Hall of Fame: The Strokes, ‘Is This It’

2007, and Shia Lebouef is plastered all over the big screen, wearing a Strokes T-shirt (black; chrome logo) in Transformers. Like The Rolling Stones’ puckered red lips before them, its appearance in a Hollywood blockbuster seemed to acknowledge a truth that music kids had known for a while: Julian Casablancas and his pals had crossed over into the iconic. The Strokes had joined the canon of classic indie rock.

Seeing your icons become nostalgic faves may remain a strange pleasure, but you don’t get there without myth, and seminal 2001 debut ‘Is This It’ came into a world hungry for guitar bands to make the idea important again. Nu-metal’s offerings of generational icons had been ignored, while the years that preceded the New Yorkers’ entry can largely be summarised as the age of beige: David Gray, Travis, Coldplay, the list goes on. When five effortlessly cool young men kicked down the door, hailed by all as rescuing a supposedly comatose genre, they were gobbled up hungrily.

Listening back to ‘Is This It’, however, you can understand the hype: across 11 songs, the quintet concocted an arsenal that was economical, immediate and elegant, but volatile at the same time. Julian Casablancas remains a thrill to listen to, half-mumbling, half-roaring tales of disconnect and druggy abandon with a voice that earned him a place at the top table of NYC’s great frontmen. His drawled delivery made perfect sense over Gordon Raphael’s lo-fi production; many may have criticised the album as sounding under-produced at the time, but the near-live presentation feels intimate, like you’ve stumbled on a secret.