Pajiba

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm way too old and unhip to be of any use on this thread.

I still firmly believe that my music is the best music, though.

I feel like Homer in the Homerpalooza episode. Silly young whippersnappers...

i'm going to go arcade fire and kings of leon and TV on the radio. do those all count?

My vote's for Franz Ferdinand (formed 2002). But OCMS is definitely a contender.

My favorite bands of the naughts

Broken Social Scene

The Libertines

Arctic Monkeys

Animal Collective

Arcade Fire

Sufjan Stevens

The Strokes

The Shins

The Decemberists

Grizzly Bear

Jack Johnson

Modest Mouse

Death Cab For Cutie

to name a few, there are many other great bands to come out of the naughts.

BP

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists ? (first LP in '99)
Drive-By Truckers ? (first LP '98)
The White Stripes ? (first LP in '99)
Animal Collective

I'd have to say that THE WHITE STRIPES are probably shaping up to be the biggest/most important musical act of this decade. They've been able to become huge stars without really alienating their original hipster fanbase, and I think they'll be one of the few bands from this era that will still be relevant and embraced by future generations. Whether they're "the best" is debatable, of course. I happen to think that SPOON and SUPER FURRY ANIMALS have been the two most consistently great bands of the last decade, but they started last decade, so...

White Stripes

Modest Mouse

Ike Reilly

I say these in no particular order.

1) The Mars Volta

2) Wolfmother

3) The Answer

4) Audioslave

5) Zwan (they only released one album but it was something so nice, breezy, refreshing and full of hope from Billy Corgan. Was this the same guy who whined so much on every other album?)

6) Opeth (formed in 1990 but only featured in any charts around the world in 2003, and that was very low, in 2005 they went higher and in 2008 they started hitting top 10s reaching #1 spot in Finland. This band is an extremely creative good band on the up and up)

7) Porcupine Tree (very similar story to Opeth. Formed in 1991 but didn't feature on any charts until 2002 and still haven't ever reached a top 10 but are clearly on the way there). Any of Steven Wilson's, the frontman's, side projects are also of extremely good quality.

8) Mastodon (formed in 1999 but released their first album in 2002 and only started making waves in 2004. The 2009 album Crack The Skye is their best yet. This is true metal for the aughts)

9) Chiamaira

10) The Darkness (Many accuse them of being silly but they were extremely fun while they lasted)

11) Chickenfoot (they're still very new having just released their debut album but this might be the most fun thing Joe Satriani, Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith have put their name to, and that's saying a lot)

12) Iron Maiden (ok, ok I know they were formed back in 1975 but their 2006 album was something challenging and refreshing. They weren't sitting on their laurels. They were there to make new fans. At their gigs you see more people who were not even born in 1975 than people who were. This band makes new fans all the time and saying the best bands of the aughts can't have become popular before the aughts is ridiculous cos this IS contemporary music. Same goes for Rush. Last year's Snakes and Arrows album is so mindblowing who cares what year they started playing as a band)

I could go on and on and on... this is just a little sample. There's so much great music out there and choosing the best or even the top ten is practically impossible. The aughts are a wonderful decade for music which I will remember and cherish.

Bon Iver(!)
The Decemberists
TV on The Radio
Camera Obscura
Franz Ferdinand
Grizzly Bear
Arcade Fire
The Postal Service
Brandi Carlile
Scissor Sisters
Regina Spektor
New Pornographers

Yeah, I am such an indie music dweeb. I definitely take pride in this statement though. I'm glad we can say who we love from the aughts, I'm curious as to what we will see in the future as a result of the list.

Mohaski, I agree with you 100%. The White Stripes kick ass.

I also second/third

Regina Spektor
Feist
The New Pornographers
Camera Obscura
The Kooks
Arcade Fire
Jack Johnson
Arctic Monkeys
uhhh...am I ridiculous for saying "stuff white people like whitest band," Vampire Weekend?

I'll throw out there for consideration (realize that I am heinously not hip with music [or jams as the kids call them, yes?]).

Dixie Chicks (first album was '99 - so be it)
Imogen Heap
The Postal Service

That's all that comes to mind. I like Feist, but I don't think she's Best of the Aughts. Ditto Regina Spektor.

