A History of Popular Music – The 2000s
People naturally point to September 11th as the launch pad to a cynical decade, but I don’t think we were ever going to make it through with our optimism intact. The pageantry of the eighties had been muted by the nineties, when an ethos shared by hip-hop and grunge cultures declared selling out to be the ultimate sin and made it almost shameful for an artist to entertain. Rather than escapist fantasy, music culture became a sort of blueprint, if not an infomercial, for a lifestyle only slightly out of reach from its socially ambitious followers. A detachment from the industry also unleashed a new intimacy and creative control for a generation of songwriters, with isolation replacing love as music-s new ghost in the machine.
Track List
Burial - In McDonalds
Fever Ray - Keep The Streets Empty For Me
Air – Playground Love
Circlesquare – 7 Minutes
Boom Clap Bachelors - Combiner
Scritti Politti - The Boom Boom Bap
Hot Chip – Bad Luck
Broken Social Scene - Feel Good (Last Reprise)
Bloc Party - Blue Light (Engineers Anti-Gravity Mix)
Panda Bear - Take Pills
Yo La Tengo – Today Is the Day
Gravenhurst - Tunnels
Beach House - Master of None
Kings of Convenience – Winning a Battle, Losing the War
Wilco - Jesus, Etc.
Great Lake Swimmers - Long Into the Evening
Lone Pigeon – Waterfall 2
Gowns - Fargo
The Books - Lemon of Pink, part 2
Amnion - Praise God For the Light Within Me
Antony & the Johnsons - Hope There’s Someone
Color of Clouds - Haunts Me (Acoustic)
WU LYF – Heavy Pop (Early Version)
Wildbirds & Peacedrums – Doubt/ Hope
Liars – It Fit When I Was a Kid
Electrelane – The Valley
Scala & Kolacny Brothers - Heartbeats
Max Richter – On the Nature of Daylight
Supersilent - 6.2
Deerhoof - Adam & Eve Connection
Matmos - Memento Mori
The Orb - Because/.Before
M83 – You, Appearing
The Avalanches – Since I Left You
Ghostface Killah – Irons Theme
Shabazz Palaces – N. Splendored
Rhythm & Sound – Queen In My Empire
William Basinski - DIP 1.1
DJ Sprinkles – Grand Central
D-Angelo – Africa
Bill Wells/ Annie Whitehead – Brown Recluse
Bohren & Der Club of Gore – Midnight Black Earth
Boards of Canada – In a Beautiful Place Out In the Country
Acutely self-conscious and so less inclined towards the wide-eyed experimentalism of the 1980s, the internet became the primary tool for a generation that forged its identity through a collage of pop-culture references from previous decades. Music became more about revisiting old genres than creating new ones, with familiar sounds altered to exaggerate the most tantalizing elements, like what the people who make Kool Aid do with fresh fruit.
Track List
Ricardo Villalobos - Easy Lee (Cassy Lee)
Felix Da Housecat – He Was King
Royksopp feat. Erlend Oye – Remind Me
Metro Area – Read My Mind (Special Dub)
Mark E – RnB Drunkie
Kylie Minogue – Slow
Aaliyah – Try Again (Timbaland Remix)
Tweet – Call Me
M.I.A. – Amazon (Diplo Remix)
DJ Blaqstarr feat. Rye Rye - Shake It To the Ground
Playgroup - Number One
Scissor Sisters - Comfortably Numb
Le Tigre - Deceptacon (DFA Remix)
The Rapture - House of Jealous Lovers
Peaches - Fuck The Pain Away
Junior Boys – In The Morning
Daft Punk – Face to Face
Matthew Dear – Pom Pom
Jurgen Paape - So Weit Wie Noch Nie
Heiko Voss - I Think About You
Herbert – Come On and Find Me
Cabaret Voltaire – Nag Nag Nag (Akufens Karaoke Slam Mix)
The Strokes – Last Night
LCD Soundsystem – Time to Get Away
N.E.R.D. – Dont Worry About It
Britney Spears – Im a Slave 4 U
Amerie – 1 Thing
Glass Candy – Miss Broadway
Chicks on Speed – Kaltes Klares Wasser
Markus Nikolai – Bushes (Norman Cook Remix)
The Knife - One Hit
Moodymann - Freeki Mutha F cker
Larry Heard Presents Mr. White – You Rock Me
St. Germain - Rose Rouge
The Postal Service – We Will Become Silhouettes
The Streets – Weak Become Heroes
Phoenix – If I Ever Feel Better
Ray Mang – Not So Fantastic
Larry Heard Presents Mr. White – You Rock Me (Edit)
Chromatics – In the City
Omar S – Child Run Away
Coyote Clean Up – Cant Shake Full Moon
The Off Key Hat – Emergency Calling (12 Inch)
Burial – Archangel
Ms. Dynamite – Too Experienced
