Self-titled as the new hip kids, these youth first saw daylight when The Strokes turned from a mediocre New York toilet band into the overrated hype they are now. Boom! The Strokes had arrived, and thanks to their well-oiled PR machinery, The Strokes soon gained a scarily big fanbase. At first, it was just a handful of teenagers trying to be more 'underground' than they could handle ('I'm into NY punk, I like The Strokes...'), then things got out of hand. Big time. Joint subscriptions of The Face were taken out, side-partings suffered from a revival, denim got straighter and tighter than it had ever been since 1987, and the Strokes' fanatical supporters started to give Converse a bad name. Things were looking up for young Casablancas and his henchmen. In fact, things had never looked particularly bad for them in the first place, for they're rich kids, anyway. Victims of their loaded surroundings, who made, as it seems, good use of their extended record collections before setting out to write some songs 'of their own'. Nick a riff there, add a borrowed bassline here...'The Coverband From Hell' would have been a far more appropriate name. Ah well, bit late for that now, for the product that is The Strokes already had numerous minds brainwashed. And nevermind that Brit Award. Fool's luck, that's what I say. And what does a Brit award mean, anyway? Still, The Strokes' success is a phenomenon in itself. They can't play, they can't sing, but somehow managed to turn into 21st century indie pin-ups. Must be the good looks then. Coming to think of it, what good looks are we talking about? The Strokes are, apart from maybe the singer, a bunch of ugly f....igures that strum guitars and try very hard to uphold their rock'n'roll image. Talking about the latter, it's only a matter of time until one of them dies of an overdose. Now there's hope...