NOTE, THIS THREAD IS OPEN TO OLD BUGGERS AND PEOPLE WITH A KNOWLEGE OF RETRO ONLY....

 

the idea is for comparison purposes.

 

as we draw to the end of another decade, id like to hear from retro fans about how you view the naughties. was it all bad? was it all good? how do the noughties compare to the other decades?

 

to me, the noughties were the decade without original identity, theres been no new genres (only tweeking sub genres) for the first time since the beatles lead the pop music revolution back in the early 60's. the noughties saw retro music being re-hashed, some for better, some for worse.

 

the decade started with the remnants of 90's dance, 'pure pop', uk garage (the last original genre?) and r n b/urban dominating the singles charts. dance soon ran out of ideas and by 03 had all but retreated to the specialist domaine with chart dance becoming increasingly cheesy, lazy, and 'europopified'. there were a few classics, imho, juliet 'avalon' and refekt 'need to feel loved' in particular were good but good commercial dance was at a premium. id suggest that the current dance scene is the worst its ever been, outside specialist clubs.

 

by 02 busted and avril lavigne captured the imagination of a generation of 12 year olds and made guitar pop fashionable to young teens again... good! for the first time in nearly 20 years youngsters (tomorrows future) were picking up instruments and having fun, creating their own sound. since SAW in the late 80's, guitar pop...indie.. had been largely the preserve of more adult orientated peeps but now youngsters were listening to guitars as opposed to s club 7, steps, blue, 5ive, etc... although the ballad formulae courtesy of westlife held up (grrr :angry:) . the 'indie' explosion that followed was imho welcome, ok we know it wasnt real indie, it was good old fashioned guitar based pop... 'mod' in its 5th (?) incarnation. imho current indie is more traditional pop then indie, but nevertheless, theres some decent music.

 

imho rock really did well, theres many tracks that is cite as good as any retro rock track and in some cases even better. queens of the stoneage lead the way .. 'go with the flow' , and 'no one knows' are my 2 favourite rock singles of all time. the hives, kings of leon, wolfmother, HIM, white stripes, also produced quality rock to name but a few. personally i prefer 00's rock!.

 

classic pop?... yep i reckon there were several superb pop tracks from all genres... 'with evey heartbeat' (robyn) was a beautifully crafted track, 'hey ya' (outkast) payed homage to 60's soul/funk, 'feel good inc' (gorillaz) was another track id suggest was as good as any retro classic. of course what has gradually dominated pop throughout the noughties was the reality tv shows... talent, x factor, pop stars... and its possible this that the noughties will be rememberd for. awful karaoke contests that very rarely throw up a true individual/group.

 

r n b, urban, got slowly more sleazy <_< with many tracks refering to sex acts of one sort or another, but within the genre there were a few good tracks... personaly i love sean paul/blu cantrel 'breathe', thats as soulful and bluesy as any retro track of that ilk...

 

so for me, dispite the lack of originality, i still rate the noughties as there have been a fair number of great tracks that im happy to play side by side with great retro tracks.

In terms of pop, we've pretty much had everything - start of the decade was still in the happy, upbeat SMTV era of Steps, S Club, Spice Girls etc that had carried on from the late 90s. Irritating for adults I imagine, but I was eleven and absolutely loved it all.

 

It was about 2002 when they all suddenly broke up within a short space of time, and the sound began to shift into a slightly darker sound, with acts like the Sugababes and Girls Aloud suddenly including guitars rather than the happy pianos and synthesizers we'd had before. But then recently we've had the big 80s revival and it's back to synthpop again...Lady Gaga, Little Boots and La Roux being prime examples, just with a heavier, maturer sound than before.

 

But it's in the rock music where I think the best songs of the decade have been. Early on it was all exclusively American with Blink 182, Limp Biskit and Wheatus, with Busted and McFly copying that sound for the 13 year olds. Suddenly about 2004 the whole 'indie' scene really kicked off with acts like Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, and (I know they're American but) The Killers providing good, danceable music with a British sound that could appeal to everyone. That I think was the sound hat really defined the middle of the decade, sadly the market got oversaturated a few years later with rather less good acts (Scouting For Girls and The Hoosiers, I'm looking at you) and the charts are back to mostly pop and urban now. Just look at 2009...you know the reason 'Sex On Fire' and 'Use Somebody' by Kings of Leon are still played so much over a year later? Because there's not been any big rock hits released since!

