The Curious Career of The Strokes

Is This It – The Strokes
This album by the Strokes really IS the very definition of “cool.” Unfortunately, it’s not very “good.” Sorry, but just because a coupla rich heirs to the throne made an album that was better than whatever Blink 182 album came out that year doesn’t exactly make it Sgt. Pepper. - XMASTIME

THIS GUY HERE remarks on the weird tale of The Strokes, who for a split second meant so much but then became so little, and yet weirdly still commmand probably as much attention as they want:

The Strokes presently occupy a dubious place in pop culture: They're a legacy band generally considered to be important in contemporary rock history, but whose moment in time is otherwise perceived to have long since passed. Here's a snapshot of where the Strokes are in 2013: On an episode of the laudably terrible prime-time drama Smash, the hipster bona fides of bad-boy Brooklyn-based composer Jimmy were established when he trashed the Strokes as something he liked "when I was 15." When Smash is clowning you, you've truly maximized your value as cultural shorthand for "passé."

Was it REALLY all about timing?

The importance of timing here can't be overstated. The metaphorical significance of Is This It — the most lauded New York rock record since the late '70s — coming out shortly after September 11 has already been talked about to the point of tedium. But the tangible value has been somewhat underrated: In the fall of '01, the rest of the country really wanted to embrace NYC again, even if it meant cheering for the Yankees to beat the Diamondbacks that year in the World Series. For those of us who had never been to Gotham, the Strokes signified what we thought New Yorkers were like: They were young, fashionable, and "ethnic" looking. They wore excellently tailored jeans and cheap leather jackets. Their music simulated the primal urban electricity of speeding taxis and overcrowded dive bars. Is This It transported you to a world where it was always night and raining and everything was rendered in grimy, noirish black-and-white.

I don't mind The Strokes. There's worse bands, there's better bands. Though I still think of this about the hysteria around them by "rock critics":

On one hand it's like music critics who just decide to write whatever the others are writing just cause it's easy (see the Strokes endless "Television meets Velvet Underground!" reviews from 2001 that surely came off a mimeograph machine...whatever the fuck that is.) 

Also, were they the last super-hyped-up band like that before the internet came along?