All my favorite indie bands of the 2000s, re-reviewed for today

Recently, I've been working on a novel that is set in the present (more or less) but heavily informed by events in the characters' pasts, which is to say the mid-2000s. As I write, I have steadily immersed myself in the music of the mid-2000s, especially the indie rock of the era, which was the music I listened to almost exclusively at the time. Upon revisiting it for this project, I've been surprised by how my feelings have shifted on some of these groups.

That shift is natural, of course. I'm 20 years older now; naturally, my tastes have changed over time. But I'm also struck by how much more comfortable I feel admitting that there are certain groups that never worked for me as much as I pretended to like them, and a lot of that is thanks to the influence of estradiol valerate on my system and general consciousness. The indie rock scene of the time wasn't the exclusive realm of dudes – as we shall see – but it was heavily filtered through what we might call the dude consciousness of the era. A band like Rilo Kiley was appreciated because Jenny Lewis could hang with the boys, but there was always a whiff of novelty to how the music press treated the group. Did you know their singer was a girl???

The point here is that in the 2000s, I was still doing my level best to perform masculinity in hopes of nobody blowing my cover. As we all know, I was absolutely triumphant at this, and nobody found me off-putting. But that also meant that if somebody was, like, "Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is the next big band," I would parrot that basic idea, even if I didn't really agree in the slightest. And considering how much of the book I'm writing is built atop the different ways that people remember the past – especially post-transition – it's been wild to realize just how massive these shifts have been in some cases.

So with all of that preamble, I thought I would run down 19 different groups from the 2000s that I had thoughts on at the time, then see how those thoughts have changed now that I am 20 years older and more myself. The results... might shock you. (They will probably not shock you.)

Arcade Fire

How I felt then: They might have been my favorite band going. I waited for each new album with eager anticipation, and their second album, Neon Bible, was the only thing I listened to for much of 2007. I saw them in concert once, and the experience was vaguely life-changing. Some guy ran around with a bass drum he pounded on!

How I feel now: It's complicated! For one thing, there are the multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct that have been leveled against frontman Win Butler, which sour me on the band's hyper-earnestness. For another, the band pretty much wandered off the map after their third album, The Suburbs. While I really liked their experimentation on Reflektor and Everything Now, it's hard to argue those albums had the cultural impact of their early releases. Now that they're back to trying to be the Arcade Fire of the 2000s, I have next to no time for them. The early stuff still works for me mostly, but it's hard to listen to something as lovely and aching as, say, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" and not think about the accusations against Butler.

Ben Folds/Five

How I felt then: I'm kind of cheating here because Ben Folds Five broke up after 1999's The Autobiography of Reinhold Messner, and Folds's solo work in the 2000s never quite held the same sway for me as the full band's stuff did. But, like, "The Luckiest" was the first dance at my wedding. I'm not going to pretend the work of Folds and Co. wasn't hugely important to me! Ben Folds Five was probably the band that got me through the roughest year of high school.

How I feel now: I think Folds is a pretty wonderful songwriter and supporter of the arts in the US at a time when we need more supporters of the arts in the US. But I can't pretend that the casual misogyny that soaks everything from "Song for the Dumped" to "Landed" doesn't grate on me far more now than it did at the time. Indeed, it was already grating on me that much more in the early 2010s, when I wrote about it for The A.V. Club under my old name (hence the lack of hyperlink). Ben Folds is the world's most special boy, and he has never done anything wrong. He can only be wronged!

Coldplay

How I felt then: I quite liked them when they first landed, though I never loved them. They wrote some good tunes, and I really loved A Rush of Blood to the Head, their second album. But when they started to become the biggest band in the universe, I really turned on them. Once, I asked a guy I knew what kind of music he listened to, and he said, "Coldplay." Boo! Hiss!

How I feel now: The hits still work for me, I don't make myself listen to the songs that don't, and I have a perverse fascination with "Fix Me" thanks to The Newsroom. And "Viva La Vida" rocks.

Death Cab for Cutie

How I felt then: These guys might be the ultimate "Emily was making herself like something because she thought she was a cool indie guy" group. I did genuinely like the album Transatlanticism and a few other tracks, but most of my Death Cab love was idle posturing. I was a white guy in her 20s. I had to go with the flow!

How I feel now: I feel much more comfortable in admitting to a supreme indifference to this music, outside of a few tracks. But, alas, "The New Year" is good enough that I must, indeed, listen to it every new year.

The Decemberists

How I felt then: Loved 'em! I first found out about them when their album Picaresque dropped, then went over the moon with The Crane Wife, probably their best album. Hyper-literate songs built atop old English folk song forms? Alt-rock that used five-dollar words throughout? 2006 Emily was in heaven.

