It's now been a quarter of a century since we raised our glasses to the millennium, a period defined by "Mickey Mouse Club" graduates, double denim and fears that a pesky computer virus was going to plunge us all back into the dark ages. Thankfully, the latter never happened, allowing the youth of today to mine the era's sounds and styles to nostalgic effect.
Indeed, one of the most dominant trends of 2024 was the embracing of Y2K culture, whether it's Halsey sampling Britney Spears' "Lucky," *NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" enjoying a Deadpool-assisted renaissance, or Charli XCX spending her world-conquering summer sporting Von Dutch. And let's not forget Eminem reprising his Slim Shady alter-ego, Ice Spice naming her debut album in honor of the year 2000, or Kyle Mooney's disaster comedy which, as its Y2K title suggests, centers around the aforementioned millennium bug.
But how did pop react to such a monumental occasion first time around? Well, it certainly didn't shy away from the subject. The world's biggest boy band, family-friendly rapper, and Latin pop diva all shared their acknowledgements in audio or visual form. MTV and various concert promoters also recognized they were experiencing a part of history. And while you may well have forgotten, numerous chart-toppers teamed up to try to eliminate third world debt before the turn of the century.
To celebrate the silver anniversary of Y2K, here's a look at nine ways the music scene helped usher in perhaps the most memorable New Year's Eve ever.
Robbie Williams was the first major pop star (well, if you live on the other side of the Atlantic, anyway), to explicitly reference the impending Y2K, naming his Bond theme-sampling 1998 hit "Millennium." Though Williams' co-writer Guy Chambers would later reveal that the song didn't have specific meaning ("It was sort of obvious and a bit cheeky to be honest," he told Songwriting magazine in 2019), it helped the singer notch his first No. 1 in the UK.
In the spring of 1999, Backstreet Boys adopted the same title for their record-breaking sophomore set, which spawned another chart-topper that doesn't make much sense ("I Want It That Way") and later picked up five GRAMMY nominations. Then in slightly more timely fashion, Will Smith dropped his second studio effort, Willennium (see what he did there?), and its second single "Will 2K" just weeks before the "clock struck twelve in the year 2G."
The Y2K Videos
It wasn't just semantically where Backstreet Boys and Will Smith embraced the idea of a new millennium. The former's video for "Larger than Life" was a Transformers-meets-Star Wars sci-fi epic that awakened the heartthrobs in the year 3000. Meanwhile, the latter — assisted by the likes of K-Ci, Eve, and former cohort DJ Jazzy Jeff — raced through various 20th century musical styles before fast-forwarding to a distant cyber future in the promo for "Will 2K."
In the clip for Jennifer Lopez's single "Waiting for Tonight," the jungle-themed New Year's Eve bash is interrupted by a millennium bug-style power outage at the vital moment. Luckily, this mini-crisis lasts just six seconds before the track's Latin dance-pop sound gets everyone back on the floor.
If you've ever wondered what the pop elite of 1999 explicitly thought about the millennium bug, look no further than the highly entertaining MTV News segment titled "From Freaked to Fine." While Jay-Z, Jewel and Dr. Dre all seemed nonchalant about the prospect of vulnerable IT systems bringing about the downfall of society, others appeared to embrace their inner doomsday prepper.
"I have like 80 gallons of water, a whole bunch of Ensure, and generators just in case — I'm pretty sure things will kinda mess up," theorized Q-Tip. "I feel like in every scripture, it has been predicted that this time would be a significant time," remarked Busta Rhymes. TLC also looked to religion for the answers, arguing that the demographic who should be most fearful are devil worshippers.
In fact, TLC were arguably the most Y2K-conscious act of them all. Their three-time GRAMMY-winning third LP, FanMail, leaned into all the pre-millennial paranoia, too — from the space-age binary code artwork, to temporarily replacing Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes with a female robot named Vic-E, to "Communicate (Interlude)" pondering about the future of the digital world. ("There's over a thousand ways/ To communicate in our world today/ And it's a shame/ That we don't connect").
Producer Dallas Austin, who heightened the cyber vibes by sampling everything from internet dial-up tones to the clicks of computer keyboards, later explained the thought process to Billboard. "I was dying to get into the future because 2000 was about to come up. But I've always been into that stuff because I'm a big Star Wars fan. Since we had to use Vic-E in place of Lisa's voice, I thought, 'Let's just go as futuristic as we can.'"
