The Strokes | TheSocial.news

The Strokes — Julian Casablancas (vocals), Nick Valensi (guitar), Albert Hammond Jr. (guitar), Nikolai Fraiture (bass), and Fabrizio Moretti (drums) — formed in New York City in the late 1990s and released Is This It in 2001 to an immediate and overwhelming response from critics and listeners who had been waiting, apparently, for exactly this: tight, confident rock and roll that drew from the Velvet Underground, Television, and punk without sounding like any of those things directly, delivered with a cool effortlessness that seemed entirely natural rather than calculated. The album appeared on nearly every critic's best-of-the-year list and has subsequently appeared on nearly every best-of-the-decade and best-of-the-century list compiled since.

Their influence on guitar rock in the 2000s is difficult to overstate — bands including Arctic Monkeys, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and LCD Soundsystem all cite them as formative, and the general template of angular, dry-sounding rock with detached-cool vocals became the dominant mode of indie rock for years after Is This It's release. Subsequent albums including Room on Fire (2003), First Impressions of Earth (2006), and The New Abnormal (2020) each had their advocates and their detractors but each sold and toured successfully, maintaining their position as one of the most important rock bands of their generation. A Strokes tour in 2026 draws the kind of audience that considers seeing them a genuinely significant experience.

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