We're talking bands, not artists, right? No votes for Jay-Z or Fiona Apple or Sufjan Stevens, right? Honest to god "and on the drums is..." bands.

Well -

White Stripes
Arcade Fire.
My Morning Jacket
Franz Ferdinand
The Roots
TV on the Radio

...not that many, actually

I'm old. Hence the following surely uninspired choices:

1. Fountains of Wayne
2. White Stripes
3. Death Cab For Cutie

Now, here's what I don't like. Aside from small print. I don't like what happened a few years ago to alt rock male lead singers. Out of nowhere, a whole bunch of bands popped up whose singers adopted this ominous monotone that is quite the antithesis of singing. In descending order of otherwise meritorious content, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, She Wants Revenge, and then a bunch of others. I get it -- you can't sing but would like to get laid anyway. You must go now.

If we're talking bands in the absolute strictest sense, I'm gonna have to go with...

Broken Social Scene
The New Pornographers
Atmosphere
TV On The Radio
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
The Arcade Fire
Grizzly Bear
The Dresden Dolls
The Go! Team
Fleet Foxes
Phoenix
Passion Pit
Bon Iver

Editors.

Hmm...the White Stripes were formed in 1997. But they broke big (at least I first heard of them) in 2001 with "Fell In Love With A Girl" from White Blood Cells. Ever since then, I see Jack White to this decade as I saw Trent Reznor and Beck back in the 90s (the guy leading what many would follow).

Besides those I'd vote for:

The Killers (their self-titled debut and about 2-3 songs of their second album).

Franz Ferdinand (good first album, okay second, awesome third).

Kanye West (self-deluded though he may be, he was the producer and hit-maker of the decade. He can do "All Falls Down" and "Jesus Walks" and then switch to "Get Em High").

Brad Paisley (about the best country singer of the last 10 years. Smart writer, good guitar player and a good heir to Hank Williams Sr.)

Dethklok (OK, OK, a cartoon band. But the greatest metal band ever deserves a spot, dammit!)

Queens of the Stone Age (formed in 1996, but broke big in 2001 with "No One Knows" from Songs for the Deaf. Listen to Lullabies to Paralyze. Great album.)

Eagles of Death Metal (the exact opposite of QOTSA from Josh Homme. They're the great, fun rock band that would take your sister's virginity while getting you laid).

HURT
The Postal Service
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Arcade Fire

I also include Flight of the Conchords on this list.

You guys all have fabulous taste.
I'd like to include Why?, who is an awesome trip-hop-folk-rock-rap group (yeah) from Oakland. Seriously, these guys are awesome, do check them out at myspace.com/whyanticon

Also, Bon Iver wins. For Emma, Forever Ago is probably my favorite album of the last ten years.

I'll come out of the shadows for this one.

I second the following:

*Iron and Wine (ridiculously overlooked, I would let Sam Beam do dirty, dirty things to me based on his voice alone and in spite of the fact that he looks like Jesus)
*Arcade Fire
*Fleet Foxes
*Kings of Leon
*Yeah Yeah Yeahs
*OCMS (incredible live, seen them 4 times and everyone is dancing like a dirty hippie by the end of the show)
*MGMT

And I add:

*The Black Keys
*Band of Horses
*The Hold Steady
*Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
*Rilo Kiley
*LCD Soundsystem

I'd also add My Morning Jacket, the Gossip, Cursive, Spoon and North Mississippi Allstars, but they were all born in the 1990s.

Shit. And Bon Iver.

Damn, I think I'll just start shopping for my walker and Depends now. Every band that had a song I enjoyed in the Aughts was formed in the '90s or earlier.

Modest Mouse and The Killers and The White Stripes. Woo boy. You know, I couldn't even tell you if they're decent, because before I canceled my satellite radio subscription, I got so fucking burned out on their "hits" that I started hating them. The only ones to escape overplay fatigue were The Fratellis and OKGo, and I have no idea when they were formed.

Flogging Molly. One of my favorites. They've got a live album from 1997 but every other release is 2000 or after. So I think they were big in clubs in the late nineties but didn't hit it big (if they ever did) until the aughts.

Dandy Warhols are similar: bloody awesome, tons of releases in the 2000s, a couple random ones in the late nineties before they got that big.

