Decade's End III: This Time It's Alpha Centauri

People keep adding interesting answers to my Decade's End question, if you want to go back and look. In the meantime I've gotten another response via email, which I'm putting into the comments. The question is:

What do you think the story of the decade in music is? Or what was the story of the decade in music for you? I said "Just list one" last time, but I've kind of added a second question here in adding that "for you" bit, haven't I? So if you answered one of them last time ("what the story is") and the other ("what the story is for me" ["me" being you]) is different, you're invited to answer the second one here in the comments. (And you can comment on the last comments in these comments if you want, lj's "use-by" date being so frustratingly quick.)