Death Cab for Cutie is an American rock band formed in Bellingham, Washington, in 1997. The band is currently composed of Ben Gibbard, Nick Harmer (bass), Dave Depper, Zac Rae, and Jason McGerr (drums).

Paramore is an American rock band from Franklin, Tennessee, formed in 2004. The band currently consists of lead vocalist Hayley Williams, guitarist Taylor York and drummer Zac Farro. Williams and Farro are founding members of the group, while York, a high school friend of the original lineup, joined in 2007. The band is signed to Fueled by Ramen, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records, both owned by Warner Music Group. Williams was separately signed to Atlantic as she was scouted when she was a teenager, and they were the only label to let her stay in the band instead of going solo, but Atlantic said the rest of the band had to sign to Fueled by Ramen. She is also the only member to appear on all six of Paramore's studio albums.

Gorillaz are an English virtual band formed in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, from London. The band primarily consists of four fictional members: 2-D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle, and Russel Hobbs (drums). Their universe is presented in music videos, interviews, comic strips and short cartoons. Gorillaz' music has featured collaborations with a wide range of featured artists, with Albarn as the only permanent musical contributor.

Vampire Weekend is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 2006 and currently signed to Columbia Records. The band was formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chris Tomson, and bassist Chris Baio. Batmanglij departed the group in early 2016.

Cage the Elephant is an American rock band formed in 2006 in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They moved to England, U.K. and settled in London in 2008, shortly before their self-titled first album was released. The band currently consists of Matt Shultz (vocals), his older brother Brad Shultz, Nick Bockrath, Matthan Minster, Daniel Tichenor (bass), and Jared Champion (drums). The band's first album was released to much success, spawning several successful radio singles and gaining the band a large following in both the United States and the United Kingdom. It was influenced by classic rock, '90s alternative, blues, punk rock and funk music. Lincoln Parish served as the band's lead guitarist from their formation in 2006 until 2013, when he left on good terms to pursue a career in producing.

Arctic Monkeys are an English rock band formed in Sheffield in 2002. The group consists of Alex Turner (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards), Jamie Cook (guitar, keyboards), Nick O'Malley (bass guitar, backing vocals), and Matt Helders (drums, backing vocals). Former band member Andy Nicholson (bass guitar, backing vocals) left the band in 2006 shortly after their debut album was released.

Arctic Monkeys were heralded as one of the first bands to come to public attention via the Internet, with commentators suggesting they represented the possibility of a change in the way in which new bands are promoted and marketed. Their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006), became the fastest-selling debut album in UK chart history, and has been hailed as one of the greatest debut albums. It won Best British Album at the 2007 Brit Awards. The band's second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007), was also acclaimed by critics and won Best British Album at the 2008 BRIT Awards. They went on to release Humbug (2009) and Suck It and See (2011).

Weezer is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1992. Since 2001, the band has consisted of Rivers Cuomo, Patrick Wilson, Scott Shriner, and Brian Bell.

Elena Jane Goulding is an English singer and songwriter. Her career began when she met record producers Starsmith and Frankmusik, and she was later spotted by Jamie Lillywhite, who became her manager and A&R. After signing to Polydor Records in July 2009, Goulding released her debut extended play, An Introduction to Ellie Goulding, later that year.

Panic! at the Disco is the solo project of American musician Brendon Urie. It was originally a pop rock band from Las Vegas, Nevada, formed in 2004 by childhood friends Urie, Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith, and Brent Wilson. They recorded their first demos while they were in high school. Shortly after, the band recorded and released their debut studio album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (2005). Popularized by the second single, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", the album was certified triple platinum in the US. In 2006, founding bassist Brent Wilson was fired from the band during an extensive world tour and subsequently replaced by Jon Walker. The band's second album, Pretty. Odd. (2008), was preceded by the single "Nine in the Afternoon". That album marked a significant departure from the sound of the band's debut. Ross and Walker, who favored the band's new direction, departed because Urie and Smith wanted to make further changes to the band's style. Ross and Walker subsequently formed a new band, the Young Veins, leaving Urie and Smith as the sole remaining members of Panic! at the Disco.

Owl City is an American electronic music project created in 2007 in Owatonna, Minnesota. It is one of several projects by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Adam Young, who created the project while experimenting with music in his parents' basement. Owl City developed a following on the social networking site MySpace, like many musicians who achieved success in the late 2000s, before signing with Universal Republic Records, now Republic Records, in 2008.

The Hush Sound is an American indie pop band from Chicago, Illinois, United States. Initially named "The Hush," the band later changed its name to "The Hush Sound" due to the discovery of a rapper with the same name. The band consists of Bob Morris (vocals and guitar), Chris Faller (bass guitar and vocals), Darren Wilson (drums, percussion and vocals), and Greta Salpeter (vocals and piano). Mike Leblanc (bass guitar) temporarily replaced Faller after he left the band for a few months in 2008 .

