Now this should be interesting. Inspired by the thread about 2008 music. Now many on here say that everything changed in 2006, but I just don't see it. 2005 is definitely nothing like 2002.

This is definitely a tougher choice. But I would have to go for 2002 being closer. 2005 still had a significant presence of alternative rock (pop punk, post-grunge, etc.) on the pop charts whereas with 2008, alt-rock significantly dropped in mainstream popularity.

It’s hard but of I had to choose it would be closer to 2002. Pop R&B was still prominent in 2002-2005 more so than 2007 onwards in my opinion. However this one is super hard because 2002 was such a distinct year in music. There was still some y2k elements in music unlike 2005 and the overall vibe of 2002 in general just feels a little bit more dated or “old school” compared to 2005. 2002 was the year that emo influences started to creep into mainstream pop culture as well.

A very hard choice but, I would say 2002. It's actaully hard due to how little music and pop culture changed between 2002 - 2008, atleast starting in 2007, the electro sound started to become more common in music compared to the shuffle beat sound from 2002 and 2005. Culturally the 2000s (mainly from 2001ish through 2008) didn't change too much but, technology advanced very quickly.

Tough pick but I would say 2002. Snap rap only got popular until the very end of 2005 with Laffy Taffy, the rest of hip hop in 2005 was Crunk and Scott Storch-produced beats. A lot of R&B songs had shuffle beats like in 2002. Pop punk was just as big in 2005 as it was in 2002, except it was more emo. Pop punk wasn't very big in 2008 besides Paramore. MySpace and Youtube only got popular in late 2005. 2008 was when electro started to impact pop music.

One style of music that was big during the 2005-2008/9 era that doesn't get discussed much on here (mainly because emo and electro dance pop were dominant during that time) was what I like to call "new new jack swing". It's the blend of R&B with faster beats of hip-hop and/or dance and includes artists like Omarion, Pretty Ricky, Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Lloyd, Ray-J, etc.

One style of music that was big during the 2005-2008/9 era that doesn't get discussed much on here (mainly because emo and electro dance pop were dominant during that time) was what I like to call "new new jack swing". It's the blend of R&B with faster beats of hip-hop and/or dance and includes artists like Omarion, Pretty Ricky, Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Lloyd, Ray-J, etc.


Synth pop ?

It was closer to 2002. Even though it did not sound similar to 2002 either. 2008 was the start of the early 2010s and the electropop era in music. 2002 was also a different era still part of the early 2000s, but 2005 was still closer to it musically than 2008 which was completely different musically. Basically 2008 was almost 2 eras ahead while 2002 was only one era behind.