Ah, the first decade of the new millennium: terrible terrorist attacks that should now logically make terrorists love us (they hate us for our freedoms, remember?), two economic bubbles, presidency going from bad to worse... But fortunately it was a decade of good music too.

In 2000 I started college and that was still that troubled part of my life so I was still into harder rock. Bad Religion and The Offspring were my favorite groups. I also discovered heavy metal, for which I never really cared before. Metallica's Whiskey in the Jar (it took me so long to actually discover what the title was) is one of their best ever. I also rediscovered 80s rock like Guns and Roses. Sweet Child of Mine, Paradise City and Welcome to the Jungle still rock after all these years.

Then in 2003 I was in this exchange trip called Katimavik. During 9 months I lived in 3 different communities in Canada doing volunteer work. It was a great self-improvement experience and many musical tracks evoke fond souvenirs. Happy Boys, Happy Girls (Aqua), Stand By Me (B.E. King), Bro Hymn (Pennywise), Summer of 69 (Bryan Adams), Sand Storm, Dope (Die Mofo Die) and many other will forever be associated with this memorable part of my life. This is probably the only time when I learned to "appreciate" hip hop like Eminem (Without Me?) and Afroman. I also learn to appreciate AC/DC, whose singer I thought has an annoying voice.

After that I went to university and expanded by playlist of rock music: Foo Figthers, Billy Talent, Sum 41, Papa Roach, System of a Down (to a lesser extent; they are "too" heavy at times), Three Days Grace and many others. Pop music also had some interesting tracks with the rise of Kate Perry (I Kissed a Girl) and Black Eyed Peas.

And for the first time in over a decade, French music got interesting again, at least in Quebec. Anick Jean, Les Pistolets Roses, Pénélope, Les Trois Accords and Vulgaires Machins made me realize that rock also exists in Molière's native tongue!

Finally, the last period covers 2008-2010 when I had my first "real" (not minimum wage) job. I don't associate a lot of music to that period since work occupied most of my days. Nevertheless, I'm still addicted to AC/DC's Rock and Roll Train, King of Leon, Theory of a Deadman, Nickelback (yes, they have good songs) and Alice in Chains. It was also the time when Lady Gaga rose to fame, and even though I'm not fond of her style her songs were style enjoyable in moderate doses like Poker Face and Bad Romance.

What are YOUR best souvenirs of the first decade of this century?

Early 2000's is when I got my first CD player. First CD I was allowed to get? The Backstreet Boys Millenium CD. So of course, their music is one of my most memorable 2000's music moments. I still like them, so sue me.

Then when my mother 'discovered' N*Sync (thank you Burger King promo CDs) I was allowed to get their music, that I had been listening to in secret at school until then. Christina Aguilera followed thanks to Mom finding out she sang in Mulan. 

THEN CAME THE INTERNET and Yuni got flooded with all kinds of things. AQUA became an insta-fave, as their quirky sound and lyrics fit right in with what I liked to do homework to. I'm Blue by by Eiffel 65 became one of my faves, though I was never able to get a CD. Somehow this lead to Dragostea Din Tei, which is still one of my favourite songs despite becoming a meme; same with Caramelldansen. Memes, yes, but they are the songs that introduced me to non-English speaking music. From that came my short obsession with M2M, a Norwegian pop group that released one of my favourite singles: Mirror Mirror.  I WAS able to find the single track at Wal-mart back then. I still have it somewhere, and still love the song. 

Evanescence also came with Yuni Discovering The Internet, and my musical love affair with that group has yet to abate.  Even the more depressing tracks make for great writing music, and they're one of my go-tos when I get stuck on something.

Bryan Adams made a comeback when my parents realized he'd gone solo, and I was able to get my hands on a couple of his CDs, and to this DAY I love his slightly scratchy sound. I am  grateful to them for introducing me to Aerosmith and then Bryan Adams.

In 2002 I also discovered that video games not only had soundtracks in the games, but you could buy the soundtracks by themselves, and my world was forever changed. Pretty sure it gave my parents a break from listening to the faint sounds of rock or Euro-pop coming from my room. Instrumentals and the occasional Japanese lyric gave me some calm and helped with homework a lot back then.  

Funny thing is is that every last thing I've mentioned I either still have on CD or on MP3, and still listen to. I have just added more and more to my ever growing library of music. One of these days I'm going ot have to get myself an mp3 player, but I honestly don't know if I'll be able to fit all of my CD/ mp3 music collection ON one by this point. 

Yunimori: Ah yes, Evanescence. I forgot about that group because, while having a few good tracks, they never had a huge success on Quebec radio and their songs were not played often. When describing the group, my father (who had a coy of their album) thought it was "Linkin Park with a female voice."

How could I forget about Linkin Park?! Hybrid Theory is one of the best albums of all time! The mixing in the album makes all the tracks follow each other like one giant song and the songs by themselves sound like nothing I had heard before.

Papercut, while having a strange music video, is by far the group's best song. Crawling, One Step Closer and In the End were also excellent. Too bad the "rappy" guy gained so much importance for Meteora; that decreased my interest for the group quite a bit.

I also like some of Christina Aguilera. Stronger and Beautiful are very good songs that surely help motivate someone. "Dirty" was a popular song during Katimavik. I still remember the VJ's comment after first airing the song (it was not too long after Britney Spears' Slave for You): Now, we really have to wonder how low Britney Spears will go after that.