10 Perfect Rock Debut Albums Of The 2000s

Rock was in for a bit of a shakeup once it reached the new millennium. Since the sounds of nu metal and pop punk still had a hold on society, there were many bands that were just content to follow the trends and make their millions off of that. If you were looking a little outside the box though, there were a lot more interesting things waiting just around for the corner.

As the '00s got underway, you saw a lot of bands taking bold new steps towards new sounds, which either meant going for broke and doing their own thing or throwing it back to something familiar from back in the day. Seriously, if you look at the charts from the early noughties, you were just as likely to land on some sort of retro throwback band as you were to find someone who was actually pushing the boundaries of what rock and roll could do.

We're not here to talk about the most progressive bands of the decade today though. These are just the bands that managed to hit the ground running on their first record that would sustain them for the rest of their career. Even if this is seen as the height of their respective career, you can only dream of achieving this kind of perfection.

Before any of the true metal heads start trying to burn yours truly at the stake for this, nu metal felt like it was in a state of freefall during the beginning of the '00s. While bands like Korn and Fear Factory may have been fun back into the day, the newer bands on the spectrum were a lot more cringy than what you'd expect out of someone like Deftones. You needed someone to mess with the formula, and that's exactly what Evanescence did on Fallen.

Off the strength of singles like Going Under, Amy Lee positioned herself as one of the greatest female voices in rock, sounding like she could take on real metal bombast while having the range of an opera singer. That wasn't a mistake either, if the remix albums that would follow are any indication of how operatic this music can feel.

Then again, this might not be considered the heaviest album by any stretch. Not when you have people like Limp Bizkit and Slipknot on the charts around the exact same time. Rather, this serves as a gateway album for the kids who were just starting to develop a fascination for what the heavier side of rock could be. The rest of power metal may be miles ahead of Evanescence from a technical standpoint, but this is what got all of us hooked...and you never forget your first love, do you?