Strokes, The - Is This It [LP] ('Glove' cover, 140 Gram Black Vinyl, import)

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time - Rated 114/500!

The Strokes' debut studio album was first released in 2001, via RCA Records worldwide and Rough Trade Records in the United Kingdom. The UK version features the infamous 'Glove' cover, which differs from the US LP version.

Blessed and cursed with an enormous amount of hype from the British press, the Strokes prove to be one of the few groups deserving of their glowing reviews. Granted, their high-fashion appeal and faultless influences - Television, the Stooges, and especially Lou Reed and the Velvets - have 'critics' darlings' written all over them. But like the similarly lauded Elastica and Supergrass before them, the Strokes don't rehash the sounds that inspire them - they remake their own image.

The objective of Is This It, said Strokes singer Julian Casablancas, 'was to be really cool and non-mainstream, and be really popular.' Recorded literally under the streets of New York, this revivifying blast of guitar-combo racket passionately reconciled those seemingly contradictory aspirations and accomplished both.