Chronology of Rock Music

A Chronology of Rock Music - The 2000s

Excerpted from my book "A History of Rock and Dance Music"

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Origins

These, of course, are my personal opinions on when genres where invented, who invented them, and which were the most significant events. To understand how I justify these opinions you have to read my book "A History of Rock Music".

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 Hossein Sharifi[ founds rateyourmusic.com
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
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
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 website MySpace launches 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
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 Apple introduces the software GarageBand for music composition The RIAA files 750 lawsuits against file-sharing of music
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
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
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 first "Lightning in a Bottle" festival is held in California 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 Gary Richards founds the Hard music festival
2008	Bo Diddley dies at 79 Richard Wright dies at 65 After passing the one-million torrents mark, TorrentSpy is forced to shut down MySpace hosts more than one million musicians and attracts 76 million visitors a month 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 music streaming service Spotify debuts in Europe The top-selling digital single is Lil Wayne's Lollipop with sales of 9.1 million units Ethan Diamond and Shawn Grunberge launch the online platform Bandcamp Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss launch the online platform Soundcloud
2009	Piero Scaruffi's "A History of Rock and Dance Music" is published Michael Jackson dies at 50 Les Paul dies at 94 Chillwave albums appear 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
2010	Pop stars perform for the benefit "Hope for Haiti" Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) dies
2011	Vaporwave albums appear
2013	Lou Reed dies
2015	Daevid Allen dies For the first time since 1999 the revenues of the music industry increase, with CDs accounting only for 39% of sales
2016	David Bowie dies Paul Kantner dies George Martin dies Keith Emerson dies Prince dies Leonard Cohen dies The first Desert Trip festival is held in California Music revenues in 2016 grow 11.4% to $7.7 billion in the USA, the highest yearly growth since 1998, with the biggest contributor being a doubling of revenues from paid streaming services such as Apple Music, Spotify, and Pandora, which now generate the majority of the revenues in the USA
2017	Chuck Berry dies Tom Petty dies David Peel dies Holger Czukay of Can dies Spotify has 70 million subscribers, more than double Appel iTunes
2018	Hardy Fox of the Residents dies Mark Smith of the Fall dies Jon Hiseman of Colosseum dies BTS becomes the first Korean band to top both the USA and British charts
2019	Ginger Baker of Cream dies Dick Dale dies
2020	Little Richard dies Bob Dylan sells his entire song catalogue for $300m to Universal
2021	Jon Hassell dies Phil Spector dies Jim Steinman dies Charlie Watts dies For the first time since 1991, annual sales in the USA of LPs surpass those of CDs Bruce Springsteen sells his entire song catalogue for $500m to Sony
2022	Klaus Schulze dies Vangelis dies Mark Lanegan dies Lamont Dozier dies Anton Fier dies
2023	Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour" becomes the biggest event in the history of the music business Jeff Beck dies David Crosby dies Tom Verlaine dies Mark Stewart dies
2024	Steve Albini dies