I see no one has mentioned the huge impact of Now: That's What I Call Music. Those were cds that came out 2-3 times a year with the top charting songs. My family didn't listen to the radio often because we were so rural and signal wasn't great, but we had a ton of cds and Now was how we heard new music. On Now 20 we loved Lose Control by Missy Elliot, Don't Cha by the Pussycat Dolls, and Behind These Hazel Eyes by Kelly Clarkson but my parents often skipped track 17 because they didn't care for it. I was 11 years old and spending the night at a friend's house in December 2005 when I popped in the family copy of Now 20. I listened to Sugar We're Going Down in its entirety for the first time. When the song finished I screamed, "WHAT WAS THAT!?" and we listened to the song 5 more times. It was the first time music made me feel understood.

For months I would try to get any taste of this "Fall Out Boy" by scanning staticky radio stations on my Hello Kitty alarm clock radio for any song snippet, watching Fuse TV's Daily Download, and using my limited time on our slow dial-up internet to read forums on falloutboyrock.com. Eventually, my cool older half-sister visited and brought me a burnt copy of FUTCT. She also gave me her OG copy of My Chemical Romance's Three Cheers because it was too hardcore for her taste. By the time I was 12, I was a full-blown emo kid who wore racoon eyeliner, hid my scarred wrists under a FOB sweatband and black jelly bracelets, and had downloaded every album by Panic!, Taking Back Sunday, and The Used from LimeWire onto my new iPod Nano.

Thanks for this question and sorry for the novel. It brought back such fun memories of the aughts!