 

As for dance music, what a change. Began the decade so well, releasing one of my favourite songs ever made - the Airscape remix of 'Silence' in 2000, but sadly it just didn't last. I'd say the turning point for dance music was in 2003 when Ultrabeat released 'Pretty Green Eyes' - suddenly it got more poppy, some would say cheesier, and since then there's just not been any really classic dance tracks to rival the trance of the millennium era. I suppose once you've reached the euphoric peak there's just nowhere else to go except make crap remixes of older songs ("Toca's Miracle 2008" etc) and loop a load of 80s samples. Such a shame. But hey, the teenagers like Basshunter and Cascada, after about 19 though the novelty wears off.

 

Can't also review the decade without mentioning the UK urban explosion...back in 2000 it seemed exclusively American,

since then we had the slow journey of acts like Dizzee Rascal from pirate radio, to critical success, to mainstream number 1 hits. Again though a lot of copycats with Tinchy Stryder/N-Dubz/Taio Cruz/Chipmunk/etc etc etc all getting a slice of the pie. I think the 2010s will see lots more of this with the sound getting even more experimental and weird...there's a track released soon by Wiley called 'Take That' which already sounds like it's from another decade, and could be a defining sound of things to come. A bit like in December 1999 when 'Rewind' by Artful Dodger was released, suddenly after that 2-step garage was everywhere in the early noughties!

 

Here are my top five tracks of the decade:

 

Mika - Grace Kelly (2007) (Laugh if you like but it's become a pop classic)

Delerium - Silence (Airscape remix) (2000)

Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out (2004)

Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby (2007)

The Killers - Human (2008)

 

With honourable mention to two 2004 tracks by Keane, Somewhere Only We Know and Everybody's Changing.

 

By the end of the next decade, I'll be 31 years old. Hopefully I'll still be able to appreciate the songs without complaining it's just noise!

Honestly, this has been one decade that has seen little diversity and we've had two genres too dominant - the guilty parties being urban and Mr Simon Cowell with his karaoke acts.

 

Rock has broke into emo (eww), kiddie (McFly, Metro Station) and a strength to strength Indie scene (Keane, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, Kaiser Cheifs).

 

Dance has gone through a stage with generic covers of 80 songs, with some rare gems like "Release Me", "Vinegar" and "When Love Takes Over" which despite a Euro-pop edge, are very decent pop songs with a great melody and catchy choruses.

 

Pop - Long gone are the multitude of boybands we had in the 1990s though stalwarts like Westlife, Backstreet Boys have still been around with the latter re-inventing themselves with the times. This also has led to the revivals of Take That and Boyzone. Girlbands have been the rage with the success of Girls Aloud who have had some very good songs, The Saturdays new pretenders to the throne who have become pop with an edge and one of the best girlbands this country has at the moment. Sugababes despite an inter-changable line-up have given us a more soulful vibe and have produced many catchy songs. There has been some less-succesful ones such as Smoke2Seven (gappy-teeth, bad voiced band) and the underrated The 411 who were a more sassier Sugababes. One of the pop highlights of the 00s has been the 80s revival this year with Little Boots, La Roux and Lady Gaga - who have all saved 2009. Less succesful ones such as Frankmusik and Tommy Sparks have even had the odd good song.

 

Electro - One of the best things of the 00s - Scissor Sisters, Mika, Ladyhawke, the ones mentioned in the 80s revival sentence.

 

Indie - As mentioned by mushy, a lot of it has become guitar-based pop with acts such as The Feeling, The Script, Snow Patrol, Maroon 5 and a few less succesful ones like The Yeah Yous. All have had memorable songs and big hits and have been universally liked.

 

Urban - Perhaps the satan in the field of music. A lot of it has been chav rap like Blazin' Squad, Fugative, Tinchy Stryder and Dizze Rascal - An automatic hit field with the likes of Kayne West and Jay-z featuring of a song which is likely to give any singer a top 10 which I feel is unfair, and what makes me mad is a certain Mr West has been rewarded for bad bevahviour. Banality such as Black Eyed Peas, especially with 2009 with their two idoitic songs "I've got a feeling" and "Boom Boom Pow", plus these one-trick acts like Iyaz and Khia. We've had the smutty with sexual lyrics which was still a common factor in the 90s (Patra anyone?) plus dressing like sluts such as Rihanna and her ilk, but for all these bad urban acts there has been good ones especially with the more soulful singers, particulary with females like Beyonce, Alicia Keys and home-grown like Amy Winehouse, Shena, V.V.Brown and Duffy. One wish I would like for the 2010s is the urban domination to end, and more variety.