Just to cheat to make a point: Johnny Cash released American III, American IV, and American V during the aughts and they are some of the best albums of the decade hands down, and sound absolutely nothing like his earlier work.

But seriously? The Gin Blossoms are the best band of the aughts because they are the best band of every decade. That's distilled awesomeness blended with an o-face, son.

MGMT, Kings of Leon, Late of the Pier, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, Justice, Death from Above 1979, The Mars Volta

Wilco.
Wilco.
Wilco.
oh, and Wilco.

Okay, Arcade Fire. Funeral is probably the best album of the last decade. Behind them I'd put The White Stripes, TV on the Radio, The Decemberists (for sheer audacity), Gnarls Barkley (for making hit singles out of being depressed and for being stunningly talented), and Grizzly Bear. Bright Eyes is a solid honorable mention, as is Muse.

Wow, I'm sorry, that wasn't hard at all.

Wilco, My Morning Jacket, and Modest Mouse are all products of the '90s and had significant followings before hitting it big with most people in this decade. So they are out. I almost forgot The Hold Steady, but that could be because they've only made one truly classically great album (Boys and Girls in America) and their others have been somewhere beteween decent and good.

But, in summation: The Arcade Fire.

Modest Mousde is amazing, but they actually are a 90's band.

Propa-motherfucking-gandhi.

Now im a metal kinda gentleman and while i notice this site leans towards the indie/emo tendencies id like to submit Devildriver, HORSE the Band, and Arsonists Get All The Girls. the first is true thrash/death in all its beauty and the other two have brought wonderful innovation to the genre

I agree with most of the bands already mentioned but would also add Bloc Party to the list. Fantastic live.

For those of you skeptical about the White Stripes, may I recommend the Raconteurs? I prefer their slightly less stripped-down sound and the other dudes seem to mitigate the crazy of Jack White to some extent. I love the depth and layers of sound they get and the musical history you can hear that they are so obviously well versed in. Other than them:

Neko Case (duh)
Regina Spektor
Cat Empire (Australian band, makes you want to have a combination barbecue and dance party on the beach. I highly recommend their debut album)
Crooked Still (gorgeous bluegrass folk. with a cello. and I hate bluegrass.)
Balkan Beat Box (Find them. They are the shit.)

Pop-wise - Scissor Sisters,
Lily Allen (I am a sucker for some good Brit-pop),
The Ditty Bops (best band you've never heard, sort of folky vaudeville style with amazing harmonies),
and Morgagod, I have to second you on Mika, while I don't love his ballads, his uptempo stuff is killer.

I'm not arguing for any of these as The #1 Of The Aughts, but I think everyone should hear more new stuff. And these are all awesome music from the aughts. So there :P

I had to spend some time making sure these were all of the aughts or whatever, but I have to say, Annie Lennox may have had too long of a career to make it on any of these lists, but her most recent album is jaw-droppingly amazingly ridiculously good. And it is of the aughts. So there's my shout-out for Annie. I'll stop now.

I am just going to re-interate the Iron & Wine love from only 2 others posters.
THEY ARE GREAT.

No indie love for I'm from Barcelona? Who Killed Harry Houdini? is my current fav "new" album.

omg the bird and the bee!
my friend and i always sing fuckin boyfriend drunkedly.

1. Converge (breakthrough being Jane Doe, 2001)
2. Isis (Oceanic, 2002)
3. Mastodon (Remission, 2002)
4. Broken Social Scene (You Forgot It In People, 2002)
5. The Black Keys (The Big Come Up, 2002)
6. Botch (We Are The Romans, 2000)
7. Constantines (Constantines, 2001)
8. Death Cab For Cutie (We Have The Facts And We're Voting Yes, 2000)
9. Okkervil River (Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See, 2002)
10. Queens Of The Stone Age (R, 2000)
11. These Arms Are Snakes (Oxeneers..., 2004)
12. Pretty Girls Make Graves (Good Health, 2002)
13. Cursive (Domestica, 2000)
14. The Appleseed Cast (Mare Vitalis, 2000)
15. Blood Brothers (Burn, Piano Island, Burn, 2003)
16. Circle Takes The Square (As The Roots Undo, 2003)
17. Q And Not U (No Kill No Beep Beep, 2000)

and fuck it

18. At The Drive-In (Relationship Of Commmand, 2001)

Outside of "bands" strictly, other musicians have particularly flourished post-2000:

19. Ghostface (Supreme Clientele, 2000)
20. MF Doom (Madvilliany, 2004)
21. Feist (Let It Die, 2004)
22. Aesop Rock (Labor Days, 2001)
23. El-P (Fantastic Damage, 2002)

-Arcade Fire
-The Decemberists
-Art Brut
-Maximo Park
-Death From Above 1979
-The Libertines
-British Sea Power
-Patrick Wolf
-Final Fantasy
-The Hidden Cameras

My list would also have included The Weakerthans, The Dears, Rilo Kiley, Interpol, The New Pornographers, The Mountain Goats and a bunch of other great bands, but I guess they're disqualified due to the fact that they were formed before the year 2000.

i'm exhausted and am battling the world's worst headache, but the band that immediately came to mind was the national. i'll think of more tomorrow.

I second these choices:
The Decemberists
Death Cab for Cutie
KoL
The Twilight Sad
Band of Horses
Arctic Monkeys
Modest Mouse
Atmosphere

I could never narrow it down to one band that is definitively the best. That has to be like the hardest choice anyone's ever asked me to make.

How do you define when a band 'got famous'? 'First formed' or 'first album' cuts our time frame from 9 years down to 3, since they're going to need time to, you know, GET good at this music thing, and produce a second/third album that's better than the (usually) crap first album. So you might as well change the question to acknowledge how impossible this task is and rename the challenge: 'Good bands of 2000-2003'

Alternatively, have they 'got famous' when they're on MTV? Had a song in the mainstream top 40? Is it determined by record sales? I'm a scientist, dammit, I need a benchmark before I can answer this question!! WHAT THE HECK IS 'GOT FAMOUS'???
...does not compute....does not compute....does not compute...

The Arcade Fire
Hot Chip
Justice
Kasabian
The Go! Team
British Sea Power
The Hold Steady

The White Stripes will probably be remembered the longest though.

It appears that not liking rock/indie/emo crap is very out of fashion in here.

Still I have to say:

Tanya Morgan/Brooklynati fantastic album, the best hiphop album since....

Common/Be This generation's most defining album. Kanye produces his best beats and Common just glides over them. Too bad he went off his nuts with the abolutely terrible UMC album

Justice/Cross Sure it's overplayed and commercialized and too available, but they changed a lot of stuff when they came out and just blasted the landscape of dance music with a proper rock and roll attitude.

Rhymefest/blue Collar and Man in the mirror
Fun good rap, with good beats.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings/all of their albums
Great soul music, with a proper old feel to them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf6gyRI1zqg

It's something different to what most people have been suggesting here. Check it out though :)

I second:

Maximo Park
Arcade Fire
Modest Mouse
The White Stripes

I also propose Tool, because their two best albums where published in the aughts.

Argh, My Morning Jacket formed in 1998! It is hilarious seeing bands listed like Modest Mouse and Wilco over and over again. They've been around since they early 90's! George probably couldn't even walk yet, much less make nonsensical comments about music like, "I'll even check out Arcade Fire, despite the fact that they're the whitest band in existence."

Is it because they're Canadian? Is it because Win Butler wears suspenders sometimes? Are they whiter than, say, Radiohead? How does the whiteness of a band correlate to their ability to be awesome? So many questions I never realized I should be asking!

Der Blutharsch

Best: vote goes to

Iron and Wine or Raconteurs

Most original:

Bat For Lashes
Bird and the Bee
I Wrestled a Bear Once
Fol Chen
MGMT

Whoever said Wolfmother up there--you have clearly never seen them in concert. Absolutely terrible. Their studio album was the jam, though.

I'm only 27 so I haven't reached old fogey status yet, but just from reading Rolling Stone and seeing some of these lists, these band names are the most bizarre or pretentious pieces of crap I've ever heard. Saturday Night Live did a fake commercial a few years advertising a new CD of bands, and it started with like Sonic Youth and stuff like that, then kept making up more random sounding phrases..."and introducing Kayak, Thankless Child, Fake Baby Head..." Totally reminds me of some of these bands. Maybe they're trying to distract us from how crappy they sound by using a cute hipster name. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah? Kathleen Turner Overdrive? Red Jumpsuit Apparatus? In the voice and words of Robert De Niro: "Get the fuck outta here!"

