Music was a little better than the first few years of this decade plus 2006 and 2007, with some good British bands crossing over and Emo and Rap somewhat on the wane, but it still could use some work. I'd rank this year third behind 2004 and 2005.

I have to commute home now, so I'll finish this post later.

I actually thought music was strong in 2000-01, 2004-05. amd 2007-08.  It seems like a new style of music emerges every couple of years and gets totally overdone.  Then a new style evolves.

For example, remember when The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, and Good Charlotte hit the scene around 2004?  They were successful and everyone copied them?    The same recently with the 80s remakes of the last few years.  Waaaayyyy overdone! 

2000 - 01  Good albums from Coldplay, Radiohead, Chicane, Groove Armada, Linkin Park,  Paul van Dyk, Sting, Thalia, U2, Paulina Rubio, Shakira, Travis, Ian Van Dahl.

2002 - 2003 Didnt care for those years.

2004 - 05 Good Releases from Coldplay, Killers, Keane, Stars, Block Party, Hard-Fi, Mariah Carey, Shakira, Spoon

2007 - 2008 - I am appreciating music releases again.  Phasing out overproduced dance 80s remakes (though i like some) and it appears that Europe is kicking out good dance and vocal trance music again.

Best year for music in a few years definitely, especially the 2nd half has been decent.

The music is the best in the decade though it wasn't hard imo.  I do like the up and coming bands that made it big this year though.

I thought 2008(especially the second half of it) did show some promise on the music front but we still have a long way too go for a good music scene again. I thought 2007 sucked for music completely with a few exceptions.

I would rank 2008 over 2007 musically not over 2001-2006 though.

This WHOLE decade was nothing but sheesh and we have two years to go! (Since 0 doesn't count, 2010 ends the decade).

Music-Nothing but "American Idol" sheesh.
Movies-Remakes, Sequels, and TV Adaptation sheesh.
TV-All the shows are reality sheesh.

No Originality is in the entertainment bones anymore. :P

This WHOLE decade was nothing but sheesh and we have two years to go! (Since 0 doesn't count, 2010 ends the decade).

Music-Nothing but "American Idol" sheesh.
Movies-Remakes, Sequels, and TV Adaptation sheesh.
TV-All the shows are reality sheesh.

No Originality is in the entertainment bones anymore. :P
No, "American Idol" I would say only made up 20%-25% of the Billboard Charts this decade. Reality TV was big from 2000-2004 on mainstream TV not the whole decade though.

Music was a little better than the first few years of this decade plus 2006 and 2007, with some good British bands crossing over and Emo and Rap somewhat on the wane, but it still could use some work. I'd rank this year third behind 2004 and 2005.

I have to commute home now, so I'll finish this post later.


I pretty much agree with what you said. But I also like the music of 2000, as a continuation of 1999 and the Y2K era. I wasn't into boy bands or teen pop of that era, but more of the hip-hop and R&B that was out at the time (such as Sisqo, Common, Jagged Edge, Avant, Jay-Z, etc.). 2001 was when it started to decline, especially when it went along with the 9/11 aftermath. 2002 was pretty bad, probably the worst 00's year besides 2006. I rarely lisiten to any CD I bought in '02. 2003 was pretty decent, especially with Outkast, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Monica, and a few others. 2004 was pretty good like with Usher, Kanye West, and Black Eyed Peas. 2005 was unique and started to come up with the new sound that grew more in the late 00's, such as T-Pain, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Timbaland, Gwen Stefani, Nelly Furtado, Fergie, Pussycat Dolls, etc. 2006, as mentioned was terrible, I got near to the point where I would have smashed the radio if I heard James Blunt's "Youre Beautiful" one more time. 2007 was an improvement from 2006, which wasn't saying much. '07 had a mix of good hits by Timbaland, Robin Thicke, and Rihanna, but had some cheesy gimmicky ones like Crank Dat (Soulja Boy) and Mims. 2008 has been pretty good all year round, from Flo-Rida's "Low", to "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay, and Estelle, Sonny J, One Republic, Metro Station, and a few others. I also like Katy Perry, but not necessarily for her music, ;D. This year also had a lot of West Coast rap, not seen so much since the early 90's. Dr. Dre's new album was supposed to be released this year, but now it's pushed back till 2009.