 

Songwriters have been a well praised choice, especially female ones like Amy Winehouse, Duffy, Jem, the criminially ignored Adele, Amy McDonald and some male ones such as Jason Mraz (with the uber-annoying "I'm yours), James Blunt (he did have some great songs), James Morrison, Gary Go and Newton Faulkner to name but a few.

 

The grim reaper of this decade has been reality TV. Yes there has been a few class acts such as Girls Aloud, Will Young, Darius Danesh, Susan Boyle, Leona Lewis and Shayne Ward plus the criminally ignored Sinead Quinn who should have had more hits than the dull and bland Lemar but many many bad ones such as JLS, Alexandra Burke, G4, Andy Abraham and dodgy one-time winners such as Leon Jackson, Joe McEldrey and Steve Brookstein. At first it was not much of a hassle and OK they had a #1, but sometimes it wouldnt be total saturation and bought charts, but since 2005/6 it has been a cancer to the UK music industry with Simon Cowell literally buying the media and charts with his tenth rates acts and forcing this upon the public. Rage Against The Machine being Christmas #1 is saving the soul of the UK and a great end of the 00s. I think we are seeing a back-clash, but will it last - time will tell. I have hated these High School Musical/Glee Club/Disney Kids shows being popular too. What happened to the days when Disney just made cartoons of old tales?

 

The charts biggest mistake was relaxing the download rule for older songs. Thanks to crappy shows like FIX-Factor plugging them and adverts promoting them. This has ruined it for genuine artists to have a big hits and ruins the fact songs can have 100+ weeks in the charts like "Sex on fire" and "use somebody". Radio has become zombies to the Cowell franchise and huge labels, or like Radio One presented by a team of muppets.

 

Music channels with competition from Youtube, I-tunes, napster et al seem to have suffered due to the Cowell franchise and elimating public choice. People need to have a choice and not be slaves to cheapo acts and annoying bad songs like "Sex on fire". Where is the variety people?

 

Overall the 00s has been the decade with little modern-day classics but the decade in which music sold it soul to the devil.

Coming at this from an indie angle, after a slow start, the decade really was kicked into life by the emergence of the new garage rock. These included a whole host of US bands such as The Strokes and The White Stripes. The Vines and The Hives both added to the scene at the time. This then stagnated again before the next wave of Franz Ferdinand etc moved in which led the way perfectly for The Arctic Monkeys to clean up.

 

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have recorded three excellent albums and are definitely one of the bands of the decade.

Radiohead have proven to consistently make good records.

 

This led onto a whole host of brilliant records from both sides of the Atlantic. People like LCD Soundsystem and Elbow have extended the boundaries of trad indie and even though I don't like all of them, the recent emergence of psych-folk such as Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and other oddballs like Animal Collective really augur well for the next decade.

 

Indie is also breaking into pop again especially with the like of the new class of women reaching out into the Top 40 with artists like Little Boots, Florence and Marina. Just wish Fever Ray could join them as well.

 

So sod Cowell and his jolly band of pop muppets as people like Gaga and Christina at the time of Dirrty, Fighter and Beautiful really showed how to be a proper pop star.

 

Indie - As mentioned by mushy, a lot of it has become guitar-based pop with acts such as The Feeling, The Script, Snow Patrol, Maroon 5 and a few less succesful ones like The Yeah Yous. All have had memorable songs and big hits and have been universally liked.

Sorry to pick fault but you have picked the most uninspired selection of "indie" bands possible there. Hardly representative of some of the truly inventive music being made out there. Might as well have just chosen Scouting for Girls there.

Review of the Noughties

 

There is an old pub game you can play to gauge how dramatically rock and pop music has changed in the course of a decade. Imagine a music fan from the start of the decade is transported to its end, and plonked in front of a Decade long Top of the Pops: how confused would they be? In the case of the 1960s, their bafflement would be total: imagine the fan from 1960 – with his Brylcreem, his Tommy Steele & Elvis albums and his suspicion that trad-jazz might be the future of pop – gawping incredulously at the sight of The Beatles; Rolling Stones; The Who; Bob Dylan; Cream; The Doors; Sly & The Family Stone; Motown; Stax and Jimi Hendrix.

 

The same would go for the 1970s: what would even the most forward-thinking "head", their mind recently blown at the Isle of Wight festival, make of the fact that Led Zeppelin; Free; Jethro Tull; Motown; bubblegum pop and the Moody Blues had been replaced by firstly Glam Rock; Chinn & Chapman; Philly soul and later by Punk, Disco and Gary Numan?

