Music timeline 2000-2015

• 2000 : Mum's Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Is Ok mixes glitch electronica, chamber instruments and folk-rock. Berlin's "Love Parade" becomes the largest dance event in the world, attended by almost one million people. 27 people die of ecstasy in just one year in England. Curtis Mayfield dies. Tomata du Plenty dies. 25,000 people attend the Burning Man festival at Black Rock Desert, which has become a city of art installations. The "Midi Music Festival" is held in Beijing, the first music festival in China. July: San Francisco hosts "Skratchcon", a conference for turntablists. French media giant Vivendi buys Seagram. Warner is the only "major" that is still American: Universal is now French, Sony is Japanese, EMI is British, BMG is German. Kevin Lewandowski launches discogs.com. Hossein Sharifi launches RateYourMusic. Other significant albums of the year: Spring Heel Jack's Disappeared. Independent labels founded in 2000 include: Def Jux.
• 2001 : Larry Tee, owner of the "Luxx" club in Brooklyn, organizes the "Electroclash" festival, which establishes electroclash (a fusion of punk-rock and dance-music) as a stand-alone musical genre. Sales for the record industry slip 5% (first decline in ages). Napster is found guilty of breaching copyright law. John Fahey dies. Sandy Bull dies. Fred Neil dies. Joey Ramone dies. Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh dies. "Puncture" ceases publication. Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom launch the file-sharing service "Kazaa". 62 albums released by the Universal group sell more than 1 million copies in 2001. The file-sharing service Kazaa is founded in Amsterdam by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. After reaching 26 million users, Napster is forced to shut down by the recording industry, while new file-sharing systems are established worldwide (LimeWire and Morpheus in the USA, Kazaa in Sweden). Other significant albums of the year: Solex's Low Kick And Hard Bop, Lofty Pillars'sAmsterdam, Scott Tuma's Hard Again.
• 2002 : Dee Dee Ramone of the Ramones dies. Joe Strummer of the Clash dies at 50. Otis Blackwell dies at 72. The top-selling album of 2002 is a white rap album, Eminem's Show. The "Bonnaroo" festival is born as a jam-based marathon. EMI buys Mute. "Pulse" ceases publication. CD sales decrease 9%. Warner acquires Tommy Boy. Independent labels founded in 2002 include: Eastern Developments. The first "Projekt Revolution" tour promotes rap-rock fusion.
• 2003 : Apple introduces the on-line music service "iTunes", which sells 25 million songs by december. Universal reduces the price of CDs by 30%. Market shares: Universal 26.3%, BMG 16.7%, Warner 16.1%, Sony 13.7%, EMI 11.2%. The top-selling album of 2003 is a black rap album, 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin'. CD sales decrease 2%, from 649.5 million units in 2002 to 635.8 million units in 2003. Piero Scaruffi's "A History of Rock Music" is published. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sues more than 260 individuals for sharing music on the Internet, including some children. The file-sharing system Rapidshare is founded in Germany, the file-sharing system TorrentSpy goes live in the USA, and The Pirate Bay bittorrent website opens in Sweden, and a poll reveals that 50% of USA citizens have downloaded music online. Warren Zevon dies at 56.
• 2004 : Ray Charles dies at 73. Robert Quine dies. British DJ John Peel dies. Johnny (Cummings) Ramone of the Ramones dies. 143 millions songs are downloaded legally in the USA. The RIAA files 750 lawsuits against file-sharing of music.
• 2005 : Robert Moog dies. Link Wray dies at 76. CD sales decrease 7% in the USA to $602.2 million, while music downloads more than doubled from $134 million to $332 million. 352 millions songs are downloaded legally in the USA. The file-sharing service Megaupload is founded in Hong Kong.
• 2006 : Wilson Pickett dies at 64. Syd Barrett dies at 60. Perry Cook and Dan Trueman found the Princeton Laptop Orchestra using software created by student Ge Wang. Arthur Lee dies at 61. James Brown dies at 73. Kazaa surrenders to the music industry. Global digital music sales double to about $2bn. The RIAA files a lawsuit against Russian-based Internet download service AllOfMP3.com for $1.65 trillion, while the file-sharing service Mediafire is founded in the USA.
• 2007 : Piero Scaruffi's "A History of Jazz Music" is published. "Live Earth" concerts are held all over the world to increase awareness of climate change. The annual "CMJ Music Marathon" presents 1,000 indie rock bands. All four majors (Universal, EMI, Warner and Sony) start selling their music on Amazon's digital-music store in the unprotected mp3 format. Capitol becomes the first record label to sue a file-sharer, teenager Jammie Thomas.
• 2008 : Bo Diddley dies at 79. Richard Wright dies at 65. After passing the one-million torrents mark, TorrentSpy is forced to shut down. Digital downloads grow by 25% to $3.7 billion (including 1.4 billion songs), accounting for 20% of music sales, but the IFPI estimates that over 40 billion songs were illegally file-shared, which means that 95% of music downloads are illegal. The online music service Spotify debuts in Europe. The top-selling digital single is Lil Wayne's Lollipop with sales of 9.1 million units.
• 2009 : Piero Scaruffi's "A History of Rock and Dance Music" is published. Michael Jackson dies at 50. Les Paul dies at 94. Digital sales account for 98% of all singles sold in the USA and Britain. File-sharing services rank among the Internet's most popular websites (Rapidshare is 26th, Mediafire is 63rd) and LimeWire is the largest free file-sharing software with over 70 million unique monthly users, while founders of Pirate Bay are sentenced to jail and the RIAA wins a lawsuit against college student Joel Tenenbaum for file-sharing songs.
• 2010 : Pop stars perform for the benefit "Hope for Haiti". Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) dies
• 2013 : Lou Reed dies
• 2015 : Daevid Allen dies