Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 21st century continued to expand and develop new subgenres and fusions. While talent show contestants were one of the major forces in pop music, British soul maintained and even extended its high-profile with figures like Joss Stone, Estelle, Duffy and Adele, while a new group of singer-songwriters led by Amy Winehouse and Westlife achieved international success. New forms of dance music emerged, including grime and dubstep. There was also a revival of garage rock and post-punk, which when mixed with electronic music produced new rave.

Rock

Post-Britpop

Post-Britpop bands such as The Verve, Radiohead, and Travis were followed in the 2000s by acts including Snow Patrol, from Northern Ireland and Elbow, Embrace, Starsailor, Doves and Keane from England, with music that was often more melodic and introspective.J. Harris, Britpop!: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock (Da Capo Press, 2004), , pp. 369–70.P. Buckley, The Rough Guide to Rock (London: Rough Guides, 3rd end., 2003), , pp. 310, 333, 337 and 1003-4. The most commercially successful band in the milieu were Coldplay, whose début album Parachutes (2000) went multi-platinum and helped make them one of the most popular acts in the world by the time of their second album A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002).[ "Coldplay"], Allmusic, retrieved 3 December 2010.

Garage rock revival/post-punk revival

Like many American alternative rock bands, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, several British indie bands emerged, including Franz Ferdinand, the Libertines and Bloc Party, that drew primary inspiration from new wave and post-punk groups such as Joy Division, Wire, and Gang of Four, establishing the post-punk revival movement. Other prominent independent rock bands in the 2000s included: Editors, the Fratellis, Placebo, Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs, the Kooks and Arctic Monkeys"The British are coming", Billboard, 9 April 2005, vol. 117 (13). (the last being the most prominent act to owe their success to the use of internet social networking).A. Goetchius, Career Building Through Social Networking (The Rosen Publishing Group, 2007), , pp. 21–2.

Soft rock and singer-songwriter

The decade saw the solo success for British singer-songwriters, including David Gray, Dido making use of acoustic music and remixes, whose breakthrough albums White Ladder (2000) and No Angel (1999) respectively, went multi-platinum.M. Heatley, David Gray: A Biography (Omnibus Press, 2nd edn., 2004), , p. 107. Later in decade a second wave including James Blunt with Back to Bedlam (2003), KT Tunstall with Eye to the Telescope (2004), James Morrison with Undiscovered (2006),L. Brandle, "Young British talent gets fresh", Billboard, 23 December 2006, 118 (51), p. 40. and Amy Macdonald with This Is the Life (2007) enjoyed similar levels of success.P. Sexton, "Mac attack: Britain's other Amy hit the States", Billboard, 9 August 2008, 120 (32), p. 42.

Heavy metal

The term "retro-metal" has been applied to such bands as The Darkness, whose unique mix of glam rock and heavy riffs earned them a string of singles hits and a quintuple platinum album with One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005), which reached number 11. Bullet for My Valentine, from Wales, broke into the top 5 in both the US and UK charts with their melodic dark rock, with Scream Aim Fire (2008)."Bullet for My Valentine", All music guides, retrieved 15 July 2009. Asking Alexandria's third studio album, From Death to Destiny, also debuted in the top five of the Billboard 200 during the week it was released, while also debuting at number 1 in both the British Rock and Metal charts.

New rave

With developments in computer technology and music software, it became possible to create high quality music using little more than a single laptop computer.S. Emmerson, Living Electronic Music (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 80–1. This resulted in a massive increase in the amount of home-produced electronic music available to the general public via the expanding internet,R. Shuker, Popular Music: the Key Concepts (London: Routledge, 2nd edn., 2005), , pp. 145–8. and new forms of performance such as laptronica and live coding.S. Emmerson, Living Electronic Music (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 115. In Britain the combination of indie with American pioneered dance-punk was dubbed new rave in publicity for Klaxons and the term was picked up and applied by the NME to a number of bands, including Trash Fashion,P. Flynn, "Here We Glo Again", Times Online, 12 November 2006, retrieved 13 February 2009. New Young Pony Club, Hadouken!, Late of the Pier, Test Icicles,O. Adams, "Music: Rave On, Just Don't Call It 'New Rave'", The Guardian, 5 January 2007, retrieved 2 September 2008. and Shitdisco forming a scene with a similar visual aesthetic to earlier rave music.

Pop rock As pop rock and pop-punk had become popular in the United States by bands such as Green Day, The Offspring and Blink-182, the UK saw pop-rock bands break into mainstream. The first band to breakthrough would be Busted with their 2002 hit single "What I Go to School For". The band's mainstream success was limited with their break-up on 14 January 2005. McFly have enjoyed commercial success with their 2004 breakthrough album Room on the 3rd Floor, which went straight to no.1 in the UK.

Punk A grassroots punk scene has continued in the UK. Since the late 2000s, this has been mainly built around the hub of the annual Rebellion Festival in Blackpool. The 2010s saw a particular profusion of younger female or female-fronted bands affiliated to the punk scene.