 

Ditto the 1980s: Starting the decade with The Jam; Madness; The Specials; Adam & The Ant & the New Romantic movement; seeing those acts develop wonderfully and going ultra commercial before getting wiped out by tax exile and too much cocaine and first over wrought social conscience music by Dire Straits; Phil Collins; Sting; Peter Gabriel & Tracey Chapman and lastly by manufactured dreck thanks to Stock Aitken & Waterman; Neighbours soap stars; New Kids On The Block & Milli Vanilli.

 

A similar story with the 1990s: with pop becoming a dirty word bar the odd Take That with Rave; Madchester; Grunge; Rap music taking over to be replaced by BritPop; more commercial dance music; and only in the last few years seeing pop music having a revival thanks to others following the footsteps of the Spice Girls & TLC.

 

 

But the fan of 2000, shuttled forward to 2009's Christmas Top of the Pops, would probably feel weirdly familiar with the show's contents. They might wonder whatever happened to nu-metal, although the rise of emo might have given them an inkling; and they might be bemused by the sheer number of synthesiser-prodding female singer-songwriters, such as Ladyhawke; La Roux and Little Boots but would have looked at it as a very pleasant novelty in the same way that music fans in the early 1980s took the Rockabilly revival. There are also no shortage of Kate Bush/Bjork/Siouxsie & The Banshees hybrids to fill the void largely left by those three iconic female acts. Even Lily Allen's tonight Matthew I'll be Tracey Ullman trying to be Ian Dury is reassuringly familar.

 

In truth, though, the music that's big in 2009 isn't all that different from what was big in 2000. Travis may have been replaced by Coldplay; and Oasis may have been replaced by Kings Of Leon; but Radiohead are still here just as good and and esoteric as before; Robbie Williams' still doing his Tom Jones meets Norman Wisdom act; R&B isn't quite as staggeringly strange and futuristic as it seemed at the start of the noughties: due to the decade's solitary example of genuinely odd and innovative music that wasn't by Radiohead finding a mass audience, producers Timbaland, the Neptunes; Dr Dre; and Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins competed to see who could make the weirdest-sounding No 1 single; yet they are still all here just their music does not sound as thrilling or exciting. However R'N'B's biggest act Destiny Child has seen its Diana Ross emulate her hero with massive commercial success at the end; 2000 biggest new rap star Eminem is still the world's biggest rap star; Whilst year 2000 Pop Princess Britney Spears despite a personal wobble is now the Queen of Pop; her more talented less magnetic rival Xtina is still around and will bounce back big in 2010; P!nk has gone on to be one of the world's biggest & best pop stars especially as she is a tour de force live; whilst Mariah; Whitney; Janet & Madonna are still around but have been pushed to the outskirts by the class of 1999/2000 taking centre stage in 2009.

 

Depressingly (bar the odd genuinely great act), indie music still appears to be either in the post-Britpop doldrums or in the grip of a post-punk revival that was stirring at the start of the decade – and now (like Dads Army; 'Allo Allo and Heartbeat) appears to have lasted about eight years longer than the period itself.

 

The biggest thing in music that seems genuinely different is a huge negative: Smash Hits & Top Of The Pops have turned up there toes. Without young impressional new (preteen/teenage) music buyers having that education further not helped by Radio 1's willingness to replace ego driven knowledgeable music lovers with TV fame hungry egomaniacs on their daytime schedules (and most shockingly on their flagship Sunday Chart countdown) the national sanity to popular music became vulnerable to exploitation by idiots....... Cue Simon Cowell to make mugs of the Great British & to a lesser extent the USA public in a way far beyond Pete Waterman's dreams/nightmares. The X-Factor has been the biggest disaster to happen to British music ...... Ever. This is a businessman with no love of popular music whom in this weeks Xmas Edition of NME freely admits he regards the 1930s & 1940s as the golden age of music. He has destroyed the Xmas #1 battle with a 5 year monopoly on that position; Whilst his show is essential to any act who aspires a UK#1 single and big selling album in the last third of the year. This is not good for music as it would not be good for any business as he has no love of the art form and creation of music by flogging awful Westlife inspired rotten bad cover versions of old bland songs that your granny and your six year old child would equally like.

 

To quote the words of an artist whom has seemingly sadly retired from the music industry due to ill health after four decades of frequently brilliant, challenging, innovative and thought provoking music "This ain't Rock'n'Roll; this is genocide ......"

 

This doesn't mean there hasn't been some fantastic music; there's been a vast amount across the genres, from Girls Aloud and the Sugababes to the Arcade Fire to Burial to Animal Collective to Jay-Z to Lady GaGa. But there hasn't been the kind of dizzying, rupturing musical progress that once came as standard. Instead, everything got revived, from folk to rave to early 80s synth pop. Quite why is debatable, but perhaps the noughties was the first decade in which attention seemed to switch from rock and pop music itself, to the means by which music was transmitted and consumed.

