 | | Inspired by folk, rock, country, and bluegrass, the London-based Mumford & Sons feature singer/guitarist/drummer Marcus Mumford, vocalist and banjo/Dobro player Winston Marshall, vocalist/keyboardist Ben Lovett, and vocalist/bassist Ted Dwane. |
 | | Hailing from South London, Florence Mary Leontine Welch writes songs that occupy the same confessional territory as gossip-loving, genre-bending contemporaries like Amy Winehouse, Kate Nash, Adele, and Lily Allen and the moody, classic art rock of Kate Bush, blending pop, soul, and baroque arrangements into a sound that earned the young artist considerable buzz in 2007. |
 | | It’s too facile to call the Black Keys counterparts of the White Stripes: they share several surface similarities -- their names are color-coded, they hail from the Midwest, they’re guitar-and-drum blues-rock duos -- but the Black Keys are their own distinct thing, a tougher, rougher rock band with a purist streak that never surfaces in the Stripes. |
 | | Few bands in the early 2000s rose so quickly to the forefront of pop music as the Killers. With a mix of '80s-styled synth pop and fashionista charm, the band's street-smart debut, Hot Fuss, became one of 2004's biggest releases, spawning four singles and catapulting the group -- particularly their dandyish, 22-year-old frontman, Brandon Flowers -- into the international spotlight. |
 | | Although chart success in England was an unlikely first step to fame for a band from Bowling Green, Kentucky, mainstream rock band Cage the Elephant achieved just that. |
 | | Initially embraced as "the Southern Strokes" for their resurrection and reinvention of Dixie-styled rock & roll, Kings of Leon steadily morphed themselves into an experimental rock outfit during the 2000s. |
 | | Muse's fusion of progressive rock, glam, electronica, and Radiohead-influenced experimentation is crafted by guitarist/vocalist Matthew Bellamy, bassist Chris Wolstenholme, and drummer Dominic Howard. |
 | | Gotye (pronounced "go-ti-yay" or "Gauthier") is the alias of Australian electronic pop trickster Wally de Backer. |
 | | Finding an unlikely middle point between Suicide's hostile, proto-electro punk art noise and the sardonic, pop-friendly sound of the Flaming Lips, MGMT started as electroclash musical terrorists but quickly grew into an eclectic, brainy pop group with psychedelic overtones. |
 | | Formerly known as the Jakes, Young the Giant began making eclectic indie rock in Irvine, CA, where bandmates Sameer Gadhia (vocals), Jacob Tilley (guitar), Eric Cannata (guitar), Payam Doostzadeh (bass), and Francois Comtois (drummer) all met each other during high school. |
 | | After surfacing in 2000 with the breakthrough single "Yellow," Coldplay quickly became one of the biggest bands of the new millennium, honing a mix of introspective Brit-pop and anthemic rock that landed the British quartet a near-permanent residence on record charts worldwide. |
 | | Provo, Utah's poppy dance-punk band Neon Trees features vocalist/keyboardist Tyler Glenn, guitarist Chris Allen, bassist Branden Campbell, and drummer/vocalist Elaine Bradley. |
 | | Death Cab for Cutie's rise from small-time solo project to Grammy-nominated rock band is one of indie rock's greatest success stories. |
 | | A solo project of Aaron Bruno, AWOLNATION began as a creative outlet for the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. |
 | | The Boston, Massachusetts-based Passion Pit began as a one-man project of singer and songwriter Michael Angelakos to produce a Valentine's Day gift for his girlfriend. |
 | | Modest Mouse were one of the most surprising commercial success stories of the new millennium -- while their music was by turns taut and elliptical, and the lyrics sometimes cryptic and introspective, the band broke through to the mainstream audience with the platinum-selling Good News for People Who Love Bad News, and they became genuine rock stars at a time when their musical peers remained cult figures. |
 | | Following the Format's breakup in 2008, frontman Nate Ruess took his songwriting skills to Steel Train's Jack Antonoff and Anathallo's Andrew Dost, both of whom shared a similar affinity for vintage pop music and quirky, melodic hooks. |
 | | After winning the nationwide 2010 battle-of-the-bands competition Musiktilraunir in their native Iceland, six-piece chamber pop group Of Monsters and Men were hailed as "the new Arcade Fire" in Rolling Stone magazine. |
 | | The French group Phoenix draw elements from their eclectic '80s upbringing to arrive at a satisfying blend of rock and synthesizers. |
 | | Brian Aubert (guitar/vocals), Nikki Monninger (bass), Christopher Guanlao (drums), and Joe Lester (keyboards) comprise the swarthy indie rock stylings of Silversun Pickups. |
 | | The White Stripes formed on Bastille Day in 1997, aiming to create simple, vigorous rock & roll with little more than Meg White's percussion and Jack White's guitar-and-vocal attack. |
 | | A combination of indie rock muscle and theatrical, unapologetic bombast turned Arcade Fire into indie royalty in the early 2000s. |
 | | Describing their sound as "Upper West Side Soweto," New York City's Vampire Weekend mix preppy, well-read indie rock with joyful, Afro-pop-inspired melodies and rhythms. |
 | | Mixing electronic polish with guitar-driven hooks à la Phoenix and the Postal Service, Bangor and Donaghadee, Northern Ireland's Two Door Cinema Club feature singer/guitarist/programmer Alex Trimble, guitarist/singer Sam Halliday, and bassist/singer Kevin Baird. |
 | | A classic guitar pop group almost nine years in the making, Albuquerque, New Mexico's the Shins began in 1997 as the side project of singer/songwriter and guitarist James Mercer's primary band, Flake. |
 | | As one of the most popular groups to emerge in the post-grunge alternative rock aftermath, Weezer received equal amounts of criticism and praise for their hook-heavy guitar pop. |
