Present day (2000-present)

Internet influence

In the early 2000s the entire music industry was shaken by claims of massive theft of music rights using file-sharing tools such as Napster, resulting in lawsuits against private file-sharers by the recording industry group the RIAA.

During much of the 2000s, rock has not featured as prominently in album sales in the US as in other countries such as the UK and Australia. By contrast to those countries, hip hop music, has dominated the US single charts, with artists such as the Game, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Nelly, Eminem and Jay-Z. According to a recent study by Teenage Research Unlimited, hip hop is the most popular format of music among adults from ages 18-34 in the United States. R&B acts like Mariah Carey, Usher and Alicia Keys are very popular on the pop charts, although with the exception of Carey, none of these acts, rap or R&B, sell as many albums as rock did. Nearly all of the best selling albums of all time are still rock.

The biggest factor that has affected the production and distribution of rock music is the rise of paid digital downloads in the 2000s. During the 90s, the importance of the buyable music single faded when Billboard allowed singles without buyable, album-separate versions to enter its Hot 100 chart (charting only with radio airplay). The vast majority of songs bought on paid download sites are singles bought from their albums; songs that are bought on a song-by-song basis off artist's albums are considered sales of singles, even though they have no official buyable single.

Nu metal and Rapcore

In the early 90s, Faith No More broke into the mainstream with their success of the single 'Epic'. This paved ways for bands like Rage Against the Machine, 311, Cypress Hill and later Limp Bizkit, Korn and Slipknot.

This brought a fresh sound by combining rap and rock with much success. Later in the decade this style, which contained a mix of grunge, metal, and hip-hop, became known as rapcore and spawned a wave of successful bands like Linkin Park and P.O.D..

Many of these bands also considered themselves a part of the similar genre nu metal.

Success of hybrid genres

Pop punk

One result of the 70s punk explosion was pop punk. Championed by bands such as the Buzzcocks and the Ramones, the genre was never as commercially successful as the name may have suggested, but it's influence can be still be heard in many artists today; the fusion of pop melodies, rapid-fire playing of instruments, and the raw and visceral lyrics and sound of punk rock is apparent in everyone from Nirvana to Oasis.

Post-grunge

In the wake of Cobain's death a new style of music called post-grunge evolved. Similar to the relationship between pop punk and punk rock, post-grunge differed from grunge in its more radio-friendly pop-oriented sound. After Australia's Silverchair achieved international success with their debut album Frogstomp record labels began to actively search for the "next Nirvana". Former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl's new band the Foo Fighters helped further popularize the genre, and other bands such as Bush, Creed, Collective Soul, Everclear and Live helped cement post-grunge as one of the most commercially viable sub-genres of the late nineties