 

Thanks to the internet, MP3s, iPods, filesharing and their attendant effects on the music industry's finances than on even the biggest pop star. There were moments when music seemed to struggle to be heard over the tocking of iPod clickwheels and the wailing of record company executives. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to suggest there have been no genuine musical developments. Urban and electronica have thrown up endless new sub-genres.

 

But on balance I have no hesitation in saying THIS HAS BEEN THE WORST DECADE FOR MUSIC SINCE THE 1950s.

thanks for the replies guys so far.... especially richard (tip) who is spot on with his 'beginging of/end of the decade comparison' .... indeed the noughties have no identity.

 

were they the worst since the 50's?.... well from an original or creative point of view, yes definately, personally though im not so sure.. as i like guitar pop (known as indie now) this decade threw up some classics, same with rock...

 

as for the furure... i cant imagine much changing, with constant succession of 'revivals' of previous styles proliferating. i dont think this is automatically a bad thing, IF its done competantly.

one thing worth a mention.... the way 2 pop queens from the 80's have fared in the noughties..

 

kylie and madonna...

 

one was undoubtedly the long standing queen of pop producing classy, inspiring pop for nearly 20 years before turning into the 'middle aged divorcee trying to (embarrassingly) re-capture her youth. theres NOTHING appealing about a woman, no matter how 'fit' she is, at 50, cavorting like a 21 year old slapper. her music reflected this and imho madonnas releases this decade have been poor, the poorest of her career. artistes with class, sioxsie, kate bush, alison moyet, annie lennox, etc...women of her generation and who still look good, have poise, dignity and still are sexy.

 

on the other hand, the pop queen that started life as a waterman whim, and was pretty much derided by music fans in the late 80's, finally got respect. kylie matured and produced some of the best female pop of the noughties. 'cant get you out of my head' is the obvious one, but i rate 'love at first sight', 'slow', and even 'red blooded woman' as the best material of her career.

I'm not an old bugger, but I think I might give it a go giving a perspective of being brought up listening to music within the 00's...

I'm not an old bugger, but I think I might give it a go giving a perspective of being brought up listening to music within the 00's...

 

you are welcome as long as theres retro referances to it... the threads about comparisons with retro as opposed to an overall view on the 00s.

you are welcome as long as theres retro referances to it... the threads about comparisons with retro as opposed to an overall view on the 00s.

I'll give it a go ;)

 

I could easily from the top of my head pick a handful of artists or bands that define a particular decade: the 60's being the era of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Supremes, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin; The 70's projected many different styles of music, Abba, Black Sabbath, Blondie, The Sex Pistols, David Bowie; The 80's featured the man Michael Jackson, Guns N Roses, Madonna, Prince, The Pet Shop Boys; and then in my opinion (especially within the UK), artist/band creativity slowly fizzled out in the 90's. The era started of great with bands that still dominate the rock industry such as the likes of The Smashing Pumpkins, RHCP, and an honourable mention to Nirvana, but take that aside, and in my opinion all you're left with is 'pop teen acts' such as Nysnc, The Spice Girls, Back Street Boys etc. taking over the later years of the 90's.

 

I think that this fall in creativity leaked into the dawn of The Naughties. I personally cannot pick any artists/bands that define the 21st Century. Sure, there has been a lot of variety within the charts of the last 10 years, but each year a 'new' (not new, just something reworked from another decade with a few synths stapled over the track) genre comes in, and then out again of fashion. The charts are no longer ground breaking; many genres have became limp and slowly in my opinion all music is falling under into the single 'popular' category.

 

Take RnB/Hip-Hop for example. Whereas notable acts such as Public Enemy, Run-D.M.C., Salt n Pepa and 2Pac often rapped about problems within society throughout the 80's & 90's, the acts of today such as 50 Cent are doing nothing but rapping about how they want to fukk the fittest girl they've ever seen. It's uninspiring. 'Urban' acts such as Beyonce & Mariah Carey have also slowly moved away from their urban/RnB routes in search of a more 'pop' mainstream sound.

EDIT: Timbaland. Without a doubt (Dr Dre aside), one of the most innovative hip-hop producers of the later half of the 90's (Aaliyah, Missy Elliot), despite producing some classics from the noughties [JT's 'Cry Me A River/Nelly Furtado's 'Maneater] is a prime example of someone who has been sucked in by the decline of hip-hop into producing trashy pop music smothered in cheap synths and poor lyrics. Shock Value 2 is quite possibly one of the worst albums I have ever heard in a long time.

