Jet were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2023. The Melbourne rock’n’roll classicists owe the honour to the success of their debut album, 2003’s Get Born. The album’s breakout single, “Are You Gonna Be My Girl,” featured in a 2004 iPod ad and continues to chalk up millions of monthly streams 20 years later.

None of Jet’s contemporaries – that is, Australian rock bands who emerged in the 2000s – have made it to the ARIA Hall of Fame. Perhaps the nearest equivalent on the honour roll is Kasey Chambers, a country musician with crossover appeal, whose two biggest records, The Captain and Barricades & Brickwalls, came out in 1999 and 2001 respectively.

There’s no question that Jet can draw bigger crowds in 2024 than most of their denim-clad, guitar-slinging contemporaries, but that doesn’t mean the band’s throwback oeuvre epitomises 2000s Australian rock music. Here’s a look at five other Australian rock bands of the 2000s whose combined works demonstrate the stylistic breadth of the era.

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Siblings Sarah and Lizzie Kelly formed theredsunband in southern Sydney in the early 2000s. The Kellys originally worked with drummer John Matthews, whose brother Patrick was the founding bass player in The Vines. The Vines even let theredsunband take over their sharehouse rehearsal space while they were off touring the world.

Magic Dirt’s Dean Turner produced theredsunband’s debut album, Peapod, which came out in 2004 on Sydney label Slanted Recordings. On the album’s lead single, “Sleep Forever,” the Kellys paired indie rock and dream pop sounds akin to Cat Power and Mazzy Star with the chugging momentum they’d honed during many trips up and down Australia’s east coast.

theredsunband’s second album, The Shiralee, was recorded after Matthews’ exit. It came out in 2008 on Enchanted Recordings, a label Sarah Kelly founded with Sarah Blasko collaborator Robert F Cranny. theredsunband called it quits in 2009.

theredsunband – “Sleep Forever”

Belles Will Ring formed in the Blue Mountains circa 2005, with vocalists and guitarists Liam Judson and Aidan Roberts at its core. The band’s early single, “Mad Love,” had a scruffy jangle reminiscent of Flying Nun greats The Clean and a psychedelic twist that gestured towards Madchester acts The Stone Roses and Inspiral Carpets. 

On their debut album, Mood Patterns, released in 2007, Belles Will Ring matched their psych-rock excursions with plenty of hooky vocal melodies. Support tours with the likes of Broken Social Scene and Death Cab For Cutie followed. The band’s second album, Crystal Theatre, came out in 2011. 

Belles Will Ring are no longer active, but Mood Patterns was reissued on vinyl in 2020. Judson released his debut solo album, Cut And Flash, under the name Lewis Goldmark in 2022, drawing on a love of Britpop, Philly soul and 80s indie rock.

Belles Will Ring – “Mad Love”

Sianna Lee moved from Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula to Melbourne at the turn of 2000s with one goal: to form a band. She succeeded, and the band went by the name Andromeda for its first couple of EPs, Umabel (2001) and Something White and Sigmund (2003). The name was updated to Love Outside Andromeda ahead of the band’s self-titled debut LP. 

The album, produced by Tim Rogers and Paul Kelly collaborator Shane O’Mara, landed in 2004. It showcased LOA’s capacity to flit from slow-burning introspection to full-blown pub rock stomp. Lee demonstrated a similarly multi-faceted vocal style, tilting from a provocative lower register to unchained falsetto on a whim.

Tired of music critics comparing their sound to PJ Harvey, Lee and the band stripped things back for their second album, Longing was a Safe Place to Hide, which came out shortly before their break-up in 2006. They reunited for Melbourne Music Week in 2019 and released their long-teased third album, Stella Interrupted, in April 2024.

Love Outside Andromeda – “Keep Looking at the Sky”

Sydney two-piece The Mess Hall made loud and bluesy rock music in the vein of US garage rock acts The Dirtbombs and Oblivians. Guitarist and songwriter Jed Kurzel started the band with his brother, Justin Kurzel, on bass and Anthony Johnsen on drums. Justin didn’t stick around long (filmmaking was his real calling), causing The Mess Hall to regroup as a guitar-and-drums duo.  

Johnsen left a few years later and Jed Kurzel found his ideal offsider in drummer Cec Condon, who appeared on The Mess Hall’s three best-known albums: Notes from a Ceiling (2005), Devils Elbow (2007) and For the Birds (2009). The latter two came out through Ivy League Records, which had recently been acquired by Michael Gudinski’s Mushroom Group. Devils Elbow won the third annual Australian Music Prize in 2008.

Kurzel and Condon parted ways in 2011. In recent years, Jed has scored several of his brother Justin’s films, including Snowtown, Macbeth, True History of the Kelly Gang and Nitram.

The Mess Hall – “Pills”

Brisbane indie rock trio The Grates garnered frequent comparisons to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs when they emerged in the mid to late noughties. Although somewhat reductive, the reference was not unfounded – The Grates were a punky, guitar-drums-vocals three-piece who drew much of their strength from the untamed charisma of frontperson Patience Hodgson. But comparisons aside, The Grates wrote some of the hookiest Australian rock songs of the 2000s.

The band’s breakthrough came when triple j added their 2004 single “Trampoline” to high rotation. The follow-up EP, The Ouch, The Touch, delivered on the catchy and unkempt promise of “Trampoline,” ensuring The Grates were a fixture of the festival circuit over the next handful of years.

Their debut album, 2006’s Gravity Won’t Get You High, debuted in the ARIA top ten, led by the singles “19 20 20” and “Science Is Golden”, both of which illuminated Hodgson’s zany pop smarts. The Grates graduated from the unselfconscious, garage-spun sound of their early work on later LPs, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won (2008) and Secret Rituals (2011), which introduced layered production and a cleaner sound.

The Grates – “Trampoline”