The Black Keys Delta Kream album cover

From the blues they came, and — one decade-long detour through the closest thing this millennium still has to mainstream rock stardom later — to the blues they have returned. Formed 20 years ago in Akron, Ohio, by lone members Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, the Black Keys came up in the same scene that nurtured the raw power of rust-belt revivalists like the White Stripes and their early-aughts counterparts: a purposefully primordial sound brought up from grimy basements and garages to the pinnacle of pop culture.