 

Pop started of great, and is still going strong now. Although it can be argued that the Lady GaGa-character is nothing more but a Ziggy Stardust impersonator; she really is probably the best thing that has came out of this decade, as many kids/teenagers/and even adults know that the biggest businesses within the pop industry of the 21st Century, is not Simon Cowell (will get onto that later!), but Disney. The High School Music phenomenon will always be a figure within the last 10 years, and so will massively popular TV Shows such as Hannah Montana [/Miley Cyrus] and Disney-spawn such as The Jonas Brothers, Hilary Duff and The Cheetah Girls. Disney is the real winner here. And of course, not forgetting Britney Spears. One of the worlds biggest female artists, she rarely writes her own music and has a poor voice (although 'Blackout' was a fantastic pop album), which is pretty upsetting really, when she is far more sucessful then her 'rival'(?) Christina Aguilera, who is one of the best vocalists of the noughties.

 

However, one of the most annoying (two) genres of the decade has to be Rock & Indie. What is rock? The genre itself (while not meaning to) has split off into so many sections it is hard to remember which is which. Just because a band plays guitar does not mean they are not rock! Mcfly.. Nickleback.. quite possibly two of the worst bands to ever come under the title of 'rock' (and yes, there are some girls within the UK who do actually believe that Mcfly are a rock band :lol: ). And then of course there was 2006, the year of the 'emo', where My Chemical Romance scored a #1 single with 'The Black Parade'. Okay, I won't lie, 'Teenagers' is a good song, BUT I've searched and searched, and there is nothing emotional about anything within their songs, production and song writing. And don't even get me started of the 'Chinese Democracy'... :lol: And 'indie'. Tbf, I never really got into the indie hype of '2005' [that of course referring to when NME constantly hyped the Arctic Monkeys] because quite frankly, I found it annoying. However, that aside and a year or two later, I've come to realise that their first two studio albums are two of my favourites from the decade. But of course when you get massive 'indie' hype, you get spin off ""indie"" bands (and I put two speech marks around that!) such as The Hoosiers, Scouting For Girls.. that aside, there have been some great mainstream rock/pop bands such as Muse, Bloc Party, Radiohead, and of course that fantastic return of AC/DC. But still to this day, there hasn't been any ground breaking material like that from The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath or Jimi Hendrix, who's songs changed music. No denying, Kings of Leons' 'Sex On Fire' is a good song, but it doesn't make me want to pick up a guitar and learn how to play it!..

 

There's a lot more aspects of music within the noughties that I'd like to comment on, but I'll leave it for my next post. I'll end however on two subjects, the first being what in my opinion has destroyed the music industry. And no again, it's not Simon Cowell, it's auto tune. It quite possibly is the worst device ever to be invented. The nifty software disguises vocal blunders, in studio and even out on stage. This is one quote I used for an essay I wrote about it a while ago: "a poorly sung note and transposing it, placing it dead centre of where it was meant to be." Now music is actually being manipulated, dumbed down? Surely the whole point of being a singer is to SING.

 

 

Secondly, I draw your attention to the Top 10 Best Selling Singles of the 21st Century :lol: :

 

1. Will Young - Evergreen/Anything Is Possible

2. Gareth Gates - Unchained Melody

3. Shaggy - It Wasn't Me

4. Alexandra Burke – Hallelujah

5. Band Aid 20 - Do They Know It's Christmas

6. Tony Christie - Is This The Way To Amarillo

7. Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head

8. Shayne Ward - That's My Goal

9. Hear'Say - Pure & Simple

10. Bob The Builder - Can We Fix It

 

You know something has gone wrong when in the Top 10 best selling singles of the noughties, five of the tracks are covers, four coming from a reality tv show; one of which who actually HAS his own tv show! And quite clearly, a really poor list.

thanks for that excellant post josh :)

I read all reviews from this page and all pretty much sum the essence of this decade so I will not post another review, only names. For me the noughties were good enough. I'm interested by two main musical genres: electronic and rock music (in this order). Also I like some pop music (sometimes already included on the previously mentioned genres).