I'm so proud of everyone that not one of you said Coldplay!! I'll throw my vote in for Gallows...

I can't believe all the love for Iron and Wine. Before yesterday, I was the only person I knew who listened to them/him. I guess I've found the 12 other people who've bought his cds.

despite my hatred for them having two members.

Eh?

Spoon's too old, I'm sad to say. I can't say "BEST" but in what I'm listening to now my favorites are probably Franz Ferdinand and New Pornographers (though I only really got into them after their last album came out and I wasn't barraged by everyone I know yet again with what AMAAAAZING POP they are. See also Belle and Sebastian about ten years ago).

I guess there wasn't really a Pharmacists album with any kind of real band until "Tyranny of Distance" in 2001, the "Tej Leo" thing was more like his "Burning Blue Soul" (gratuitous obscure reference!!). At the very least that's the album where Ted became the shit, but I'm willing to cede the eligibility.

Drive-By Truckers ? (first LP '98)

Posted by: Mohaski at June 22, 2009 9:07 PM
---
First LP that mattered: 2001.

Jason Isbell joins lineup: around 2002

Jason Isbell leaves lineup: 2007

cold war kids

and regina spektor.

Like most everyone else, I am thinking that the Arcade Fire will take the aughts as the best band of the aughts. However I will also argue that Menomena and The National were quietly awesome throughout the decade.

Wow, you guys all have ridiculously good taste in music. I'll add Martha Wainwright and Old Man Leudecke (check him out if you like Old Crow Medicine Show) and the Great Lake Swimmers.

A few weeks ago, like Letterman with a (sic) adolescent, you verbally raped the kid after he wrote his Worst Bands of the Aughts piece.

An Evening Comment Diversion / Dustin Rowles

Dustin, and really all of Pajiba: Can we try and tone down the casual rape humor?...So please, Dustin, be less of a douche than Dane Cook.

Posted by: Dareva at June 23, 2009 7:24 AM

OK, so Dareva is a hypersensitive unshaved twat of a troll, but this is such a ridiculous stretch to make a point that I simply can't let it go uncountered. I guess "rape" is the new "gay" in the Feminist Lexicon -- a word that needs to be reclaimed by its rightful owners lest it be marginalized into meaninglessness. I call bullshit (on both counts, actually). The whole notion is so gay that it makes me want to go on a verbal rape spree.

Words matter. So does context. I don't believe that Dustin's use of the phrase "verbally raped" diminishes the concept of sexual rape any more than "murdered in the face" diminishes the concept of murder. First, "rape" has nonsexual meanings. Second, he qualified it as a metaphor by using the modifier "verbally". Finally, there is nothing pejorative or dismissive or particularly exaggerative about his tone.

Single-minded people with special-interest agendas just piss me off, especially when they try to rape a conversation.

Danger Mouse and the majority of his collaborations.

The guy was all over the place during the aughts.

The Libertines and the Arctic Monkeys absolutely blew my mind when I heard them initially and I still rock that shit like 7 years later. So them.

Che> You're right, but my point remains: most of those 'signficant bands' would have still formed in the early few years of that decade. And ultimately, how comprehensive would that list have been if you'd been writing it according to the criteria of 'got famous'?

Because that's my main problem. This decade seems to have had a particularly large number of 'performers' who got their recording contract because they were on reality TV, or had an affair with a famous person, or something. We've been forced to narrow our field to the a space full of all those fuckwits who've made this decade look like such a wasteland of musical talent.
I just think Pajiban's should share what bands/albums have impressed them in the last 9 years, without having to check how their Q rating compares to Paris Hilton or Heidi Pratt.

Everyone says TV on the Radio is great but do they actually have songs?

You shut your dirty face, Optimus. How can you even single out TV on the Radio for a comment like that when people are throwing around Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear? TVotR has awesome songs. I do like to keep it old-school with them, though-their Young Liars EP is my favorite, then Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes.

I'd probably say the Arcade Fire is one of the top contenders for Seminal Act of the Aughts, if only because they captured a sort of zeitgeist. They represented the "hip" indie underground, but had catchy, well put-together tunes, never released anything less than stellar, and were popular enough to be on the cover of Rolling Stone, jam with Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie on stage, and even become a sort of shorthand for the baroque pop trend in rock.

