who are the best new artists to have emerged so far in the nameless decade? who is the best?

here's a few that ican think of right now [some may hav existed or even debuted in '99, but still didnt begin to make their real impact till 2000 and beyond]:

Ryan Adams
The Arcade Fire
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
British Sea Power
Broken Social Scene
Coldplay
The Constantines
The Darkness
The Dears
Death From Above, 1979
Feist
Franz Ferdinand
Sarah Harmer
Interpol
The Kills
Kings Of Leon
The Libertines
Metric
The New Pornographers
Stars
The Strokes
Tegan And Sara
The White Stripes
Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Coldplay. Nothing you already mentioned. I saw what you said about when they made their first real impact, but I think that the White Stripes' first album came out in '98. Maybe not, though, and either way you're right about when they really started gaining attention.

ithink it was '99, at least for a full/wide release in NA.

Well, whatever. Like I said, they're still valid by the rules you set, because either way they didn't come to attention til around 2000.

joanna newsom, by far, in my opinion

I like the Strokes, and the Libertines too.

Wow, I can honestly say that I don't like anyone on the aforementioned lists, nor can I think of a single act with which to begin my own list.

wow- iguess its time to kill yourself then, eh?

This is a nice exercise. I've actually had a hard time coming up with artists that were new in 2000 or later. Most of the bands I listen to that are or have released great material post-2000 were already doing so in the late 90's.

The bands mentioned already would probably be on a list of top pop acts in the decade, were it to end now, but they'd also be on someone's list of "why this decade sucks." Not to knock bands people like en masse, because I do like some of what I've heard by some of the new pop bands (I was boogying down to LCD Soundsystem earlier in the week), but clearly we are at a crossroads; either the best is yet to come, or we really are fucked for 2000-2009. I don't actually believe the latter, and almost all of the great music released fell well under the radar of MTV and the radio - perhaps this will be the first ten-year stretch in which the radio was completely, instead of mostly, clueless.

The only band I can come up with is Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and they aren't really a top-tier band to me...yet. They are on to something, though, and they've got 4+ years to get there. Diplo, MIA, and Niyaz all released nice debuts in the last year, certainly more interesting than the bands already talked about thus far, but we don't know if they've got anything else going until the respective second albums.

Thankfully, this is August 2005, not December 2008. There is time. And surely, I've missed a few solid acts that started this decade.

Bingo.

I'm having a hard time coming up with any sort of list.

I can't find any websites that give me a list of bands that came out 2000+ either...