I'm supposed to take it easy with my carpel tunnell flaring up but the music cannot wait.
In the wasted decade we call the Aughts, it may have been the worst music decade to ever come out. Unless you were a fan of the Autotune it may have been the best decade for you but for people that wanted to hear melody, we were pretty much left out in the cold. Upon further review I came across a couple artists and bands that made an impact on me.
Black Stone Cherry-Certainly Roadrunner tried to make these guys like Nickelback but BSC had more rock and roll and boogie in them in the two albums that they made in the late 00's then most of Nickelback's catalog. The Bob Marlette produced Folklore and Superstitions got them radio ready and that one took a long time to grow on me but with hook filled songs such as Please Come In and Reverend Wrinkle made it perferrable over their debut. Of course it helps when some of the guys in the band are related to The Kentucky Headhunters as well (John Fred Young is the son of the guitar playing Richard Young). It also helps when you have a singer in Chris Robinson (no relation to Black Crowes' Robinson mind you) who can belt them out like a younger Chris Cornell. It will be interesting to see what their next album takes them although if they continue to hang with Marlette, will get them some much needed airplay but Marlette seems to make every band he produces sound like Nickelback knockoffs (Saliva for example, did wonders for Blood Stained Love Letter but hindered them on Cinco Diablo and Lynyrd Skynyrd's last album which sounded more N.back then Sweet Home Alabama). But BSC has enough originality to overcome that. We shall see.
The Darkness-Come on, you have to admit that you haven't heard anything this over the top since Queen or Spinal Tap and Justin Hawkins put the fun back into rock and roll. But the overhype and rock and roll excessness they were living got to the point that the wheels fell off and the band broke up after getting Queen's producer Roy Thomas Baker to produce One Way Ticket To Hell And Back. Perhaps their shining moment came when they rerecorded Permission To Land and took the f bombs out for subsitute words. Black Shuck (We Don't Give A Duck) or Get Your Hands Off My Woman (replacing CSer for Coconut) so The Darkness had a sense of humor in the way of a Spinal Tap so to speak. Modern rock has forsaken them which is a joke in itself but The Darkness had such a great love for classic rock that their records have actually held up a lot better than Godsmack or Linkin Park sotospeak. I heard rumblings of a reunion so who knows.
Len Price 3-Thank God for Little Steven who continues to seek and find the garage rockers that still get their influences from The Who when The Who had Keith Moon and anything goes and Something Else Kinks. These guys were so hard core about that Shel Talmy sound that Chinese Burn was recorded in mono and was a half hour tops. While the naysayers bitch about this method of music, The Len Price 3 wore their Creation, Kinks, Who sound on their sleeve and better that way than becoming another Radiohead knockoff or the aforementioned Nickelback. Rentacrowd was better, with a hit single tailored for 1966 in Doctor Gee, to which Little Steven signed them up to his Wicked Cool label. The latest Photographs I have yet to hear, or even see if fucking Best Buy will stock it have been getting rave reviews and hopefully I'll score a copy of that. It's nice to see a actual british band doing the original mod sound and if that isn't original enough for you, perhaps the feeble minded should stick to their Radiohead albums and Radiohead knockoffs. It's no shame to be influenced by The Who Sing My Generation, Face To Face Kinks, The Creation and Nuggets.
Secret Machines-Kinda Pink Floydish at the beginning and then threw some Neu!/Hawkwind influences on Now Here Is Nowhere, which made its way to the cutbins, but a bit more Prog pop than Prog Rock and then a EP titled after a single The Road Is Leads Where Its Led. Next album 10 Silver Drops added some U2 and an attempt for radio airplay but that album bombed and Ben Curtis left soon after. Their 2008 S/T return to the independent labels really didn't do much for me, it was a bit more noisier and Bob Ezrin didn't help much either. But for that fleeting moment in 2004, seems like Now Here Is Nowhere would have broke them and I still play that album a lot more than the rest of what they put out.
Porcupine Tree-Looking for the next great prog rock band (it isn't The Mars Volta) Porcupine Tree goes back into the early 90s but they caught fire on In Absentia and getting a great drummer in Gavin Harrison and combining Floyd trance like rock and hard metal Steven Wilson finally made something that could be a classic rock staple 20 or 30 years from now. But then again Atlantic Records didn't do them much favors since they couldn't market PT to the modern rock audience. While their fans perfer Deadwing, I enjoyed their third and final Atlantic effort Fear Of A Blank Planet (Featuring cameos from Robert Fripp and Alex Lifeson) and even more their 2009 The Incident to which they moved over to Roadrunner Records, a label that's more clueless than Atlantic if you can believe that. But one thing that keeps Porcupine Tree going is a very dedicated fanbase that will continue to support them through their sold out tours and modest selling albums. Overall my favorite band of the 2000's. If that means anything.
