to sue a file-sharer, teenager Jammie Thomas
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| 2008 |
- Bo Diddley dies at 79
- Richard Wright dies at 65
- After passing the one-million torrents mark, TorrentSpy is forced to shut down
- Digital downloads grow by 25% to $3.7 billion (including 1.4 billion songs), accounting for 20% of music sales, but the IFPI estimates that over 40 billion songs were illegally file-shared, which means that 95% of music downloads are illegal
- The online music service Spotify debuts in Europe
- The top-selling digital single is Lil Wayne's Lollipop with sales of 9.1 million units
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| 2009 |
- Piero Scaruffi's "A History of Rock and Dance Music" is published
- Michael Jackson dies at 50
- Les Paul dies at 94
- Digital sales account for 98% of all singles sold in the USA and Britain
- File-sharing services rank among the Internet's most popular websites (Rapidshare is 26th, Mediafire is 63rd) and LimeWire is the largest free file-sharing software with over 70 million unique monthly users, while founders of Pirate Bay are sentenced to jail and the RIAA wins a lawsuit against college student Joel Tenenbaum for file-sharing songs
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| 2010 |
- Pop stars perform for the benefit "Hope for Haiti"
- Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) dies
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