10 Perfect Rock Debut Albums Of The 2000s

Seeing how the Britpop movement kind of concaved in on itself at the turn of the century, you would think that we would look at someone like Damon Albarn as a has been now. Being the main man behind Blur at the time, it looked like their time in the spotlight had really expired once kids started to get into bands like The Libertines. Damon did have one trick up his sleeve though...it just wasn't music.

Hooking up with his illustrator friend Jamie Hewlett, Damon came up with the idea of a cartoon band named Gorillaz, which would serve as both a great vehicle for MTV while also being a critique at just how shallow the music business could get. Since he didn't have to worry about fitting into Blur's limits, Gorillaz's first album is one of the best cases of anything goes, with Albarn throwing every genre idea he has into the mix and it paying off nearly every time.

Aside from the obvious hits on the record like Clint Eastwood, there are many ventures into stuff like noise rock with Punk, the trip hop sounding breaks behind songs like Man Research, and even managing to make an instrumental sound dark and mysterious on the track Double Bass. And now you have artists from nearly every genre citing Gorillaz as an influence for just how eclectic they sounded back in the day. Turns out Damon was right...the future was coming on.