2001: A Rock Odyssey

Remember when the 'new' millennium arrived?

Besides a shift in our clocks, there was a garage rock revival that changed the face of alternative music forever. In 2001 I was thirteen years old, and I quickly fell in love with the White Stripes and the Strokes when they arrived on the scene. My affection for the genre only deepened with the arrival of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Hives, the Libertines, the Stills, and eventually the Arctic Monkeys and Bloc Party. Yeah, I love my indie pop now, but before that the speakers in my bedroom were flooded with louder, back-to-basics grooves. I still pop in the White Stripes' Elephant and zoom down the street in my car from time to time, yell-singing "I think I smell a rat!". In high school, my first concert was the Strokes in Boston, at age fourteen. I didn't get to see the White Stripes until age eighteen, but it was still worth it then. Currently, the White Stripes are broken up, who knows what happened to the Hives, and the Strokes are making a dismal attempt at becoming a band again. Even I can admit this, and I was obsessed with Julian Casablancas from the first time I heard "Last Nite". Ah, well. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for some talented new groups to arrive, to pick up where these guys left off in the middle of the last decade, keeping the original soul but injecting some new juice. Anybody wanna start a band?

This playlist is full of songs that I loved when I was in high school, that I think represent the mood and time well. I'm no expert on where genres end and begin, but I think this compilation is pretty awesome and worth the time-traveling.