 | | Discovered in the wake of the Strokes' popularity and the subsequent garage rock revival, New York's art punk trio the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are comprised of singer Karen O, guitarist Nicolas Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase. |
 | | Equally inspired by classic tunesmiths like Buddy Holly and John Lennon and the street-smart attitude and angular riffs of fellow New Yorkers Television and the Velvet Underground, the Strokes were also equally blessed and cursed with an enormous amount of hype -- particularly from the U. |
 | | The Lumineers, a folk-rock trio out of Denver, Colorado, deliver an acoustic-based Americana sound that touches a lot of stylistic bases, from folk to gospel to heartland rock and the narrative end of country, all with interesting rhythmic twists and turns. |
 | | Radiohead were one of the few alternative bands of the early '90s to draw heavily from the grandiose arena rock that characterized U2's early albums. |
 | | New Zealand indie electronic ensemble the Naked and Famous make driving, melodic pop with an '80s post-punk influence. |
 | | Glasgow's art-damaged rock quartet Franz Ferdinand -- named for the Austro-Hungarian Archduke whose murder sparked World War I -- feature bassist Bob Hardy, guitarist Nick McCarthy, drummer Paul Thomson, and singer/guitarist Alex Kapranos. |
 | | Standing firmly on the middle ground between the quirky, staccato attack of Modest Mouse and the spirited, arena-ready roar of Arcade Fire, Los Angeles-based indie rock outfit Grouplove came to fruition in the late 2000s around the talents of Hannah Hooper, Christian Zucconi, Sean Gadd, Ryan Rabin, and Andrew Wessen. |
 | | Conceived as the first "virtual hip-hop group," Gorillaz blended the musical talents of Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, Blur's Damon Albarn, Cibo Matto's Miho Hatori, and Tom Tom Club's Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz with the arresting visuals of Jamie Hewlett, best known as the creator of the cult comic Tank Girl. |
 | | Keyboardist Matt Johnson and drummer Kim Schifino create the giddy, punky pop music of Matt and Kim. |
 | | Metric are a band with an eclectic, adventurous outlook, whose music encompasses elements of synth pop, new wave, dance-rock, and electronica and whose hometown has vacillated between Toronto, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, and London over the course of the group's existence. |
 | | Las Vegas-based indie rockers Imagine Dragons formed in Provo, Utah in 2009. Like their desert-born stadium rock contemporaries the Killers, Imagine Dragons blend engaging, synth-based dance-pop with emotionally charged, Brit-pop-inspired alt-rock. |
 | | Emerging in 2004 with a blend of woodsy midtempo rock and reverb-laden vocals, Band of Horses gained an audience in their native Northwest before Everything All the Time made them indie rock darlings. |
 | | Formed by novelist Mikel Jollett during a tumultuous period in his life, the Airborne Toxic Event (named after a section in American author Don DeLillo's novel White Noise) combine literate indie rock with real literary cred. |
 | | Long Beach, California's Cold War Kids make music with roots that go deep and wide, embracing influences as diverse as Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Jeff Buckley, and the Velvet Underground. |
 | | By distilling the sounds of Franz Ferdinand, the Clash, the Strokes, and the Libertines into a hybrid of swaggering indie rock and danceable neo-punk, Arctic Monkeys became one of the U. |
 | | After failing to secure an international audience for nearly ten years, Snow Patrol broke into the mainstream with 2003's Final Straw, a mega-selling album that showcased the band's fondness for epic, melancholic rock. |
 | | Named for the courier service that allowed them to trade song ideas while living in different locales, the Postal Service were a short-lived supergroup featuring Jimmy Tamborello (leader of the electronica bands Dntel and Figurine) and Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard. |
 | | Formed in 2007 by Ima Robot frontman Alex Ebert after a brief period of existential crisis, the cultish 11-piece indie rock outfit Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros draw their inspiration from the communal musical communities that peppered Southern California (specifically Laurel Canyon) with positive vibrations during the '60s and early '70s. |
 | | In 2003, Frenchmen Anthony Gonzalez and Nicolas Fromageau enjoyed international acclaim for the album Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, a luscious blend of shoegaze aesthetics, ambient pop, and progressive textures. |
 | | When Foo Fighters released a debut album written and recorded entirely by leader Dave Grohl -- at that point known only as the powerhouse drummer for Nirvana -- in the summer of 1995, few would have guessed that the group would wind up as the one band to survive the '90s alt-rock explosion unscathed. |
 | | With their choir boy vocals and panoramic pop/rock sound, the Temper Trap began building an audience in Melbourne, Australia, where the band first rose to local acclaim after playing St. |
 | | OK Go didn't find an audience until 2005, when the band began creating homemade music videos to support their combination of off-kilter guitars, Pixies/Cars fetishism, and straightforward power pop sensibilities. |
 | | Best-known for their ubiquitous hit "The Distance," Cake epitomized the postmodern, irony-drenched aesthetic of '90s geek rock. |
 | | A self-described "new band made up of old friends," the Raconteurs feature the White Stripes' Jack White and power pop maestro Brendan Benson on vocals, keyboards, and guitars, and the Greenhornes' drummer Patrick Keeler and bassist Jack Lawrence as the group's rhythm section. |
