10 Definitive Rock Albums Of The 2000s

After the post grunge movement, rock and roll really started to lose sight of its roots. The days of the rough and tumble rock band seemed to be gone the minute that Kurt Cobain passed away, and the past few years just saw pop punk acts and nu metal bands picking up the pieces or ignoring the problem entirely. If rock wanted to be relevant again, we needed to do some homework, and Is This It was the perfect refresher course.

Taking the old sounds of garage rock and a punk rock attitude to everything, the Strokes became one of the most unprofessional rock acts of the new decade, being equal parts informed by the Velvet Underground as they were with bands like the Beach Boys. While there was no real connections between songs like Someday or Last Nite and something like Creed, The Strokes were never ones to follow trends, always sticking to what they knew best and almost acting like an indie version of the Ramones, putting the same amount into ballads like the title track or absolute chaos on Hard to Explain.

While the rest of the band's career saw them going in even more experimental directions, this is still the gold standard that shattered the mold for every other garage rock band looking to get their rocks off with guitars instead of hairspray or dreadlocks. It might be called Is This It, but you could practically call this The Strokes' greatest hits record.