★★★★★

It is hard to believe now, given that they were just a rackety garage band made up of five privileged boys from New York, but when the Strokes emerged at the end of the Nineties they were heralded like the Second Coming.

With a thin, jagged sound recalling the great underground music of their city’s past, from the Velvet Underground to Patti Smith to the Ramones, they made being in a band with your buddies while acting as if you didn’t care about anything seem like the answer to life. Everybody wanted to hang out with the Strokes.

In 2001 came the perfect blend of energy, craft and attitude that was their debut album, Is This It, but it went downhill from there.