I often ask myself these days... What happened to good and inspiring guitar music? And when will Green Day and the Foo Fighters break up? I think the musical industry currently is in an awful state, similar to the dreadful landscape of the late 90's when Limp Bizkit and Korn were selling out stadiums in the US. I don't think it's a problem of there not being enough raw talent right now - there are plenty of amazing bands and artists out there who are undiscovered by the masses who will never get played on major radio stations and money obsessed TV. Record companies only want to promote these 'plastic' artists (Lady Gaga anyone? OMG she is so individual!) who will make them an immense amount of financial profit. It seems like the actual art they create and the appreciation of the songwriting craft and melody means nothing to them. They will sign anything that looks like something that will sell. It seems like it takes one great band to reach the masses that needs to come through to get other bands heard (The Strokes "Is This It", released in 2001 rings a bell to me)
The popularity of this album helped tons and tons of smaller indie bands to get picked up by record labels. Sometimes we forget bands like the Arcade Fire and Kings of Leon (more like dick's of leon now) got signed because of the Strokes.
A few really brilliant, catchy and listenable (and my favorite) albums that have came out in the last year or so have to be:
2) The Arctic Monkeys- Suck It and See
3) Best Coast- Crazy For You
One band needs to come around in the next few years to get stripped down, inspiring, raw music back down to earth and to inspire teenagers to pick up a guitar, form a band with a few mates and realize the magic they can make.
