Pitchfork reviews The Strokes's Room on Fire, 2003
The beginning of our generation's indie rock explosion, Julian Casablancas and his gang led the east coast, while Brandon Flowers won the jackpot out of Vegas with Hot Fuss. The genre had yet to be treacherously combined with shoegaze style, fuzzy guitar had yet to give way to electronic elements. The Strokes have been relatively well with a garage rock sound, a slight surf pop twang ("Automatic Stop"), and they're still playful as ever (compare "Meet Me In The Bathroom" with "Under Cover Of Darkness").
Incubus, circa 2000, Make Yourself and Morning View specifically. "The Warmth" resonates marvelously, and "Warning" has been a long-standing favourite music video of mine.
It's been five years since Justin Timberlake's last complete album. I mean, "Carry Out" was fantastic and all, but the musicality of the interludes "I Think She Knows" (skip to 3:28), "Comes Around", and the "Set the Mood" prelude deserve to be studied in future music history textbooks. I realize that they were largely the work of Timbaland, who has also faded into the woodwork as of late, but c'mon JT--you're past due. Take a break from the big screen.
Let's return to 2012, shall we? Courtesy of 4AD--"Obedear" (mp3) by Purity Ring