About
New York City gave rock music a much-needed shot in the arm when The Strokes burst onto the scene around 1998, cutting their teeth in the downtown Manhattan club circuit before the world caught on. Fronted by the effortlessly cool Julian Casablancas, the band rounds out with guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr., bassist Nikolai Fraiture, and drummer Fab Moretti. Their sound is deceptively simple but instantly recognizable, built on interlocking guitar riffs, lo-fi production aesthetics, and Casablancas's distorted, almost hungover vocal delivery. They wore their influences openly, with nods to Television, Lou Reed, and Tom Petty, yet managed to forge something that felt completely fresh.
Their 2001 debut Is This It landed like a grenade. At a time when nu-metal and pop dominated the airwaves, here was a record that sounded like it was recorded in a garage and aged in a New York dive bar. Room on Fire followed in 2003, and while critics debated whether it matched the debut, fans ate it up. First Impressions of Earth in 2006 showed ambition, even if it divided opinion. The Strokes are widely credited with helping kickstart the early 2000s garage rock revival, influencing a generation of bands from Arctic Monkeys to Interpol. Their legacy as one of the most important rock acts of their era is pretty much bulletproof at this point.
