The White Stripes<\/a> in 2003. This bluesy alt-rock hit was a smash on the charts, reaching No. 1 in the UK and on the Alternative Airplay chart in the US. And this minimalist classic features vocals, drums, and the slide guitar\u2026 and not much else. You really don\u2019t hear simple and enjoyable music quite like this nowadays.<\/p>\n\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cLast Nite\u201d by The Strokes from \u2018Is This It\u2019 (2001)<\/p>\n
\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t![\"Play\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791004221_673_hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
This song just sounds like the early 2000s to me. And this stripped-down garage rock jam from 20001 still sounds quite contemporary today. \u201cLast Nite\u201d by The Strokes was a pretty hefty hit when it dropped, peaking at No. 5 on the Alternative Airplay chart in the US and No. 1 on the UK Indie chart. Like the previous entry, this indie rock jam is fairly simple, and it (allegedly) took heavy inspiration from Tom Petty\u2019s legendary 1976 hit, \u201cAmerican Girl\u201d. Some riffs are just timeless, whether there\u2019s 20, 30, or 40 years behind them.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Brightside\u201d by The Killers from \u2018Hot Fuss\u2019 (2003)<\/p>\n
\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t![\"Play\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791004221_692_hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Millennials will belt this song until their dying breaths, and I can certainly see why. This 2003 alt-rock smash from The Killers is one of the most beautiful songs of its era. \u201cMr. Brightside\u201d was also a hit among listeners at the time of its release, and it reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It\u2019s still one of the most-streamed songs today. And it\u2019s worthy of a spot on our list of rock songs from the 2000s that still sound fresh because those poetic lyrics and anthemic composition still get emotions out of listeners after all these years.<\/p>\n
Photo by Frank Mullen\/WireImage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The early 2000s were a rich era for new evolutions of rock music as the world entered into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[89631,88,216,2156],"class_list":["post-869047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-2000s","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Play\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791004220_519_hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n