Anyway, the changes really began around September 2000, with the discovery of internet radio. Dancenet - later renamed DanceRadioOne - was my first real introduction. Early and influential tracks I discovered there included Daft Punk - 'One More Time', Étienne de Crécy - 'Am I Wrong', and David Morales - 'Needin' U' (vocal version).   ✱   Alongside Dancenet, I listened to Pro FM from 2003 onwards. The station played accessible dance, disco, and Italo.

⟶  Pic 1: This is what the Dancenet website looked like. At a later stage, the site was renamed DanceRadioOne.  |  Sound: Fragments of Dancenet, back then.  |  Pic 2: A screenshot of the Pro FM site.

Around the same time, I discovered online discussion boards - a general one and a dance-focused forum with very serious discussions about music.   ✱   I also uploaded my first website. It had Tripodnet in the URL. This marked the beginning of a long string of personal websites, often experimental in design and frequently music-related. My online presence was fairly high-profile (to be honest: too much).   ✱   Not long after those first sites, I started downloading music using P2P file-sharing programs such as Audiogalaxy and Kazaa Lite, eventually burning the results to CD.   ✱   All of this happened within a very short time span. Getting broadband internet was like giving a five-year-old a huge bag of sweets. Due to increasingly expensive phone bills, broadband internet was installed in early 2001.   ✱   Late in the era, the file-sharing program 'Soulseek' joined the list.

⟶  Pic 1: The Dutch discussion board 'Fok!forum'. This was a general one.  |  Pic 2: The dance-focused online discussion board 'Clubcharts', also Dutch.  |  Pic 3: Screenshots of the Tripodnet site.  |  Pic 4: The file-sharing program 'Audiogalaxy', the very first one used here.  |  Pic 5: The file-sharing program 'Soulseek'.

During this era, listening to music was (alongside radio) a mix of buying compilation CDs and burning my own (from early 2002 onwards), using tracks downloaded from Audiogalaxy, Kazaa, and/or Soulseek.   ✱   The bought compilations were a bit more 'all over the place' now, although Hed Kandi was a fairly big name. I liked both the music and the artwork.   ✱   Towards the end of this era, I bought my first MP3 player: the Creative MuVo V100.

⟶  Pic 1: A C-Dance compilation, bought around November 2000. There were still some Belgian dance influences left.  |  Pic 2: The compilation CDs Booom! 4 (Spring 2001) and Booom 5! (Summer 2001), maybe the last typical 'chart dance' compilations I bought new. Both, especially nr. 4, were played a lot.  |  Pic 3: Compilation CDs I burned myself, with artwork partly modeled after the CDs in pic 2. If there were enough tracks I liked, I'd burn a new one.  |  Pic 4: A Hed Kandi compilation from 2000, which I bought in 2002 or 2003.  |  Pic 5: The Creative MuVo V100 MP3 player.

Alongside internet radio, I also listened to regular FM stations such as ID&T Radio (dance) and 3FM, our national public youth radio station. Sadly, there was only one place to listen to internet radio at the time: the computer in the living room.

⟶  Pic 1: A screenshot of the ID&T Radio site.  |  Sound: Fragments of ID&T Radio, around 2003.  |  Pic 3: An advertisement for 3FM and a longread about the same station.

Too many & all over the place. It could be almost anything, ranging from glossy girl magazines to deadly serious music stuff. Some of the magazines I read in those days were dance-oriented, like Bassic Groove and ID&T Magazine. Below are links to a few articles that say a lot about that era.

⟶  Pic 1: A longread about the 'lounge' hype, scanned from Free Record Shop's free magazine 'Free'.  |  Pic 2: A longread about the Dutch ID&T imperium (Nieuwe Revu).  |  Pic 3: An article published in 'Oor' about electroclash. It's never been my cup of tea, but it's typical for that era.  |  Pic 4: A longread about downloading MP3s from ID&T Magazine.

I was strongly focused on recent releases; it was the period when I followed new music most intensively - perhaps even too much. Older tracks were played as well, mostly danceable, released from around 1987 onwards. These felt more mature and, in that sense, close in spirit to the recent tracks I played.   ✱   Anyway - In general, I was obsessively downloading and trying out tracks, both new releases and slightly older ones.

⟶  Pic: Self-made compilations (2003/2004) containing older dance tracks. I also bought 'Back to love' CDs, released by Hed Kandi.

By late 2004, keeping up with too much music had caused a kind of mental short-circuit, leaving me with little desire to listen to music for several months. Buying my first MP3 player in the latter part of 2004 didn't help. That's where that ambient stream 'Cryosleep' (pointed out on the BITD 2005-2007 page) came in, early in 2005 --> Referring to the line about the 'bag of sweets' somewhere above.