The Best Alternative Rock Albums of the 2000s

Dave Grohl took the drum stool for one album and played the best rock drums of his career on it, with Mark Lanegan singing lead on three tracks and Nick Oliveri on bass. No One Knows turns on a snare pattern that keeps landing a fraction early, so the riff sounds like it is chasing the kit. Spotify title-cases it as Songs For The Deaf.

Dave Fridmann co-produced again after The Soft Bulletin, and Warner Bros. put it out as a half-formed concept record about a girl fighting pink robots. Do You Realize?? sets the bleakest line on the album — everyone you know someday will die — against an acoustic strum and a synthetic choir. Oklahoma adopted the song as its official state rock song in 2009.

Ross Robinson produced it for Grand Royal, the Beastie Boys' label, and Iggy Pop turned up to shout on Rolodex Propaganda. One Armed Scissor is the whole band's argument in four minutes: two guitars playing against each other, Cedric Bixler-Zavala cracking his voice on the chorus. The group broke up within a year, which is why nothing quite followed it.

Rick Rubin produced, and Flea played bass on almost all of it while Omar Rodriguez-Lopez wrote the parts. Inertiatic ESP arrives on a wordless scream, then a Jon Theodore drum figure that refuses to settle into one meter. Spotify drops the hyphen and files it as Deloused in the Comatorium. The story hangs on the death of the artist Julio Venegas.

Rich Costey produced the record that turned Muse into a headline act, and it went to number one in Britain in 2003. Hysteria is carried by Chris Wolstenholme's bass, a distorted sixteenth-note line that never lets up while Matt Bellamy plays around it. Border case: the piano-and-falsetto half of this band sits closer to prog than to rock radio.

Ken Nelson co-produced with the band, and the album won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. The Scientist is a descending piano figure and Chris Martin's falsetto for two full minutes before any drums arrive, and the restraint is the point. They were still a guitar group here, which is why this one survives arguments the stadium records lose.

Nick Oliveri's arrival on bass and vocals is what separates this from the desert rock around it, and Rob Halford of Judas Priest sang backing vocals on Feel Good Hit of the Summer, a chorus that is nothing but a list of drugs, repeated. Interscope released it in June 2000 and radio had no idea what to do with any of it.

Domino put it out in January 2006 and it became the fastest-selling debut album in British chart history at the time. I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor moves at a sprint, Matt Helders hammering the toms while Alex Turner narrates a night out in Sheffield like a court reporter. Border case: the garage-rock list took the American end of this scene.

Named after a fictional band on a bass drum in New Order's Crystal video, the Las Vegas four-piece built a debut out of synth-pop bones and guitar hooks. Mr. Brightside runs on one guitar figure that never changes and a lyric that never resolves, which is why it refuses to leave the charts. Border case: the post-punk revival list took the New York end.

Billy Howerdel was Tool's guitar tech before he played Maynard James Keenan the demos that became this, and Virgin put it out in 2000. Judith is named for Keenan's mother and is the angriest thing here, Howerdel's guitar tone thin and bright over Josh Freese's drums. It reached number four on the Billboard 200; Spotify title-cases it as Mer De Noms.

Craig Potter, the band's keyboard player, produced it, and it won the 2008 Mercury Prize after four albums of near misses. One Day Like This builds a string figure over eight minutes and then hands it to a choir, which ought to be unbearable and is not. The record is dedicated to Bryan Glancy, a Manchester songwriter who died in 2006.

Manchester three-piece who started as the dance act Sub Sub and changed direction after a fire destroyed their studio. There Goes the Fear throws the song away at the end, two minutes of samba percussion tacked onto the back of it, and the single was deleted on the day of release and still charted at number three. The album went to number one.

Chris Cornell fronting the three instrumentalists from Rage Against the Machine, with Rick Rubin producing and Brendan O'Brien mixing. Cochise opens on Tom Morello making a guitar sound like a helicopter rotor before Brad Wilk's drums come down on top of it. The supergroup label was fair and the record mostly survives it, which was never guaranteed.

Two discs, one loud and one acoustic, twenty songs, cut in a studio the band built for themselves in Northridge, California. Best of You is Dave Grohl shredding his own voice on purpose over a riff that barely moves, and the strain is the entire performance. Norah Jones sings on Virginia Moon and John Paul Jones plays piano on the quiet disc.

Three brothers and a cousin from Tennessee, produced again by Angelo Petraglia and Jacquire King, on the album that turned a critics' band into a stadium act. Sex on Fire went to number one in Britain and hangs on a guitar figure high up the neck that Caleb Followill sings straight through. Spotify title-cases the album as Only By The Night.

Wind-up Records released it in March 2003, and the band took Best New Artist and Best Hard Rock Performance at the 2004 Grammys. Bring Me to Life carries guest vocals from Paul McCoy of 12 Stones, added because the label doubted a woman-fronted rock single would get played without a man on it. Border case: nu metal owns the heavier end of this.

Jack White and Brendan Benson wrote it together at Benson's home studio in Detroit, with Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of the Greenhornes as the rhythm section. Steady, As She Goes rides a bass line that owes an obvious debt to Joe Jackson, and White's guitar stays out of the way until it doesn't. Ten songs and out, with nothing padding it.

Dave Sardy produced this Australian trio's debut, and Woman took the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2007. It runs two and a half minutes on Andrew Stockdale's yelp and a riff that could have been cut in 1971, with Chris Ross covering organ and bass at once. Spotify dates the album 2006; Australia had it in October 2005.