10 Greatest Final Rock Music Albums Of The 2000s
A new millennium brought some storied recording careers to an end.
When the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1999, the world let out a huge sigh of relief as the Earth kept on spinning into a new decade, century, and millennium.
If only they knew what was coming.
In amongst the chaos that was the early 21st century, rock music saw quite a bit of change, both for the better and for the worse. As great new bands made their presence felt on the national and international stages, several others fell away, putting out what would come to be known as their last hurrahs.
This list is all about the final studio albums released by bands that came out between 2000 and 2009. Whilst there's every chance some of these groups could return in the future, for now, this is where their lineages end.
Some of these albums were clearly meant as a farewell, but others might not have been finales had certain events not occurred. However they came to be, there's still a lot to be taken from these projects, both as last gasps of great bands and as albums in their own right.
10. Forth - The Verve
The 1990s were a great time to be a slightly alternative British rock band. Britpop had a stranglehold over culture, whilst groups like Radiohead and Manic Street Preachers showed that you could make a lot of money by being either really weird or really angry.
Sitting somewhere in the middle of that were The Verve, helmed by Richard Ashcroft. Though most famous for their Rolling Stones-stealing megahit Bitter Sweet Symphony, the band had another bunch of other successful tunes, including number one single The Drugs Don't Work.
After the release of 1997's Urban Hymns, the band went quiet for 11 years, before releasing their fourth album... Forth. Clever. The record was another excellent example of The Verve's lyrical excellence and ability to write catchy melodies that, this time, didn't upset Mick Jagger.
In 2009, one year after Forth's release, it was reported that the band had broken up for the third time. Members Nick McCabe and Simon Jones reportedly believed that Ashcroft was only using the album to get his solo career back on track, causing a rift between the two sides that couldn't be rectified.
The Verve have been quiet ever since.