What’s Ahead?

Times reporters and editors predict what lies ahead in their areas in the coming year:

Pop Music

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This will be the year the music industry starts truly clicking with the Internet and its power to sell music via digital download--and that means a windfall of new options for computer savvy consumers. Music fans who go online in late 2000 will finally be able to browse and buy digital files of songs from marquee artists as the major labels overcome both their trepidations and technology issues to embrace this new marketplace. Instead of the no-name artists featured on MP3.com, fans will be able to buy songs from the likes of Sinatra, Elvis, U2 and Madonna. The bad news: The leap into the cybermarket will give new strength to teen pop, which feeds an audience that is online, rabidly loyal to artists and buys music with more urgency than any other.