Second Tier Garage Rock - The St Johnny's of Tomorrow?

As for the recent stuff, most of it was a blur to me anyway. I suspect there'll be a White Stripes comp one day that will be cooed over and that a Hives song or two will end up on a box set. Beyond that, into the cut-out bin of doom!

it'd be one thing if this were true. but the fact is none of these bands have actually stormed the charts. for all the fanfare, the 2 biggest ones have barely cracked gold certification (in the U.S., anyway). which is not to say Elephant won't give 50 Cent some competition in Billboard -- but i doubt it. some of these bands may have long, respectable careers, but none of them is destined for the Nirvana-level crossover they're all being groomed by the media for. it's just silly. and it's media bias. I mean, Jimmy Eat World sold more records than the Strokes, but the mags aren't losing their shit over them as the return of rawk.

Jimmy Eat World will definitely have a fine greatest hits album if they stick around. "Lucky Denver Mint," "The Middle" & "Sweetness" are admittedly cheesy but moving nonetheless.

bands that will make it:

bands that won't:
all of them. who out of this batch of garage rock also-rans is getting serious (or even marginal) radio airplay? none.

As for the matter at hand, none of these bands are REALLY cracking through. The Strokes (who really have nothing nothing nothing to do with Garage), Stripes and Hives are probably more familiar for their names than their music with Joe Q. Music Fan.
But, as compared to the Electronica non-start fad alluded to earlier, there has long been a community or scene or whatever for these bands. Or at least these types of bands. At the very worst it'll be more like what happened with ska, but on a much lower level.

Nu Metal was awful awful awful, yes - but it had nothing to do with me. My cousin said to me over Thanksgiving, "James, you're a musician, right? You must HATE all this Britney shit, huh?" and I had to explain why Britney meant no more to me than How To Marry A Millionaire or Trading Spaces or any other bullshit cultural phenomonon. Britney ain't breathing my air and neither were Full Devil Jacket. I have nothing for them but indifference. But I got a pile of shitty bands to review who all have tassled hair and Converse, and I'm disappointed that peers of mine are falling for it.

One good nu metal band was Otep, at least their single, "Blood Pigs" - i loved that song

and you wanna talk about famous last words? I'm the idiot who famously whispered to a friend "they're going nowhere" when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs opened for Dead Moon to about ten people about two years ago.

Yeah, and one thing I like about Elephant is that it actually sounds like they don't care. I mean, they were obviously poised for big break-through blah blah blah, and they probably could have done it -- or they sure could have tried harder, anyway. Hired Butch Vig (or the equivalent, you know what I mean), synched Meg's drums so they were at least on the beat, brought in Billy Corgan to play bass or whatever... And they did none of the above. But at the same time, they haven't struck any big "no sell out" pose -- they do MTV, the magazine covers, whatever. They seem like they enjoy the attention and are wary of it at the same time (viz the White Blood Cells album cover/inner sleeve). They sound like they're having fun. And they've put out four good albums in a row. Nothing but affection from me.

I'd just like to point out that going gold does constitute chart success. Consider how many bands don't sell 500,000 copies. I'd also like to point out that the U.S. isn't the only music-buying nation. And chart success is relative. If you're recording an album on a Michael Jackson budget, gold is nuthin'. If you're recording on eight-track analog, 500,000 is a lot of profit.
And the record companies are interested in a profit. There wouldn't be a second BMG Strokes album without it.

And if, like the original Nuggets, we're mainly gonna deal with actual chart hits, then we could argue that these BEST OF '90s rock or POWER BALLADS USA comps ARE the Nuggets comps of today.

Anyway, the garage or garage-y revival-esque stuff of the last 25 years or whatever isn't, y'know, Garage in THAT sense. It would be ridiculous to hold a comp up in the same light as the Nuggets sets (which are sorta ridiculous and overrated anyhoo).

In light of this I have decided to never hope for a "new" Nuggets ever again.

Jody, you're smarter than that. Clearchannel tries to have one station in each format at least -- country, "urban", nu-rock, etc.