10 Most Important Rock Albums Of All Time

10. Is This It - The Strokes

At the start of the '00s, it seemed that most of the rock scene had started to lose its way. With most of the rockstars being either manufactured pop punk acts on TRL or sad nu metal kids...also on TRL...there was no real place for the down and dirty sounds of rock and roll anymore. That is, until we got ahold of Is This It.

It almost stands as an anomaly that the Strokes even saw the light of day at all, given their worship of more retro acts like the Velvet Underground and the Stooges. However, that same retro energy was just what we needed at the turn of the century, with their brand of garage rock making rock sound just the slightest bit dangerous again. Across the more pop friendly tracks like Last Nite and Someday, you feel like things could go off the rails at any moment, only to find that everything is right where it's supposed to be.

This was also refreshing to hear some of the smarter guitar hooks of the day, with Albert Hammond Jr. being one of the few able to meld the punk rock energy into his playing without sounding forced. No matter how hard the nu metal kids screamed to proclaim their toughness, this really has all of the badass energy you need in one package.