 

 

From electronic music field, this decade gave us LCD Soundsystem, Röyksopp, Goldfrapp, Ladytron, Telefon Tel Aviv, Client, Ulrich Schnauss, Alpinestars, Planet Funk, Kraak & Smaak, The Knife, Fever Ray, Kleerup, Midnight Juggernauts, Cut Copy, Pendulum, Conjure One, Gravity Co., Mylo, Futureshock, The Avalanches, Fujiya & Miyagi, Hot Chip, Simian Mobile Disco, Télépopmusik, Marsheaux, Miss Kittin (+ The Hacker), Ellen Allien, Bent, Peter Heppner (as solo artist), FC/Kahuna, Arovane, Telepathe, Loscil, Kosheen, Lemon Jelly, múm, Crystal Castles, M83 (stargaze but still an electronic act), Rob Dougan, Sally Shapiro, Cloetta Paris, Apparat, Hybrid. These are electronic music artists that were established or released debut albums this decade.

 

With so much brilliant electronic music, no one can complain! B)

 

 

From rock/indie rock music: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kasabian, Editors, Interpol, The White Stripes, Gorillaz, The Kills, Ladyhawke, The Killers, The Postal Service, Emilie Simon, Sonic Youth, Lacuna Coil, Siouxsie, Battles, Rilo Kiley, Metric, Dntel, M.I.A., Lykke Li, KT Tunstall, Santigold, Feist, Franz Ferdinand, Animal Collective, The Strokes, Dot Allison, Coldplay, Charlotte Hatherley, Bat For Lashes, Broadcast, Arcade Fire, St. Vincent, Duffy, Keane, Katie Melua, MGMT, Tracey Thorn, Phoenix, Jem (only first album), Snow Patrol, Kaiser Chiefs, The xx.

 

As for pop music, few names: Róisín Murphy, Annie, Robyn, Pink, Robbie Williams, Dido, Gabriella Cilmi. The same for hip hop: OutKast, The Streets, Eminem.

 

 

Other quite old acts continued to release great music: Thievery Corporation, Daft Punk, Depeche Mode, Garbage, Recoil, The Cure, Muse, UNKLE, Radiohead, The Orb, The Chemical Brothers, The Crystal Method, Fatboy Slim, Faithless, RHCP, Red Snapper, Portishead, Saint Etienne, Paul van Dyk, New Order, Natalie Imbruglia, Moloko, Cranes, Massive Attack, Manic Street Preachers, Bruce Springsteen, Underworld, Orbital, Ivy, Emiliana Torrini, Gus Gus, Groove Armada, a-ha, Green Day, U2, Curve (too bad they disbanded!!), Guano Apes, David Gray (esp. "White Ladder"), Super Furry Animals, Boards of Canada, Biosphere, Björk, Apoptygma Berzerk, Air, Beck, Beth Orton, Morcheeba, William Orbit, FSOL, Chicane, Enigma, Hooverphonic, Schiller, Way Out West, Tosca, VNV Nation, Ian Brown, Kraftwerk (esp. "Minimum-Maximum").

 

 

By the way these lists are quite subjective because there are only artists I know and like. My favourite band of this decade could be Ladytron: I love (almost) every song they made and how they evolved from debut till now. :winner:

 

Just my opinion...

Edited December 24, 200915 yr by Alin

The Noughties - A Metalheads Perspective

 

Saying this now and looking back on it, I still feel a little silly - but damn it, Limp Bizkit changed my life. As someone hitting adolescence as the millenium turned, I needed some sort of musical outlet, and lo and behold, nu-metal arrived. Mixing rapping lyrics with heavily distorted and downtuned guitars, it was an adolescents dream, and predictably, as a new generation looked to the charts and shouted "We need new music!", Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Papa Roach looked back and shouted "F**ck!" Of course, back then, this was the greatest thing a teenager had ever heard in the music scene, having been too young to remember the brief hard-rock/heavy-metal renaissance of the early 90s, so nu-metal had to suffice. It's easy to look back on it now, having a more widely developed musical taste, and call nu-metal for what it was - poorly manufactured musicianship, lyrics and images designed purely for the teen market and an insult to the heavy-metal forefathers that came before them. Yet despite this, I can't help but look back at this with a certain degree of fondness - because as criminal as Limp Bizkit were to music, they at least stopped me listening to the equal crimes of Boyzone and the Spice Girls. Plus, not all nu-metal turned out to be bad - Disturbed learnt how to master their histrionics and embrace them, whilst Slipknot underwent a seemingly Cinderella-esque musical transformation, developing more melodic and intricate music.