I misread the title of the thread. I thought it was just about music, but here are my thoughts on movies and TV. The movies this year have been decent. Of course my favorite one is the Dark  Knight, and I also like Iron Man, Jumper, Wanted, Get Smart, Wall-E, and a few others. I still think my favorite year for movies out the recent ones is 2005. For TV, there haven't been too many new shows that I've got into. The only one I can think of that premiered this year is Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. For TV also I think 2005 was good, since a lot my current favorite shows premiered that year, such as The Office, American Dad, and Everybody Hates Chris.

Music - Jennifer Hudson's "Spotlight," Taylor Swifts, "Teardrops on My Guitar," Julianne Hough's "That Song In My Head," Eric Hutchinson's, "Rock & Roll." Scores by Rachel Portman from "The Dutchess" and Thomas Newman's score from "Wall-e"

Movies - The Dark Knight, Ironman, Wall-E, Sex and the City, Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones.

TV - Well, The Office did pretty well, but could have had some better shows here and there. Family Guy was also a little inconsistant, but still overall always funny. A few shows that I began watching this year was Breaking Bad on AMC, a very off the wall show and What Not To Wear, with Clinton and Stacey on TLC. Probably the worst TV of '08 were the Emmies, which no one watched and Knight Rider, which no one watched.

I think that 2008 has seen the continuation of changes that started happening as far back as late 2005, even, but that are becoming more and more pronounced: a darker and slightly more sophisticated worldview in pop culture, futurism and technological astuteness, greater variety, the declining popularity of "pure" rap in favor of hip-hop pop like Rihanna and even emo, the gradual decline of Reality TV. I like it about as much as 2007 in terms of pop culture...it didn't have Amy Winehouse, though, who I consider to be the most interesting pop artist of the past five or so years. The pop culture was a little bit more intelligent, definitely, with the Dark Knight and the absence of stuff like Souljaboy and "I Love New York" debuting. As a whole, both glam rap and the sex rap are becoming less popular and less influential in pop culture as a whole. You had some good songs from the more alternative dance-pop segment like "Paper Planes" by M.I.A. and some stuff like Santogold that I despised...both good and bad things came in the wake of Amy Winehouse. I'm still not sure how I feel about Katy Perry...it's sort of entertaining trash, IMO. Overall, though, it continued being easier to dance to the music of 2008...a trend occurring since 2006.

Overall: Movies/fashion/TV are a bit better than 2007, but music is about the same overall, give or take...maybe a tiny bit worse.

2008 music in summary from a person who follows most everything:

Music I think was quite a bit better, mainly because there was nothing really as terrible as Soulja Boy, Unk, Mims, Shop Boyz, and "Cyclone" (2007 had a lot of really bottom of the barrel gimmicky rap songs all year), some rather poor music is around that generally annoys me (Plies, "Pop Champagne", that stupid I N D E P E N D E N T song, that one "Swing" song, "Get Like Me", Buckcherry, Nickelback).

In dance pop/pop rock, Britney is back on top again, which people have mixed opinions about, but well I'll just say I don't mind her. Then you have Katy Perry which I agree with James' assessment, it's entertaining trash (I think Britney is generally in the same category too) and I admit to loving that kind of music. You also had Lady GaGa who's just been really coming up lately and "Cry For You" by September which was good. Oh and Rihanna's "Disturbia", I loved that one. You had Paper Planes blow up, which probably I would say is up there as one of the best songs of 2008 though I knew it in 2007. P!nk has also again been quite successful. You also had that Kevin Rudolf dude, who's kinda a mix of dance pop, pop rock, and a hip-hop.

The hip-hop is ok right now better than last year, with T.I. and Wayne being on top, The Game, Ludacris, Lupe Fiasco has good songs throughout the year. Kanye's new weird release whatever genre it belongs too is not bad, I've been playing "Heartless" lately. T.I.'s songs have gotten into the way overplayed category but they're good, Lil Wayne is ok and fairly amusing though overrated. Snoop's "Sensual Seduction" was also a decent "different" hip-hop song from early this year.

R&B/pop you had Jazmine Sullivan, Keyshia Cole, Ne-Yo, Akon, Beyonce, Jordin Sparks, John Legend who have had some decent songs. Leona Lewis obviously had a lot of success and is a great talent.

In the rock/indie scene, Coldplay, Radiohead, Kings of Leon, Ting Tings, MGMT, Raveonettes, Killers, Vampire Weekend, Nine Inch Nails, Portishead had good releases.

