Top 1000 Bands #540-#531

540 - Hootie And The Blowfish - One of the biggest acts of the late 90s, Hootie is one of the biggest and most popular one-album wonders in all of rock history. Their music was mostly tepid, but usually more than tolerable and a lot of fun.

539 - Louis XIV - A gimmicky indie rock band with a great first album and a below average second album. They're probably done for good, but you never know.

538 - Chris Cornell - The lead singer of Soundgarden has had a couple of middling solo albums to date, but when he's good, he's outstanding ("Sunshower").

537 - The Jackson Five - One of the biggest artists in Motown's stables, The Jackson Five managed to make cloying pop music that was well-written and memorable, allowing them to transcend the gimmicky nature of the band's existence.

536 - The Cribs - An up-and-coming indie rock band, The Cribs had a few decent albums before they really broke through with their most recent "Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever".

535 - Slayer - One of the greatest metal bands of the 80's, Slayer's music is thick to the point of being impenetrable, but if you don't mind your metal black as night, they're a good band to start with.

534 - The Whigs - An indie rock band with two outstanding albums to their credit. They should make a breakthrough pretty soon, at least onto alternative rock.

533 - Candlebox - A massively successful mid-90's band that had a lot of forgotten songs. They were definitely a grunge knock-off band, but that doesn't mean that their music was terrible.

532 - Teenage Fanclub - One of the many "next big things" that totally weren't, Teenage Fanclub weren't a failure because of a lack of quality, they just didn't have a very marketable sound. Their albums are quirky and weird, but definitely interesting.

531 - Broken Social Scene - The latest victim of the blog curse of a sophomore slump, Broken Social Scene's second album was almost as good as the original, but nowhere in the same world as the hype demanded it to be. At the moment, the band has split off into a multitude of successful solo acts, from the tremendously successful Feist to the critically beloved Jason Collett and Kevin Drew. The band hasn't officially broken up, though, and should probably be disappointing music snobs again in no time.