The White Stripes are in a similar boat, and will likely be remembered more fondly, or at least more often, than the Arcade Fire, if only because they were bigger, earlier, had Jack White's personality at the fore, and were largely given credit for "saving" rock music after the scourge of the nu-metal wastelands of the late 90s. They had major singles ("Fell in Love With a Girl" and "Seven Nation Army," particularly), fairly sensational albums (I always liked White Blood Cells, but Elephant and Get Behind Me, Satan are also pretty ace), and, perhaps most importantly, they did what every Great Rock'n'Roll Band is supposed to do: reinvented the blues for the newest generation.

That having said, Radiohead is still the best active band in all the land, even if they recorded two of their best albums in the 90s.

Other great bands that deserve mention though are the Decemberists, Iron and Wine, and 90s holdovers Wilco and the Flaming Lips (both of whom put out incredible, and in the case of Wilco, probably their best, work in the aughts).

Cindy, they may have had some recognition in the NYC scene, but if that alone makes someone famous, then there are a buttload of famous bands most people have never heard of and will never hear of.

it is a damned shame that no one has said silversun pickups. i saw them when they were an opening act at neumo's, and within the year they came back playing the same venue the rolling stones tour through.

not only is everything they do absurdly good -- carnavas is one of the most densely packed albums since . . . ever -- but they are obscenely successful. it's almost sickening.

That's muh girl, Cindy.

I don't think I've ever really heard Arcade Fire, so I definitely can't say I don't like them or talk shit, just not really interested. They can do what they want.

Agree with many of the above choices, but also have to add Swell Season.

This list begins and ends with the White Stripes, folks. They formed in the mid-late 90s, but they didn't really hit it until White Blood Cells in 2001.

Though, Kings of Leon and Mastodon both deserve some attention.

I'd also like to throw a shoutout to Volbeat. I only know one person who's heard of them, but they freakin' rock. If Johnny Cash, Metallica, and Social Distortion got together, this is what it would sound like.

Okay, this is a dead topic basically, but I'm pissed. "luker", your argument is bullshit. First, before I get into the meat of an argument, The Decemberists are named after a revolutionary movement in Russia in the early 1900s. Attend your history classes. Plus, if you ever actually LISTEN to the band, you'd know that your description of their sound is completely untrue. For one thing, Colin Meloy doesn't write songs about himself; he writes short stories in song form, mostly about incidents of folk legends or people from decades or even centuries ago. So, right there your point is moot.

But that's nitpicking. The meat:

I find if you actually take the time to figure out the differences between genres, you can find nuances that make you appreciate one genre or another. The difference might not be night and day, but it's distinct. I hated metal (HATED it) because I thought it was all the same and it was all awful. Then I realized most of the music I thought was "metal" was more "screamo" or "hardcore". I took the time to learn the differences, and while I'm not the biggest fan, I respect metal for what it is (while still mostly hating screamo and hardcore). When I was a kid, I thought all rap and hip-hop was the same. But there's a definite difference, and that difference is essential in my level of respect for either genre. Even country is not all the same because there are country-based artists who are legitimately talented and reject the more mainstream sound of most country artists. It's the same with indie and emo. Emo/pop-punk bands are quite in style right now with the mainstream. But those kids that love emo are not necessarily going to appreciate indie (in fact, many of them outright hate indie bands). Bands like Sing It Loud and Fall Out Boy are not in the same genre as Arcade Fire or Modest Mouse (or The Decemberists). A cursory listen will tell you this. You can tell the differences without any difficulty by listening. By not acknowledging these differences, you're cutting yourself off from a level of understanding and artistic appreciation. It's stubborn and frankly prejudiced.

I apologize to George for being so hard on him, and to an extent I apologize to "luker" for being so frustrated, but seriously, I get so pissed at shallow generalizations in any sort of criticism. Know what you're talking about and be reasonable, or don't expect anyone to take you seriously. Because, frankly, you don't deserve it.

This comes down to about 4 or 5:

The Walkmen ("You & Me" was my personal album of the year last year)

The Strokes ("Is This It" is still one of the best debut albums ever)

The White Stripes

Phoenix

The Shins