Britney Spears, and a few more made 1999 special for the world of music. And 2009 saw Yoko Ono resuscitated to life
Britney Spears, and a few more made 1999 special for the world of music. And 2009 saw Yoko Ono resuscitated to life
Approximately 3,650 days after it faded into the ether, 1999 still has a lot to answer for. Like pop tart Britney Spears, for one. On January 12 that year, the former gymnast unleashed what some called her, "schoolgirl-in-heat persona" on an unsuspecting audience of teenagers. 
Rolling Stone magazine described some of the album's tracks as pure spam, but that didn't stop it from breaking a record for highest sales in its debut week by any solo artiste. Those staggering sales created a pop juggernaut that would continue to roll through much of the coming decade -- picking up a surprising amount of bad press along the way -- before motherhood and a couple of failed marriages drew away the attention of journalists towards a new generation of nubile artistes.
The other big story that year (at least for the music industry) was a lawsuit launched, on February 25, by The Artist Formerly Known as Prince against nine websites. In what can now be labelled nau00c3u0083u00c2u00afve behaviour, the media-shy Prince ranted against unauthorised song downloads. He couldn't have known that, less than a decade later, sites like The Pirate Bay ("the world's most resilient bittorrent site") would manage to rake in around US$150,000 per year from advertisements alone.
The year 1999 also left us with the music debuts of Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilera. It saw the annoying Backstreet Boys smash a sales record set by country icon Garth Brooks, and the disbanding of bands like The Boo Radleys, East 17, Grant Lee Buffalo and The Jesus Lizard.
And then there was Columbine. On April 20, 1999, a massacre at a school in Colorado led to a media witch-hunt of sorts, with panic-stricken Americans blaming the violence on musicians like Marilyn Manson, Rammstein and KMFDM. When the attention faded, the acts were more popular than ever before.
In 2009, a number of reformed bands made 2009 special. Like seventies supergroup Plastic Ono Band, which last graced sleeves for the album, Shaved Fish in 1975. Created by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the band boasted, at various points in its short history, members like Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, Billy Preston and Phil Spector. This year saw the release of Between My Head and the Sky, put together by a new line-up including Sean Lennon, Cornelius and Yuka Honda. After years of being reviled, wrongly, as the woman who broke up The Beatles, Ono finally has her rightful place under the sun. The 76 year- old is now recognised as the avant-garde conceptual artist she always was.u00a0 The album's final track has her singing, "It's me, I'm alive." Wezre lucky she is.
The future
2019: the CD can finally Rest in Peace
By broadband-ready 2019, one foresees a private audience with the pop star of one's choice, for a fee deductible online. Auctioned front-row seats, at virtual events, and the death of revered CD collections is imminent. All the music you want may possibly be tapped into, for a monthly payment. The iPod may make way for the iHome, designed by Apple for the company's most devoted fans. Facebook may well have a lot more power than all record company marketing heads put together. And yes, YouTube may be the answer to everything. Expect Susan Boyle as the Prime Minister of Britain.
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