In 2005, the band released their first studio album, So Sudden, independently, which was later rereleased through Decaydance Records and Fueled by Ramen. Their second studio album, Like Vines, was released in 2006 under the independent record label, Fueled by Ramen. Their third album, Goodbye Blues, was recorded in October and November 2007 in Los Angeles and was released March 18, 2008.

Phoenix is a French pop rock band from Versailles, formed in 1995. Their lineup, which has remained unchanged since their formation, comprises Thomas Mars, Deck d'Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz ; additionally, Thomas Hedlund has been the band's session and live drummer since 2005. Their sound has been primarily described as indie pop, synth-pop, pop rock, and new wave.

The Bird and the Bee (stylized in all lowercase) is an American indie pop musical duo from Los Angeles, consisting of Inara George ("the bird") and Greg Kurstin ("the bee"). Kurstin is a seven-time Grammy Award–winning producer and multi-instrumentalist who has worked with artists including Sia, Adele, Beck, Kendrick Lamar, and the Foo Fighters. George and Kurstin met while the two were working on her debut album and they decided to collaborate on a jazz-influenced electropop project. Their debut EP, Again and Again and Again and Again, was released on October 31, 2006, followed by their self-titled debut album on January 23, 2007.

According to their Myspace page, Greg and Inara "were introduced in 2004 by mutual friend Mike Andrews, whom George had enlisted to produce her solo debut, All Rise. George and Kurstin soon found themselves spending hours together in the studio, where a shared interest in jazz-based music helped lay the foundation for the Bird and the Bee. [They] began to explore new sounds and textures, eventually composing enough material for their debut EP." That EP was the four-track Again and Again and Again and Again, released on October 31, 2006 by Blue Note Records. The EP includes the single "Fucking Boyfriend", which topped the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart on the issue dated December 2, 2006.

Two Door Cinema Club are a band from Bangor, Northern Ireland. The band formed in 2007 and is composed of three members: Alex Trimble, Sam Halliday, and Kevin Baird.

Fun is an American pop rock band based in New York City. The band consists of Jack Antonoff, Andrew Dost, and Nate Ruess.

Anamanaguchi is an American chiptune-based pop and rock band from New York City. The band has four members: lead songwriters and guitarists Peter Berkman and Ary Warnaar, bassist James DeVito, and drummer Luke Silas.

Anamanaguchi combines digital electronic sounds such as those seen in chiptune and bitpop with traditional band instrumentation. As with other chiptune artists, they have created music using video game hardware from the mid- to late 1980s: namely a NES and a Game Boy.

The origin of the band's name is unclear. In one interview, Berkman said the name "Anamanaguchi" came about from a member in one of his former bands pronouncing gibberish in the style of Jabba the Hutt. On several other occasions, the band has explained that their name came about after the members worked as interns at Armani (Berkman and DeVito), Prada (Warnaar), and Gucci (Silas) while studying fashion at Parsons School of Design (though three of the four majored in Music Technology at New York University). People began calling them the "Armani-Prada-Gucci boys," which eventually was elided into "Anamanaguchi."

Caravan Palace is a French electronic band based in Paris. The band's influences include Django Reinhardt, Vitalic, Lionel Hampton, and Daft Punk. The band released their debut studio album, Caravan Palace, on the Wagram label in October 2008. The record charted in Switzerland, Belgium, and France, where it reached a peak position of number 11.

Steam Powered Giraffe is an American musical project formed in San Diego in 2008, self-described as "a musical act that combines robot pantomime, puppetry, ballet, comedy, projections, and music". Created and led by twins David Michael Bennett and Isabella Bunny Bennett, the act combines music and improvisational comedy on-stage, although their studio works focus almost solely on music.

Steam Powered Giraffe has its own fictional mythology influenced by the steam punk subculture, with the band members portraying characters both on stage and on record; its fictional universe has been explored via several comic books mainly written and drawn by Isabella Bennett. Although the band underwent several line-up changes, it always focuses primarily on three robot characters (played by the Bennett siblings and a third performer, although the original line-up featured four robots), with several "humans" assisting and performing comedy, music and dancing on stage, and several smaller robots being performed via puppetry or voice acting. To date, they have released six studio albums, two live albums, several live concert films, provided the soundtrack for the 2015 video game SteamWorld Heist, and released an official single for the 2016 video game Battleborn.

Katzenjammer was an English-language Norwegian band from Oslo, formed in 2005. The band consists of Anne Marit Bergheim, Solveig Heilo and Turid Jørgensen. Former band member Marianne Sveen left the band in the beginning of 2016.

The members of Katzenjammer met in 2004 while studying at a private music school in Oslo. The band was formed in 2007 while listening to Anne Marit Bergheim perform the song "Wading in Deeper" on the piano. They were brought together by a common feeling of being "the outcasts at the school." Katzenjammer felt that their music school didn't encourage originality, but "only wanted to teach what had been done."

The band is named after the Katzenjammer Kids, the oldest comic strip continually in syndication. They chose this comic strip because they noticed that they resembled the characters in it. The term Katzenjammer is a German loanword that literally means "lament of a cat", and is used in Norway to describe low-grade music and instrumentation (which in Germany would be called Katzenmusik - "music by cats").

