Kooks, The Vinyl Records
Arriving a good decade after the peak of Brit-pop, the Kooks revived that knowing, catchy clatter for a slightly later generation. Their debut, Inside In/Inside Out, appeared in 2006, the same year as the Arctic Monkeys' debut. The two bands may have been mild rivals, but their near-simultaneous debuts represented the birth of a new generation of British guitar bands, one as indebted to the Strokes as to classic rock. Inside In/Inside Out was a major hit in the U.K., peaking at number two on its way to quadruple-platinum status.