The 2000s rock revival failed to match grunge’s mainstream dominance

Evidence

Despite the hype, the rock revival struggled to dominate the airwaves as grunge had in the nineties. The Strokes earned the label of “last real rock stars” but could never match the popularity of their critically loathed post-alternative contemporaries like Creed, Nickelback, and System of a Down. Electroclash fizzled as its artists rejected the categorization, and downtown’s influence on the music market waned. Overall, the pop music of the subsequent decades owes very little to downtown New York. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 57