The Strokes "Is This It"

Clocking in at 36 minutes, Is This It? packs its perfect length with stellar songs that draw inspiration from all over the map. Among the many highlights are Last Nite with its insistent motown backbeat and choppy johnny thunders-like guitar solo, Barely Legal, sounding like 1980s-era Cure fronted by a saucy Iggy Pop, and the jangly Someday with its hairshirt of vulnerability from a bad break-up. While frontman Julian Casablancas drawls like Lou Reed through a busted intercom, guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr do Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd proud as their sinewy chords intertwine to great effect on the angular The Modern Age and equally neurotic Alone, Together.