Is This It

Five friends from Manhattan made this in their early twenties and it landed like a thrown punch: eleven lean songs, none much over three minutes, all built on two clean guitars locked together and a singer who sounds bored and electric at the same time. The band recorded it cheaply with producer Gordon Raphael, aiming for the rough sound of a demo rather than studio polish. It made the Strokes the most hyped band of the decade and sent a thousand other groups out to buy skinny ties and old guitars.