Fourteen years after helping to stage the most iconic benefit concert of all time, Live Aid, promoter Harvey Goldsmith once again persuaded pop's A-list to come together for altruistic reasons. On this occasion, familiar faces George Michael, Sting and Bono joined fresher ones such as The Corrs, Lil' Kim and Stereophonics under the umbrella of the NetAid initiative for same-night gigs in New Jersey, London and Geneva.
"The end of the millennium is the right time for a huge event to highlight the question of how extreme poverty can be eradicated," Goldsmith declared about the purpose of the shows, which raised money and awareness for the now-defunct Jubilee 2000 coalition.
Unfortunately, the reality didn't quite match the dream. While Wembley Stadium reached capacity, attendance at the Giants Stadium show struggled to reach even half. In stark contrast to "We Are the World" and "Do They Know It's Christmas," tie-in single "New Day" (by Wyclef Jean and Bono) sank without a trace. And while its predecessor raised approximately $140 million, NetAid only just made it to seven figures.
You can always rely on "Weird Al" Yankovic for a well-timed skewering of pop culture, and the millennium was no exception. The parodist hosted a VH1 seasonal special, "The Original Alpocalypse: Weird Al's Y2K Christmas!," from his own doomsday bunker. While in "It's All About the Pentiums," a spoof of P Diddy's "It's All About the Benjamins" from 1999's Running with Scissors, he mocked all concerns about the millennium bug ("Upgrade my system at least twice a day/ I'm strictly plug-and-play, I ain't afraid of Y2K").
He wasn't the only artist to address Dec. 31, 1999 in a novelty style. Hank Williams Jr. collaborated with George Jones and Chad Brock for a re-recording of his 1982 hit "A Country Boy Can Survive" ("If the bank machines crash, we'll be just fine"). And although it wasn't presented as a joke, rock veteran Cliff Richard spent three weeks at the UK No. 1 spot with a bizarre mashup of "The Lord's Prayer" and "Auld Lang Syne" titled "The Millennium Prayer."
The Super-Pricey Gigs
While some pop stars viewed the millennium as potentially apocalyptic, others saw it as an opportunity to further line their wallets, with certain promoters offering up to 50 percent more than the norm. Barbra Streisand, for example, was reported to have pocketed a cool $15 million for her New Year's Eve/New Year's Day shows at Las Vegas' MGM Grand. Whitney Houston, Rod Stewart and Eagles were just a few of the superstars who also enjoyed bumper earnings for a few hours' work, too.
But on the whole, the industry appeared to have overestimated the demand.The Los Angeles Times reported that ticket sales for most marquee names were sluggish at best. In fact, despite a star-studded bill that includedAretha Franklin,Andrea Bocelli and Chuck Berry, New York's Celebration 2000 was greeted with such a tumbleweed response that organizers had to pull the plug, prompting one manager to label it as "the Ishtar of concerts."
While many superstars asked fans to brave the freezing cold weather while watching them ring in the New Year, Prince recognized the appeal of partying like it was 1999 from the comfort of your own home. Rave Un2 the Year 2000 saw the Purple One play NYE host for a pay-per-view special screened on In Demand.
Those who forked out for the privilege got to see Prince play more than a dozen hits including "Kiss," "Purple Rain" and "U Got The Look," as well as the highlights from his then-most recent LP, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, two collaborations with Lenny Kravitz, and his own rendition of the track Sinead O'Connor made famous, "Nothing Compares 2 U." Acolytes, however, will have been most interested in what Prince claimed would be the final ever live performance of his aptly-titled hit "1999" (he'd actually go on to play it more than 100 times).
MTV sure pulled out all the stops for their Y2K celebrations. Inviting blink-182, 98 Degrees, Goo Goo Dolls, and Bush to perform, the network also recruited Christina Aguilera to pull double duty as co-host with Carson Daly and Kathy Griffin, and Mark Ronson to spin the decks. But No Doubt offered perhaps the most fitting performance of them all to officially ring in the year 2000.
Just a year after Limp Bizkit kicked off proceedings live from New York's Times Square with a nu-metal cover of Prince's particularly relevant party anthem "1999," Gwen Stefani and co helped ring in 2000 with a song that encapsulated the pre-millennial fears of the big night, R.E.M.'s stream-of-consciousness classic "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." Fortunately, MTV's first-played track of the new year, new century, and new millennium didn't bring on the apocalypse.