The Phrygian Cap

Still some days left till 2010. Still some time for an revolution. Or otherwise the revolution is that there is no revolution. :D

think!!

Sadly...reggaeton & rememeber

without a doubt, electronic music. DJ's win!

oh and 1970's > punk rock.

I'd say "Digital", or perhaps "Convergence". With the advent of digital music storage and playback, I think there is a lot looking back to the past, people listen to music from so many different eras and genres that you probably can't describe one style that would define things.

mp3

Britney & Mylie?

*duck*

“Crap”

emo?

I'd say the decade of Web 2.0 bands, getting well known via the internet. It's hard to label it with one style because the public at the internet is diverse and mostly large enough for dozens of different bands. If I did have to I'd say alternative pop and rock has grown a lot this decade.

Emo & Electronica? (These are not the only ones, but if you look at your own list, you've for instance left out punk and probably a whole lot of other (influential) styles that I can't name now, so the whole idea "one decade = two styles" is flawed, anyway.)

electronic music & independend rock

YES! I have often pondered this. Same for fashion - it's just a jumble of the last ~100 years. There's no distinctively naughties music or clothes IMO. Maybe it's only distinctive looking back at it?

Pop & rap, unfortunately. Britney & Jay Z.

Youtube?

Generic "factory" pop, rap, and other crap.

Unfortunately it was really the emo & rap decade.

I think the closest you'll get is the ability to mix any or all of the above. What that leaves for the next decade is an entirely different question.

I can only hope 2010 will see the end of Emo/Screamo :|

Death metal, obviously. :)

Operación Triunfo, ffsake. I hope the decade ended sooner :(

The beginning of the twenty-first century saw a hell of a lot of cultural change. The power of the recording industry was at its peak, and CD sales were at their highest ever. But, like with any boom, a bust was soon to follow. Vast technological expansion led to an unprecedented new freedom for the consumer: not only freedom of choice, but also freedom of anonymity. Ironically, the booming, aging record industries took their powered heights and used them to impose control over the ever more liberal consumers, not realising the precariousness of their situation.

The consumers adapted: generations who had grown up with the technologies deftly avoided any restrictions, paying no heed to the imperatives of their predecessors. Systems evolved to help them: BitTorrent, YouTube, Last.fm, Tor. The industries had lost the plasticity they once had, and made their old methods ever more stringent. Their sight had weakened, and they could not realise, even though history had gone before them, the tantalising addiction to the new freedom.

The Internet provided this freedom, and with it came a new individuality. Mortals could take on the roles of the old titans, host a website, produce their music; make themselves. The archaic centralised production and distribution from the 20th century could not provide a strong enough fortress, and quickly it became clear how commercialisation had degraded culture: reduced to appeal in the most common way, generalising, stripping any specialities. "Mainstream" culture began to die, producing little but tack, save a few emissions of genius. Brief emissions were all they were: the artists could not for long withstand the lure of Smaug's hoards.

Technology was our Trojan horse. In the next decade, the dinosaurs will not adapt, and individuality will evolve again. Culture, just like our free software, will become decentralised: people will build on the ideas of their contemporaries, rather than subsuming to an omniscient god. Copyright will change, as we are seeing now, and diversity will once again blossom. There may be the odd GNOME vs KDE war, or its analogies, but, hey, we enjoy them, and they're good food for thought.

Shit shit and more shit.

RIAA be thanked.