In the adult contemporary/soft rock category you had you had Jason Mraz, Sarah Bareilles, Missy Higgins, Matt Nathanson, Joshua Radin, Newton Faulkner, Lenka to name a few with decent songs. Taylor Swift is also pretty good as a country pop artist.

Animation:

"Wall E" is the best animated film

"The Mighty B!" is probably the only new cartoon worth watching.

Music: Duffy & Ting Tings

Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful Of Sunshine" was OK.

It was the best year in music since 1998, and I'm not kidding. I'm so happy dumb music is going away.

I didn't like the teen pop phase of 1999-2000. It way too saturated.
I didn't like the 2001-2007 phase of glam rap either. It was too stupid.
2008 was an ok year in music.
The only thing I don't like is all the disney stars that I think are waaaayyyy overrated.

I think 2009 will be a great year!

Music is getting alot better, but it still needs alot of work. The last time I remember actually liking music was 1998. 2008 was actually enjoyable, especially when rap is not dominating anymore.

I wonder what we were thinking the past 10 years for music?

Movies sucked, except a few, for example, Batman or Iron Man, etc. Tropic Thunder sucked dick.

I don't even care about television anymore.  :P  Lol. Nothing innovative or fun entertainment anymore. No real tv stars anymore.

Oh, crap, I already replied!  ;D Ha ha.

Music is getting alot better, but it still needs alot of work. The last time I remember actually liking music was 1998. 2008 was actually enjoyable, especially when rap is not dominating anymore.

I wonder what we were thinking the past 10 years for music?

Movies sucked, except a few, for example, Batman or Iron Man, etc. Tropic Thunder sucked dick.

I don't even care about television anymore.  :P  Lol. Nothing innovative or fun entertainment anymore. No real tv stars anymore.


If you look at the #1 hits this year, it's the first year since 2001 or 2002 that rap  or rap-influenced R&B only comprised a plurality of them (2006 and 2007 came close, but not quite.) Leona Lewis, Mariah Carey, Usher, Coldplay, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Pink, Britney Spears, and Beyonce all had #1 hits without a significant hip-hop component; only T.I. (2 #1s), Flo Rida, and Lil' Wayne had rap #1s. 2006 and 2007 both had some pop and hip-hop influenced dance-pop, but there just wasn't as much stuff that very clearly wasn't hip-hop.

  '08 was decent with the new Guns N' Roses, AC/DC and Metallica releases...

  Movies '08 - Indiana Jones wasn't half bad.  Dark Knight was okay...

 

08 music simply put the return of britney tv well call it the wath of the writers strike do not distrerb*sp one and done just like viva laughlin movies Iron man is the best but 08 the best year in music? I give ita 8 still to me the best year in music is 1998

I think now that people are being pickier with their choices and buying a lot of their music through online sources, we're seeing variety come back on top again. Unfortunately, I think music was  more inhibited when all we had were CD's and Singles to buy, whereas now, we can pick and choose a lot of what we like and not feel guilty for paying that $.99 fee for it, instead $14.00-$20.00 for a whole CD.


Music is getting alot better, but it still needs alot of work. The last time I remember actually liking music was 1998. 2008 was actually enjoyable, especially when rap is not dominating anymore.

I wonder what we were thinking the past 10 years for music?

Movies sucked, except a few, for example, Batman or Iron Man, etc. Tropic Thunder sucked dick.

I don't even care about television anymore.  :P  Lol. Nothing innovative or fun entertainment anymore. No real tv stars anymore.

I think now that people are being pickier with their choices and buying a lot of their music through online sources, we're seeing variety come back on top again. Unfortunately, I think music was  more inhibited when all we had were CD's and Singles to buy, whereas now, we can pick and choose a lot of what we like and not feel guilty for paying that $.99 fee for it, instead $14.00-$20.00 for a whole CD.



Lately there have been a lot of albums worth buying the entire thing, but what I do is pay $9.99 and download it from iTunes. Some of those albums include the recent ones by T.I., Kanye West, Common, Ludacris, and Guns N Roses.

I think it depends on the person though. There are many people I know who would say an entire album is great, where I may find about 3 songs that I like. And, vice versa. So, I think this is where the whole iTunes thing tends to work. You can still get what you want, but without paying the big price for it. :0)


Lately there have been a lot of albums worth buying the entire thing, but what I do is pay $9.99 and download it from iTunes. Some of those albums include the recent ones by T.I., Kanye West, Common, Ludacris, and Guns N Roses.