I’ll be the first to admit that, at the impressionable age of fifteen, I fell in love with that whole ‘New Rock Revolution’ peddled by all the music magazines. Bands like the Strokes, the Hives, and the Vines were what I listened to the entire summer of 2002, feeling a sense of superiority to my Nelly-listening peers. However, come that autumn, once everyone and their mother seemed to get into these bands, their novelty had worn off (except for the Strokes, a band I’d continue to be obsessed with for about two more years, sadly)

Yet whenever I put my iPod on shuffle, it always seems to find one of the three songs I have by the Vines, and I get to thinking: Whatever happened to the band? I know they had follow-up albums that absolutely bombed, but are they still a band? Do they still have fans? Well, it seems like the fine folks at the Guardian seemed to have been thinking about the exact same thing I did. This weekend, the paper published a piece called ‘Next Big Heroes to Nigh-On Zeros‘ charting the rise and fall of bands like the Vines, wondering if the incessant hype that greeted the band upon its inception played a part in their eventual downfall. It makes for interesting reading, even if you don’t follow the hype machine built up around bands. It’s also fun to try and predict what overhyped bands of today will be forgotten in five years’ time. My bets are on MGMT and Vampire Weekend!

(Source: Idolator)