The noughties phenomenon of blog-rock wasn't born with a bang – for certain, no Strokes-style changing of the guard took place. Yet it was unquestionably one of the decade's biggest indie trends, especially to those for whom "indie" didn't just mean "guitars" but rather a vaguely outsider/underground music made predominantly by skinny white men. Animal Collective, who released their first album in August 2000, were perhaps the quintessential blog rock band – although Fleet Foxes, TV on the Radio, Grizzly Bear, Beirut and countless others all came under its umbrella. The term, of course, referred to music that had gained popularity through MP3 blogs – specifically those giving coverage to the more leftfield, less image-obsessed artists largely ignored by the mainstream music press. By the end of the decade, the term blog rock had become so fuzzy as to be virtually meaningless. For cynics, it had come to mean any band that couldn't find an audience of more than a few dozen lonely people in front of computers. For supporters, it meant, if anything, the artists who couldn't get a foothold in mainstream media. Nevertheless, its very existence was proof that our listening habits had changed to the extent that no self-respecting artist in any genre could now start their career without posting MP3s online.