Pop

New girl groups managed to enjoy sustained success, including Sugababes and Girls Aloud, the last of these the most successful British product of the many Popstars format programmes, which began to have a major impact in the charts from the beginning of the 2000s.G. Turner, Understanding Celebrity(SAGE, 2004), p. 57. The Saturdays were the next girl group to sustain success in the late 2000s, after being inspired by Girls Aloud and touring with them. The most successful winner Leona Lewis enjoyed a number one album in 2008 and her début single "Bleeding Love" was the first number one single in the U.S. charts by a British solo female artist since Kim Wilde in 1987. The 2000s also saw the reunion of Take That, who went on to achieve new stardom by the end of the decade. In the early 2010s, the British boy and girl bands, The Wanted, One Direction, and Little Mix have experienced worldwide success, charting highly in Britain as well as North America.

Soul and female singer-songwriters

British soul in the 2000s was dominated by female singers, many of them white, including Natasha Bedingfield, Joss Stone, Amy Winehouse, Estelle, Adele and Duffy, all of whom have enjoyed success in the American charts, leading to talk of a "Third British Invasion", "Female Invasion" or "British soul invasion" leading the charts like "American Boy", "No Substitute Love" o "Pretty Please (Love Me)" by Estelle or "Mercy" by Duffy."Singer-songwriter Adele brings introspection to Brit-soul scene", Seattle Times 26 January 2009, retrieved 2 July 2009 In 2009, the single "Down" reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold two million copies in the United States, making Jay Sean "the most successful male UK urban artist in US chart history." Female singer-songwriters of various genres began to dominate the British charts in 2006 with the previously mentioned Winehouse and Lily Allen. In August 2011, the top 5 positions on the album charts were held by both Adele and Amy Winehouse with two albums each, and by American singer Beyoncé holding the other spot. British singer-songwriter Paloma Faith reached No. 2 on the album charts in 2012 with her second album Fall to Grace.

Nu-folk

In the 2000s bands and artists appeared who functioned as cross-over acts between the indie rock and folk scenes. Their music often used traditional instruments, sometimes beside electronic music. London's nu-folk scene included artists like Laura Marling, Noah and the Whale, Mumford & Sons and Johnny Flynn and that in Scotland, centred on Glasgow and with a more Celtic tinge, included artists such as Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers and Pearl and the Puppets.

Grime and hip hop

At the beginning of the 2000s a new style of electronic music, influenced heavily by hip hop and UK garage, and dubbed grime (sometimes called eskibeat or sublow), included acts such as Dizzee Rascal, Lady Sovereign, Wiley, Sway DaSafo, Ghetto and Kano. The eponymous debut album of Gorillaz, created by Damon Albarn in 2001, sold over seven million copies and earned them an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Successful Virtual Band. The success of The Streets' 2002 album Original Pirate Material drew the media's attention to lighter, more melodic rap as a form of pop music and this was followed by the success of Welsh rap group Goldie Lookin' Chain and acts like N-Dubz, Tinchy Stryder and Chipmunk, dubbed "Brithop" by the press. Other successful Grime artists include Aggro Santos, Tinie Tempah, Professor Green, Bashy, Devlin and Skepta. The popularity of UK rap grew significantly in the UK in the late 2000s. The year 2009 marked the first time a British rapper had reached the top of the UK singles chart, and UK rappers achieved six No. 1 singles in both 2009 and 2010. Grime Artists to reach the No. 1 spot are Taio Cruz, Dizzee Rascal, Tinchy Stryder, Chipmunk, Tinie Tempah, Roll Deep and Plan B.

Electronic music

Dubstep

Dubstep developed from garage music at the end of the 1990s and in the early 2000s, using elements of drum'n'bass, techno, and dub, to produce a largely instrumental, "dark" sound, based around relatively simple rhythms and often with extended hypnotic mixes.[ "Dubstep"], Allmusic, retrieved 30 April 2010. Its origins centred around the London Forward>> club nights and it was disseminated through pirate radio shows. Major artists included Skream, Burial, Kode9, Pinch, Horsepower Productions, Vex'd, Digital Mystikz, Zomby, Shackleton and Benga. Releases like Burial's Untrue (2007) and the mix albums series Dubstep All-Stars helped the subgenre gain critical and some limited commercial success.

Trip hop

Trip hop evolved significantly in the 2000s,  transitioning into a smoother, cleaner style that eventually lead to new genres of electronic music. With new production tools like Ableton Live and Logic Pro, Trip hop artists were able to create a more polished sound, adding more sampling and live instrumentation. Elements from dub, soul, and samples became more prevalent. Tricky adapted sounds from punk, pop, and electro, adding live bass and guitar to some of his tracks. Bands like Portishead and Massive Attack began adding more layers, samples and live instruments to their albums. Trip hop gained wider recognition in the mainstream, appearing in commercials, movie soundtracks, and TV shows. Notable mainstream artists and bands began incorporating trip hop’s influences into their music. Radiohead and Blur began incorporating trip-hop elements into their albums.

Synthpop