I was at a fair with my dad and my grandpa, and for some reason, Dallon Weekes was there, and he was my uncle. We spent the day going around the fair, and then Dallon had to go and do a show, and that’s where my dream ended.
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Lacey Duvalle and Fat Joe on the cover of “Fish ‘n’ Grits
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Year-End Poll #53: 2002
[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Nickelback, Ashanti, Nelly, Nelly and Kelly Rowland, The Calling, Vanessa Carlton, Linkin Park, Fat Joe, Usher, Puddle of Mudd. End description]
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We're starting to see post-grunge start to take the place of alternative rock in the pop charts, with the rising popularity of Nickelback, The Calling, Puddle of Mudd, Creed, 3 Doors Down, and other similar acts. Despite the immense popularity (or perhaps because of it), post-grunge continues to be a controversial label among rock listeners for the genre's tendency to favor pop-friendly melodies and "simpler" subject matters.
Speaking of controversial rock subgenres, this year also contains a single from one of the best-selling debut records at the time (going 12 times Platinum), Linkin Park's In the End off the album Hybrid Theory. And with that (or parallel to that) came the rise of nu metal and rap metal in the mainstream. It's notable because, at least not since glam metal in the 80's, there hadn't been a subgenre of metal that really blew up with mainstream non-metal audiences to the point where it came to define that moment in time for many. (I know Metallica was able to spread past the confines of genre listeners, but that didn't really lead to a thrash or heavy metal craze among people who wouldn't have already been predispositioned to listen to it).
Nu metal is also incredibly fascinating to me personally because it really shows how "genre" can differ whether you're approaching it from a music-listening perspective or a marketing one. If I had to boil "nu metal" down to a simple set of characteristics, it would be "a subgenre of metal that favors shorter runtimes, takes heavy influences from hip-hop sound and culture, and is often associated with the early 2000s". But if you asked marketing teams at the time, "nu metal" would probably be defined as, "the popular rock music we can't market to the alternative rock crowd". That could be why, to this day, you often see bands like Linkin Park, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Staind, System of a Down, and even Evanescence lumped together under the descriptor, even though I think they don't all have much in common other than the time period, song length, and popularity. If you're marketing on the radio, it makes more sense to squish them together instead of trying to split hairs over subgenres. Only a few (and by "few" I mean "one") of these artists I've listed will be featured in future polls, but I wanted to ramble about this anyway.
Anyway, despite the immense amount of money brought in by albums like Hybrid Theory, the record industry was still scrambling to find ways to get people to pay for music again. In 2002, Nokia released the first polyphonic ringtone, which allowed the phone to play several notes at once. With cellphones growing in popularity, this may be the solution the record industry was looking for.
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