The Strokes: Zodiac, Oxford
Keith Cameron, MOJO, August 2001
THE NEXT BIG Thing is pop's perennial shaggy dog: the louder the anticipatory bark, the meeker reality's bite. So with a guest-list roughly the size of the Oxford telephone book ("Is there anyone actually paying to get in here tonight?" demands an incredulous doorman), members of London's fashionista set tripping over Thom Yorke and James Dean Bradfield, and more journalists under the same roof than at any time since the Britpop boom went bust, the scene is set for the Strokes, the latest group of callow youths shouldering the NBT's onerous yoke, to blow it big style.
Total word count of piece: 491