A decade that changed music

With just 28 days to go in the first decade of the 21st century, we still haven’t figured out what to call the last ten years. The Zeros? The Noughts? I asked my grandfather for a little guidance on what they did 100 years ago, but he was born in 1910, so he apologizes for not being of much help.

Whatever the case, ’tis a time of reflection and wonder. On Dec. 4, 1999, there was no such thing as Red Bull, PVRs and the Toyota Prius. We could still visit the observation deck at the World Trade Center and shop at Pets.com. Our airline tickets were still made of paper and we were scared our computers might not cope with the switch over to 2000 and launch some nukes by mistake.

The changes in music since then have been seismic.

Napster (Introduced June 1, 1999): Offered to 30 acquaintances by 19 year-old Shawn Fanning, it gave free file-sharing to people who wanted more music than they could afford to buy. Despite their aggressive litigiousness, the recording industry has been irrevocably changed.

iTunes (January 9, 2001): While the record labels were arguing over what to do about digital downloads, Steve Jobs stepped in with an elegant a la carte 99-cent-per-track solution. iTunes is now the biggest single retailer of music in the world.

Wikipedia (January 15, 2001): Once upon a time we had to rely on quickly outdated magazines and books for information on our favourite music. Then Geocities-hosted fan sites became repositories of valuable information. Allmusic.com is still excellent, but it can’t beat Wikipedia for speed when it comes to updates.

The iPod (October 23, 2001): Unveiled in the post 9/11 fog, the original Mac-only iPod was exponentially better than any of the MP3 players that had come before it. And because they had already accepted iTunes, the record labels didn’t go to war with Apple over it.

YouTube (February 2005): MuchMusic and MTV used to be the primary sources for music videos. Today, they barely bother. Meanwhile, search for just about any song or any video on YouTube and you’ll almost certainly find it instantly. Google, YouTube’s parent (they bought it for $1.65 billion in November 2006) boasts they get a billion views a day.

My, how much can change in just a couple of years.