Best white boy who plays that funky music: Beck
Out of the shadow of grunge, 23-year-old Angeleno Bek David Campbell emerged in 1993 with "Loser," a hit many pegged as his first and last. Instead, he’s spent the past decade-plus releasing records that fuse genres as diverse as folk, hip-hop, punk, blues, electronica, rock, and Brazilica into completely fresh compositions. He is to music what California cuisine is to food, and no modern indie musician can deny his influence.

IMPACT: Today, thanks to Apple's ubiquitous mp3 player, 60 million people around the globe can put on their headphones, lean back on the subway, and pretend the other 5,940,000,000 on Earth don't exist. Along with huge profits and hyperactive shadow people on billboards, the iPod has introduced several new social yardsticks, such as "see-how-diverse-my-iPod-is" chic and "let's-use-my-iPod-not-yours-for-background-party-music" arguments. The so-called "cult of iPod" has also changed the way we buy and sell music. Although people still buy CDs, last year MP3s clocked in at 4 percent of the music industry, and iTunes sold more music than Tower Records (which has filed for bankruptcy).

Dopest idea in the motherfu&#$ng house: Gangsta rap
West Coast rap, a.k.a. "gangsta rap," originated in California’s urban centers (Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area) during the 1980s. West Coast rappers such as Too Short, Ice-T, and N.W.A. set themselves apart from East Coast legends such as Public Enemy and KRS-One with heavy bass lines and some of the most violent and sexually explicit lyrics ever heard on the airwaves (many gangsta rap songs were banned or censored by radio stations).

EUREKA MOMENT: Officially, Apple engineers Jon Rubinstein, Tony Fadell, and Michael Dhuey designed the first iPod; designer Jonathan Ive created the distinctive look and control wheel; and Steve Jobs saw the market for it. Rumor has it that the iPod is slightly louder than its competitors because Jobs is partly deaf.

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