An early-2000s New York band cohort briefly defined global indie music

Evidence

Their 2001 debut, Is This It, became an instant classic, winning critical acclaim and reintroducing downtown New York’s aesthetic to a global audience. The band’s triumphant emergence convinced the industry that the new century would play out like the previous one: find hip bands and then package them up for mass global consumption. Interscope signed the female-fronted Yeah Yeah Yeahs. British record label Ministry of Sound advanced a rumored $2 million to the obscure performance art project Fischerspooner based on a demo tape and gigs at galleries and the Starbucks on Astor Place. Across town, James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy of label DFA Records created a new sound merging disco beats with rock instrumentation that challenged Europe’s techno dominance on the dance floor. This cohort of New York bands, along with Detroit’s the White Stripes, wrote the new rules for global independent music over the next four years. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 56