the music that it was appropriating, electronica began to quickly infilitrate the rock and pop charts with number one singles and platinum-selling albums. For instance, Virgin’s subsidiary, Astralwerks, released the Chemical Bros. million selling Dig Your Own Hole and Madonna’s label released Prodigy's smash, Fat of the Land.
1997 was also the year of the cleverly conceived, funky minimalism of Daft Punk’s Homework, Crystal Method’s cutting and abrasive Vegas, Roni Size’s critically embraced New Forms and Carl Craig’s More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art, Eat Static’s otherworldly Science of The Gods, and the inception of the highly successful Tranceport Series with the release of Paul Oakenfold's Tranceport.
 Released after the untimely and tragic death of Princess Diana, Elton John re-releases the single Candle in the Wind.With revised lyrics, the ballad rapidly becomes the number one selling single of all-time, surpassing Bing Crosby's White Christmas for the top slot.
 MP3.com made its debut in 1997 and becomes the prototype for digital distribution of music over the internet. Somewhat inadvertantly, digital distribution has created a soft revolution in which the hierarchical distribution system set in place since the seventies became seriously challenged.
Notes:
(1) Allmusic.com:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll
(2) p.76. Reynolds, Simon. Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1998
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As Rock was sleeping, the young upstart that arguably got its birth at Rock’s crowning moments in the late 60’s and 70’s overthrew America’s reigning genre in this year. Just as the rock'n'roll explosion occurred in 1955 through rock entering the charts of
