U2's Bono was one of the few real rock heroes of the 1980s, leading the Irish band to international recognition with a charged, political approach to music. The band's early efforts brought a stadium-size presence to alt-rock, with Bono's expressive …

Though a batch of 1980s-New Wave-inspired bands started making noise in the early 2000s, it wasn't until the Killers' 2004 debut album HOT FUSS that the style really broke through to the mainstream. Heavily indebted to the likes of the Smiths, Psyche…

Coming out of the grass-roots Gilman St. punk scene of the early-1990s Bay Area, Green Day exploded into the mainstream with their third album, 1994's DOOKIE. The trio's punk energy and pop hooks, influenced by first-generation punks like the Buzzcoc…

New Jersey hardcore band My Chemical Romance achieved a surprising degree of success with their Goth-tinged, woe-is-me take on punk. Labeled everything from emo and pop-punk to post-hardcore and screamo, My Chemical Romance are one of several bands f…

Denver-based band the Fray was formed in 2002 by Isaac Slade vocals piano and Joe King guitar vocals when the two former school friends met up again in a local music store They soon began regular two-man jam sessions that led to writing songs and dev…

Inspiring legions of imitators (especially among the rap-metal crowd), the Red Hot Chili Peppers combined biting rock guitar with funk rhythms and rap-influenced vocals for a thunderous, party-hearty sound. While the California band was popular on th…

Out of the backwaters of Oklahoma rose the power-pop clatter of the All-American Rejects, whose 2002 self-titled debut album, released on the indie Doghouse Records, yielded a huge fan base and the attention of several major labels. In a field crowde…

The mercurial term "emo" has meant many different things since its first appearance in the mid-1980s hardcore punk underground. By the mid 2000s, the term was best exemplified by the band Fall Out Boy. Playing an accessible brand of melodic rock mark…

An indie/garage supergroup consisting of two members of Toledo's Greenhorns, Motor City power-pop songsmith Brendan Benson and the inimitable Jack White, the Raconteurs play a fairly straightforward version of classic rock that contains hints of the …

Hardcore revivalists-turned-goth-punks AFI ascended to a new level of stardom when they decided to slap on some eyeliner and embrace their inner Robert Smiths. After several independent releases, the Southern California-based outfit released their ma…

Californian sextet Linkin Park simultaneously took inspiration from and expanded upon the hybrid of heavy rock, hip-hop, and electronics that made such bands as Korn and Limp Bizkit so successful at the tail end of the 1990s. The band's 2000 debut HY…

Initially known as an actor most notably on the 90s TV drama My So-Called Life and in movies like Requiem for a Dream Jared Leto also had musical ambitions His band 30 Seconds to Mars debuted in 2002 with a self-titled effort featuring a post-grunge …

A discovery of pop-punk superstars Fall Out Boy, the Las Vegas emo band Panic! At the Disco (named for a Smiths song), stormed the charts in 2005 while its members were barely old enough to vote. Offering a highly danceable take on the emo formula of…

Glasgow-via-Belfast indie-rock ensemble Snow Patrol have played everything from shambolic noise-pop a la Pavement, to a slightly droney post-rock in the vein of Mogwai, to epic lovelorn anthems modeled after Coldplay. While the band's influences are …

Though journalistic shorthand often finds Nickelback dubbed "the Canadian Creed," the band found success on its own terms right from the start with the 2000 debut album THE STATE. It may be true that the band's heavy guitars, pounding drums, and dram…

Queen embodied 1970s glam rock--mixing heavy riffs and intricate vocal harmonies with a gender-bending image. Freddie Mercury's operatic voice and Brian May's guitar were multi-tracked ad infinitum to create pomp-rock in the grandest sense. In the '8…

OK Go's popularity is testament not only to the Chicago band's crunchy-guitar, power-pop flammability--in evidence since their late-1990s beginnings--but also to the mixture of media canniness and of-the-moment grace that allowed them to ride a wave …

Post-grunge rockers Hinder got started in the early 2000s in Oklahoma City where Joe Garvey and drummer Cody Hanson found Austin Winkler singing cover songs at a college party The three formed the nucleus of Hinder and started landing gigs opening lo…

The Texas indie rock quintet Blue October came together in the late 90s with vocalistguitarist Justin Furstenfeld drummer Jeremy Furstenfeld violinist Ryan Delahoussaye bassist Matt Noveskey and lead guitarist Brant Coulter In 1998 Blue October indep…

Young singer-songwriter Nelly Furtado, who hails from Victoria, BC, emerged seemingly from out of nowhere with her debut album WHOA NELLY in 2000, sporting an eclectic, genre-defying sound and winsome tone. Furtado's hugely popular work incorporates …