How I feel now: My feelings have cooled considerably. A friend was telling me the album they released last year was their best in quite a while, and I just couldn't work up the wherewithal to listen. There is a tweeness to the group that feels irreparably stuck in the 2000s to me, or maybe they're the prime example of a group for whom my appreciation was deeply tied up in the persona I affected at the time. I did genuinely like them, and I do still genuinely love the songs by them that I love, but I would no longer list them among my absolute favorites.

Florence + the Machine

How I felt then: I really liked "Dog Days Are Over."

How I feel now: Damn, Florence Welch can sing! I would not say I am a super fan of this group or anything, but their most recent album, 2022's Dance Fever, gave me a real appreciation for their whole catalog. And if anything, I like "Dog Days Are Over" even more now.

The Hold Steady

How I felt then: Another potential contender for my favorite band of the period. Separation Sunday, Boys and Girls in America, and Stay Positive all knocked me sideways, and I spent long periods of time trying to compare their work to that of Bruce Springsteen. Plus, they sang so much about Minneapolis, a place I know well, which only made me love them more.

How I feel now: This band is a tricky one for purposes of this list. Some stuff that happened in my personal life meant that I could no longer listen to them without a lot of tough feelings for about a decade there, and by the time I had worked my way back around to liking them, I was taking estrogen. Craig Finn's affection for fucked-up girls who just needed the love of a good fella felt slightly less charming to me. I still deeply appreciate everything this band is up to, especially on the three albums listed, but I can't say I break out their albums on a regular basis. For better or worse, there is something about them that is so boy that I just can't quite get on board with them anymore.

The Killers

How I felt then: These guys sucked (except for "All These Things That I've Done"). Why was "Mr. Brightside" supposed to be the song of my generation? It made no sense.

How I feel now: NOW I'M FALLING ASLEEP
AND SHE'S CALLING A CAB
WHILE HE'S HAVING A SMOKE
AND SHE'S TAKING A DRAG

NOW THEY'RE GOING TO BED
AND MY STOMACH IS SICK
AND IT'S ALL IN MY HEAD, BUT SHE'S

TOUCHING HIS CHEST NOW,
HE TAKES OFF HER DRESS NOW,
LET ME GO
'CAUSE I JUST CAN'T LOOK,
IT'S KILLING ME
THEY'RE TAKING CONTROL

JEALOUSY,
TURNING SAINTS INTO THE SEA
SWIMMING THROUGH SICK LULLABIES
CHOKING ON YOUR ALIBIS
BUT IT'S JUST THE PRICE I PAY
DESTINY IS CALLING ME
OPEN UP MY EAGER EYES 'CAUSE

I'M

MR.

BRIGHTSIDE.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber: For as little as $5 a month, you can support this newsletter and help keep it rolling. Paid subscribers get weekly posts on Mondays and Fridays that go out even on weeks the Wednesday newsletter is dark, access to the full archives, a monthly mailbag, and a link to the Episodes Discord server. There will be other fun treats along the way. Click the button to learn more!

LCD Soundsystem

How I felt then: I liked James Murphy and his brand of cerebral electronic alt-rock, but I struggled a bit to get into them in a way that suggests to me that I was pretending too hard to be a guy.

How I feel now: Plot twist! I just wasn't close enough to death. Now that I'm in my 40s, I love LCD Soundsystem! Have you listened to Sound of Silver? Perfect album!

Modest Mouse

How I felt then: I liked some of their songs, but I ultimately didn't really care about the band itself. They were a little more rock-forward than I tended to like.

How I feel now: You know what? These guys aren't really my cup of tea, but I can appreciate them much more now that I know that's just the case and I'm not trying to be, like, the ultimate indie rock guy. Sometimes, a thing just isn't for you! I still love "Float On"! What a basic take!

The Mountain Goats

How I felt then: My wife loved them, and I was casually into them as well. I loved The Sunset Tree and Tallahassee, but John Darnielle's catalog was so daunting that I didn't dig much deeper than that.

How I feel now: The cohort of trans women I transitioned alongside all loved The Mountain Goats, and so I did too. I think I like them genuinely, but I cannot know if I actually do or if I was made to enjoy them because of peer pressure, like my previous efforts at blending in with the boys, only in reverse. I really have loved their most recent albums, and the more I dig into the catalog, the more I find to love. So the affection is probably genuine! Probably.

The New Pornographers

How I felt then: Probably the last of the "was this my favorite band??" entrants, The New Pornographers had the longest run at the top. Challengers was the album that got me through an incredibly rough period in my personal and professional lives, and all of the albums before that rocked too. I think they're the only group on this list that I've seen in concert more than twice. (Thrice!) (I don't really get a lot out of going to concerts.)

