10 Best Rock Albums Of The 2000s

To your average music fan, the end of the 90's marked the end of a lot of periods for rock music. Not only had grunge long since died, but other genres such as nu metal and Britpop were starting to reach their expiration dates as well. However, that doesn't mean that rock was going to die out at the end of the millennium.

Once the 2000's got underway, bands were making bold new reinventions to the sound of rock music. While some bands stripped it back down to basics, others were taking bold sonic risks that went on to become hugely successful. Even past trends like pop punk and nu metal had a firm hold in the 2000's, with artists that were coming through with colossal records that went on to inspire the next generation.

Sure, the idea of a long-haired guitarist playing lightning-fast solos was not in style anymore, but rock didn't have to thrive on just the guitar god. It was time to enter the next phase of rock music. At the turn of the millennium, the world was in a much different place than it was just a few decades ago. It's only fair that the rock music of this next era followed suit.

As rock was finding its identity in the 2000's, many bands were bringing everything back to basics with a sound that had the thrashiness of punk fed through the lens of the garage rock boom of the 1960's. Though bands like the Strokes and the Hives were certainly making big waves in the scene, Arctic Monkeys's debut record had the right amount of attitude to separate itself from its counterparts.

Each track is a subtle glimpse into the mind of the adolescent male on the London club scene, with songs that hit you right in the chest like "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" and "Dancing Shoes." Songwriter Alex Turner also had a knack for coming up with interesting stories of alcohol-fueled debauchery while finding just the right amount of melody to keep the listener on their toes like on the single "Mardy Bum."

This record is also the first of its kind to gain widespread acclaim through the Internet, as fans kept sharing mp3 files of the songs before the record had even come out. Once their debut was released, Arctic Monkeys had the whole of England at their feet as they went on to conquer the rock scene.