Donald McKinley Glover Jr., also known by his stage name Childish Gambino, is an American actor, comedian, singer, rapper, writer, director, and producer. After working in Derrick Comedy while studying at New York University, Glover was hired at age 23 by Tina Fey as a writer for the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. He later rose to fame for portraying college student Troy Barnes on the NBC sitcom Community from 2009 to 2014. From 2016 to 2022, Glover starred in the FX series Atlanta, which he created and occasionally directed. For his work on Atlanta, Glover won various accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.

Haruhi Suzumiya (Japanese: 涼宮ハルヒ, Hepburn: Suzumiya Haruhi) is a Japanese light novel series written by Nagaru Tanigawa and illustrated by Noizi Ito. It was first published in 2003 by Kadokawa Shoten in Japan with the novel The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and has since been followed by 11 additional novel volumes, an anime television series adaptation produced by Kyoto Animation, four manga series, an animated film, two original net animation series and several video games.

After the anime adaptation airing in 2006, publishing company Kadokawa Shoten received offers for licensing the novels and their adaptations. The novels are licensed for English language release in the United States by Little, Brown and Company, for young readers by Yen Press and the anime adaptation was licensed for North American distribution by Kadokawa Pictures USA division which then sub-licensed production and distribution to Bandai Entertainment. The anime is currently licensed by Crunchyroll.

Waiting in the Summer is a 2012 Japanese anime television series animated by J.C.Staff, produced by Genco and Geneon, and directed by Tatsuyuki Nagai. The screenplay was written by Yōsuke Kuroda with original character design by Taraku Uon, who both contributed in the creation of the Please! franchise. The 12-episode series aired in Japan between January and March 2012 on TV Aichi and KBS. Sentai Filmworks has licensed the anime for release in North America. The staff of the anime returned to produce an original video animation episode in August 2014. A manga adaptation illustrated by Pepako Dokuta was serialized in ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Daioh magazine.

Assassin's Creed II is a 2009 action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montréal and published by Ubisoft. It is the second major installment in the Assassin's Creed series, and the sequel to 2007's Assassin's Creed. The game was first released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in November 2009, and was later made available on Microsoft Windows in March 2010 and OS X in October 2010. Remastered versions of the game and its two sequels, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations, were released as part of The Ezio Collection compilation for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on November 15, 2016, and for the Nintendo Switch on February 17, 2022.

No More Heroes is a 2007 action-adventure video game for the Wii. It was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Marvelous Entertainment, Ubisoft, and Rising Star Games. The game was directed, designed, and written by Goichi Suda, also known by his nickname Suda51. The game follows Travis Touchdown, a fan of video games and anime who wins a beam katana in an auction, from which he inadvertently becomes involved in the United Assassins Association and forced to kill assassins higher in rank to prevent other assassins from targeting him.

Katamari Damacy (lit. 'Clump Spirit') is a third-person puzzle-action video game developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation 2. It was released in Japan in March 2004 and in North America in September 2004. Designer Keita Takahashi struggled to pitch the game to Namco's superiors, eventually seeking student aid from the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory to develop the project for less than US$ 1 million. As director, Takahashi emphasized concepts of novelty, ease of understanding, and enjoyment.

The game's plot concerns a diminutive prince on a mission to rebuild the stars, constellations, and Moon, which were inadvertently destroyed by his father, the King of All Cosmos. This is achieved by rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a katamari around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to human beings to mountains, until the ball has grown large enough to become a star. Katamari Damacy's story, settings and characters are highly stylized and surreal, often both celebrating and satirizing facets of Japanese culture.

List of Disgaea video games contains a list of games in the Disgaea (ディスガイア, Disugaia) video game series of tactical role-playing games created and developed by Nippon Ichi. The series debuted in Japan on January 30, 2003, with Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, later re-released as Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness and Disgaea DS. One of Nippon Ichi's most popular franchises, it has branched off into both a manga and light novel series, as well as an anime. The Disgaea games take place in a fictional universe called the Netherworld and are known for their uncommon RPG elements, such as complex gameplay, extremely high maximum stats and a maximum level of 9999, and humorous dialogue. Main characters in the series often include cynical, power-hungry antiheroes forced to fight alongside heroic foils, much to their disdain. Games in the Disgaea series have been critically acclaimed and received multiple awards.

Pokémon Gold Version and Pokémon Silver Version are 1999 role-playing video games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Color. They are the first installments in the second generation of the Pokémon video game series. They were released in Japan in 1999, Australia and North America in 2000, and Europe in 2001. Pokémon Crystal, an enhanced version, was released a year later in each region. In 2009, on the 10th anniversary of Gold and Silver, remakes titled Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver were released for the Nintendo DS.

The games introduce 100 new species of Pokémon and follow the progress of the player character in their quest to master Pokémon battling. Both games are independent of each other but feature largely the same plot and, while both can be played separately, it is necessary to trade between these games and their predecessors in order to fully complete each games' Pokédex. The Johto Saga of the Pokémon anime is based on the new region introduced in the games.