How I feel now: Genuinely, my opinion on them has shifted the least of any group on this list. Challengers is surely in my top 10 albums of all time, and I liked basically every album they made through 2017's Whiteout Conditions. Their last couple albums haven't hit in the same way, but that's okay! I've got almost two decades of great music from them. What more do I want?

Rilo Kiley

How I felt then: They were good! Their lead singer was a girl! I had no feelings about that and how I did or didn't relate to her experiences of the world, no sir! I got on board with their penultimate album, More Adventurous, and didn't really dig back into releases prior to that, but "Portions for Foxes" was the only song I listened to on the day of my younger sister's wedding for some reason. I was probably more of a fan of Jenny Lewis's solo work!

How I feel now: I said a few years ago that if Rilo Kiley ever did a reunion tour, I wanted to go see it, and at the time, I had no idea where my fervor had come from. Then, I went to a screening of Babylon in early 2023. Before the film, the theater was playing the entirety of their 2002 album, The Execution of All Things, of all things, and I fucking loved it. It turned out that beneath all of my casual appreciation of the band, actual Emily was developing a real love. They're now one of my favorite groups ever, and I still really love Lewis's solo albums. Plus, I love all the lore about how they hated each other for ages. The Xennial Fleetwood Mac!

The Shins

How I felt then: I really liked them! Great songs, and a great sound all around. What was that? My favorite song? Gosh, I don't know! The one Natalie Portman listened to in Garden State?

How I feel now: Every time a song by them comes up on one of my 2000s mixes as I work on the book, I wrinkle my nose and skip past it. No thank you!

Sufjan Stevens

How I felt then: Illionoise was my favorite album of whatever year it was released, Seven Swans hit for me too, and I loved that someone so thoughtfully Christian was becoming so well known. When it became clear he was never going to finish the 50 States Project, I was annoyed! Annoyed!

How I feel now: I will be honest and say that I just haven't ever liked a Stevens album as much as I liked Illinoise, which blended all of the things he does well into one package. He now seems to alternate albums of soft, sad, singer-songwriter stuff with electronic experimentation, and neither mode is my favorite. Still, if anybody in the world is going to put out an album that knocks me on my ass out of fucking nowhere, it's Sufjan Stevens.

Taylor Swift

How I felt then: Ha, I "liked" her, you know? Like I thought her songs were corny but well-written! I just thought they were "fun" sometimes. I certainly only listened to them with a healthy dose of irony.

How I feel now: You need to ask? (I mean, neither of her albums from the 2000s is my favorite even today, but the point stands.)

Vampire Weekend

How I felt then: One of those bands I tried to like really hard and could never get into outside of a few tracks. Something about their whole deal just didn't quite mesh with what I was looking for when their earliest albums came out in the late 2000s.

How I feel now: Setting aside that there are lots of dark whispers around frontman Ezra Koenig (whispers, I hasten to add, that have failed to cohere into any sort of mainstream press coverage just yet), this is the rare dude favorite indie rock band of the era I like quite a bit more than I did at the time. Some of that is just that Modern Vampires of the City is a favorite album of mine, and it came out in the 2010s, but I think there's a quality to their work that stands out more sonically right now than it did in 2008.

The White Stripes

How I felt then: Loved! I wrote a whole stage play that started out as a meditation on Jack and Meg White, even if it ended up being about newspaper comic strip writers? When they ceased operations as a group, I was sad, but I also remember thinking that they were probably out of juice just a little bit. Why did I think this? No idea.

How I feel now: I don't go out of my way to listen, but if they come up in a shuffle, I'll stay with them. "Blue Orchid" rocks, and I feel like I slept on it at the time.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

How I felt then: I liked "Maps," and I liked "Skeletons," and... that was kind of it? I appreciated what they were going for more than I liked it.

How I feel now: I now realize that Karen O's brand of femininity just wasn't one I found aspirational as a wannabe Taylor Swift or Jenny Lewis. Now that I have landed roughly in the Venn diagram intersection of those two white women, I can appreciate what Karen O was going for much more. As such, I've really come around on this group, and It's Blitz is slowly climbing up my list of favorite albums. Give me time. In 10 years, I might list Yeah Yeah Yeahs among my very favorite groups. We'll just have to see!

A Good Song

The free edition of Episodes, which (usually) covers classic TV and film, is published every other Wednesday, and the subscriber-supported edition of Episodes, which covers more recent stuff, is published every Friday. Paid subscribers also have access to the weekly Monday Rundown. This newsletter is written by Emily St. James and Libby Hill. If you have suggested topics, please reply to the email version of this newsletter or comment (if you are a paid subscriber).