![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/The-Strokes-through-the-lens-of-Mick-Rock-mentee-Cody-Smyth-Photography-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jp.jpeg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Cody Smyth)<\/p>\n
Mon 4 August 2025 13:00, UK <\/p>\n
From the very moment entertainment becomes accessible to us, New York<\/a> is rammed down our throats. <\/p>\n Skyline canvases line the walls of teenage bedrooms while glossy romcoms, destined for sickeningly happy endings, all seem to transpire under the shadow of the Empire State. It is and always has been the ultimate symbol of metropolitan prosperity in the Western world, but in reality, it\u2019s not for those reasons I just mentioned.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because, in truth, its greatness is rooted in the very same thing as every other artistic city in the world. No, not in the glitz and glamour of its most exclusive postcodes, but in the damp shadows of its squalid neighbourhoods, where observational kids, soaking in the mood of neglected communities, brazenly put forward musical ideas to soundtrack the world around them.\u00a0<\/p>\n New York\u2019s vibrant indie scene from the 2000s, charmingly titled the \u2018Meet Me In The Bathroom\u2019 scene<\/a>, was one such moment in history. As culture turned from the exciting \u201990s to the somewhat anticlimactic millennium, these new bands found themselves in a New York dampened by the bleak reality of mortality. As the smoke from 9\/11 subsided and the grim feeling of uncertainty intensified, they decided to soundtrack what could be the swansong of a great creative society. <\/p>\n \u201cThese are bands formed by kids in one era, and then in the beginning of their early youth realised in a very dramatic fashion that they were going to die and that everyone around them was going to die and their city could be smouldering,\u201d explained Lizzy Goodman, author of the book that chronicled the scene, Meet Me in the Bathroom.<\/p>\n She added, \u201cIt was kind of inspiring in its sense of destruction\u2026 \u2018I\u2019m going to go out seven nights a week, not five nights a week\u2019 and also in the sense of \u2018I don\u2019t have as much time as I thought, so I\u2019m not going to sit around for the next five years, half-ass playing in my band and working at the coffee shop. I\u2019m going to stay up until dawn every single night with my friends trying to make this record\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n In that was a sense of artistic fearlessness that danced in the face of fear and celebrated what was unknowingly the last glimpse of private civilisation. The harmful clutches of mass digitalisation<\/a> hadn\u2019t yet sunk into the music scene, so New York in the 2000s became the last time bands could play a show, wreak absolute havoc and not have to delete embarrassing video footage the year after. It was all about being in the moment and soundtracking the moment. <\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t have phones, which was just so great,\u201d stalwart of the scene, Hamilton Leithauser, told Far Out in February, when asked about its beauty. <\/p>\n He added, \u201cThat\u2019s the ultimate \u2018everything was better back then\u2019 line, but it really was. Not everybody was on their fucking phone the entire time.\u201d<\/p>\n The music that came out of it was appropriately transitional. Somewhere between 1970s nostalgia and future innovation, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, The Walkmen, and LCD Soundsystem created music for a generation in limbo. Together, they sold millions of records and laid the foundation for a style of indie music that would follow in the coming decades.<\/p>\n So, what album outsold the rest?<\/p>\n