The Strokes TShirTS

The Strokes are an American rock band formed in 1998 that rose to fame in the early 2000s as a leading group in the garage rock revival. Upon the release of their acclaimed debut album Is This It in 2001, many critics hyped The Strokes as the "saviors of rock" for their stripped down sound, heavily influenced by bands such as The Velvet Underground. Since then, The Strokes has maintained a large fan base and has enjoyed much success, particularly in the United Kingdom.

The Strokes released their debut album Is This It in the US in October 2001 on RCA after some delay due to changes made from the UK-released version (released 27th August 2001). The cover of the latter features a black-and-white photo of a gloved hand on a woman's naked backside, shown in semi-profile, and is said to reference Spinal Tap's fictitious Smell the Glove (Nick Valensi once responded to this in an interview by quipping, "Nobody's actually ever seen the cover for Smell The Glove.") The North American version replaces this with an image of particle collisions and the song "New York City Cops" with "When It Started". The replacement of "New York City Cops", which contains the refrain New York City Cops, they ain't too smart, was made in good faith following the September 11 attacks. The album received very good reviews from both mainstream and independent publications, including 4 stars from Rolling Stone, and a 9.1 from Pitchfork Media; it made many critics' top 10 lists, and was named the best album of the year by Entertainment Weekly and TIME. NME, in an article previewing summer concerts, dubbed theirs the one to attend because The Strokes were touring on the strength of some of the "best pop songs ever". The influence of Seventies CBGB stalwarts Television was noted by many reviewers, although The Strokes themselves have repeatedly stated that they are not fans of the band. Julian performed while sitting on a chair as a result of an injury suffered to his knee. The same was repeated at their Reading Festival headline slot.

The Strokes released their second album Room on Fire in October 2003, to good reviews, but to less reaction commercially, although it still went gold. The album's sound maintained the Strokes' familiar reference points, while also evoking groups such as The Cars, Bob Marley, and Blondie. In the process, they made the cover of Spin Magazine for the second time, with each member receiving his own cover. The Strokes also made the cover of Rolling Stone for the first time. Additional media coverage of The Strokes has come from the relationship between Moretti and actress Drew Barrymore, which ended in January 2007.

In late September 2005, the first single from the then unreleased album First Impressions of Earth, "Juicebox", was leaked online, forcing the single's release date to be pushed up. The single was then released as an exclusive on online download services. "Juicebox" became The Strokes' second UK Top 10 hit, as well as their second US Modern Rock Top 10 success.

During November and December 2005 the Strokes did a promotion tour for the still unreleased album First Impressions of Earth. This involved doing one-off shows in major cities around the world. In order; Tokyo, Sydney, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin, Milan, Madrid, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta. Approximately 600 tickets were made available to each show. Ticketholders either battled the weather, camping outside ticket box offices in the middle of the European winter, or were the winners of radio competitions. These concerts attracted celebrity guests including Oasis, Franz Ferdinand, Coldplay and Jarvis Cocker.

The Strokes third album, First Impressions of Earth, was released in January 2006 to mixed reviews and debuted at Number 4 in the US album charts and Number 1 in the UK, a first for The Strokes . In Japan it went gold within the first week of release. The album was the most downloaded album for two weeks on iTunes.