Early-2000s commercial dominance had already shifted from rock to other genres.

Evidence

This reorientation arrived at a pivotal moment for pop. By the early 2000s, the dominance of rock was waning. The bestselling artists weren’t guitar bands but hip-hop (Eminem, 50 Cent), R&B (Alicia Keys, Beyoncé), and country (Alan Jackson, Shania Twain). Meanwhile, the rock bands that thrived commercially, like Staind and Evanescence, faced critical derision. And the indie rock darlings of the era, like the Strokes and the White Stripes, captured the imaginations of critics but never came close to the cultural ubiquity of pop titans like Usher or Avril Lavigne. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 119

Categorization

• XREF: This split between critical acclaim and commercial ubiquity prefigures the omnivore monoculture mechanism where taste flattening erases that distinction.