i'll always love you, 2002

while reading Pitchfork’s review of the Julian Casablancas solo album (which took about 500 words too many to just say “hey, this shit is kinda boring”. man you know it broke their heart to admit it. all our heroes die.) i was happy to see they posted a link to this performance of the Strokes on Letterman back in 02 when the world was still young and those of us with hope saw these scruffy rich kids from new york not as opportunist poseurs stealing all their good ideas from Blondie and Television but as champions of quality rock n’ roll returning to the airwaves. bask in the glory of what coulda been and try to forget about the fact this decade closed out about the same as the 90s did, with a lot of bad pop music dominating.