- The Massacre.zip: 50 Cent

Use a legal streaming service or buy the digital album. The nostalgia of the ZIP file is beautiful, but the reality of a keylogger on your PC is not. Did you grow up downloading 50 Cent – The Massacre.zip? Share your LimeWire horror stories in the comments below. And for the last time—no, that file named "50_Cent_-_Candy_Shop.exe" is not a song. It’s a virus.

In 2005, broadband internet was becoming common, but storage was limited. MP3s were the standard, but downloading individual tracks was tedious. The ".zip" extension (and its cousin ".rar") allowed users to compress an entire album into a single, manageable file. 50 Cent - The Massacre.zip

In the mid-2000s, if you walked through a university dormitory or sat in a crowded internet café, you would hear a distinct sound bleeding through low-quality headphones: the piano riff of Candy Shop . That sound, originating from 50 Cent’s sophomore album The Massacre , was inescapable. But for a generation of music fans, the album isn't remembered by its CD jewel case or the Billboard charts alone. It is remembered by a file extension: .zip . Use a legal streaming service or buy the digital album