 

And then there was the other great change in noughties metal - the New Wave of American Heavy Metal. Combining more tradtional metal musicianship, influenced by Metallica, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, with questionable lyrical content and pop hooks, it was a bizarre combination, but damn it, they seemed to strike a chord with people. Avenged Sevenfold, Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium are the most notable bands from this emerging genre, all of whom have made an impact on the UK charts. In my personal opinion, the only one of these I find even tolerable are Avenged Sevenfold, and even then I'd consider them a relatively average metal act. On the other end of the spectrum, underground metal has gotten predictably heavier and sillier. The morbid growls of Cannibal Corpse and other death-metal acts seem to have dominated. For me, death-metal remains a strangely alluring yet ultimately toxic genre - the sheer energy and brutality of the bands is sure to attract any metal fan, yet ultimately, it often sounds like an indecipherable wall of technical noise that is very difficult to appreciate. Despite this, there have been a few great extreme metal acts that have even one me over - Opeth, blending death-metal brutality with haunting melodies, had their finest moment with 2001's 'Blackwater Park', whilst Amon Amarth have mastered the art of singing about nonsense, looking like tools, yet managing to make it sound good. 'Twilight of The Thundergod' is mythological metal at it's finest hour since Manowar at their peak.

 

However, what let's this decade down is the lack of new bands to truly make an impact in the scene. The aforementioned Opeth and Amon Amarth remain popular, as do Mastodon who have garnered great critical acclaim for their 2009 progressive metal concept album 'Crack The Skye'. But there hasn't been any Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Metallica, redefining the genre...or has there been? They say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, yet the classic metal acts have all released some of the finest metal albums of the noughties despite approaching conventional retirement ages. The evergreen Iron Maiden have released three albums this decade, of which the first and last have been fantastic. Metallica, despite nearly breaking apart around the atrocious St. Anger period, stunned the entire metal world with 2008's 'Death Magnetic', arguably the greatest return to form ever seen. Megadeth's story has been similar, albeit slower - they were just a year behind Metallica with 2009's 'Endgame', another stunning work of technical thrash metal. Slayer, unfortunately, remain strangely lost; World Painted Blood, while a decent enough album, sounded too much like an old vintage car desperately trying to keep up with the times.

 

Ultimately, the noughties have been a decade in which metal has practically gone full circle. Nu-metal was borne out of the need for new metal bands to replace the old; yet the decade has ended with the old bands wreaking their revenge, proving that they never really went away. The decade may have been short on new, genre-defining bands - although Alestorm should get a reward for their brilliantly comic invention of the 'pirate metal' genre - but metal remains as powerful at the end of this decade as it did at the end of the last. The question is who will take the genre to the next stage - nu-metal failed in the noughties to reinvent the wheel, and for the classic acts, this upcoming decade may very well be their last hurrah. So for what it's worth, metalheads all around the world, it's time to see exactly where we do go from here. This decade may have given us some great albums and some promising new bands, but the road ahead for new metal music remains worringly bare.

Double-post, internet broke.

Edited December 24, 200915 yr by ags_rule

Triple-post, internet broke.

Edited December 24, 200915 yr by ags_rule

I'd like to commend the people who've contributed so far, i thought the accounts above were very well-written and thought-out, and raise interesting points. It's good to hear different perspectives from all ages and fan bases.

I couldn't really put it better to be honest.

 

I wouldn't say the decade has been a favourite of mine either but it has thrown in a few gems here and there.

Of course if you look beyond the chart, there has been many good tracks which has fallen by the wayside, thanks

mainly to lack of promo and airplay.

 

So if you judge the noughties as more than the top 40 it isn't that bad. It wasn't all cowell-lite and urban dominated.

We've had great singer-songwriters, good alternative sounds, hard rock and great pop songs.

 

True the state of radio didn't leave a lot to be desired with bland playlists and Radio 1 churning out presenters more interesting

in their ego then music (mentioning no names), the demise of Smash Hits and TOTP was a great loss. We need TOTP back more than ever, it's one thing i hope the next decade brings. C'mon the demand is right there, the BBC just need to act.

 

Edited January 8, 201015 yr by Mark.

I'd like to commend the people who've contributed so far, i thought the accounts above were very well-written and thought-out, and raise interesting points. It's good to hear different perspectives from all ages and fan bases.

I couldn't really put it better to be honest.

 

i fully agree, i was taking abit of a gamble risking loads of fanboy comments but instead everybody stepped up to the mark... nice one guys! :)

i think this decade has been just as strong as any other decade. mainstream pop music has been very exciting, with artists such as beyonce, lady gaga and rihanna stepping into the larger than life pop idol shoes once filled by the likes of prince, madonna and michael jackson - whilst the 90's pop scene was dominated largely by boy/girl next door archetypes (think britney, backstreet boys), this decade has seen the rise of some real figures in modern music. whilst not everyone may like kanye west, that's the point - dividing opinion makes for far more interesting popstars - think along th lines of someone like morrissey.