The "The" Bands

General consensus is that, with the exception of Radiohead, rock music has sucked since the early 90's. Looking back, I have a fond appreciation of the "The" bands that hit radio in the late 90's into the 2000's. This garage rock revival spawned a dozen or so bands and totally changed the Lower East Side into dirty-white-guy-hipsterville, thus causing Hater J's blood pressure to skyrocket.

BEST OF THE BUNCH

1- The White Stripes: Jack White knows how to keep it rockin'. "Elephant" was arguably the best album of this entire sub-genre.

2- The Strokes: My personal favorite, although they peaked with their first album. No one better captured late drunken nights in the Village, hitting on NYU girls at tiny hole-in-the-wall
bars. "Life seems unreal/can we go back to your place?"

3- The Libertines: Huge in the U.K. while pretty unheralded in the U.S. Babyshambles were cool too.

4- The Killers: Hit some high points on their albums although they are altogether inconsistent. Flowers really needs to man-up.

5- The Hives: Their big album was clearly the most overlooked among this scene. Too bad the rest of their music wasn't as good. Interestingly, I think they're the only band from this movement not from the U.S. or the U.K.

6- Arctic Monkey: The slow song (with "have you been drinking son, do you don't look old enough to me/I'm sorry officer, is there a certain age I'm supposed to be?") was real cool. Good music for dancing with NYU girls. "Put on your dancing shoes, you sexy little swine".

OTHER BANDS THAT WEREN'T AS GOOD

The Darkness (Queen rip-off), The Vines (singer went nuts), The Donnas (they're okay), The Moldy Peaches (???), The Dandy Warhols (seemed annoying). Who were that other band that sang "Cold Hard Bitch"? I'm glad I don't remember, they were some commerical nonsense.

HONORABLE MENTION

The Yeah Yeah Yeah's. I wouldn't include them with the other bands since they are more of an artsy, hip city band. They made some great music over the last decade, with Karen O becoming one of the best female singers of all-time. I'd yam.


Did I forget any bands?

What does everyone else think about this movement?