In 1998, five New York friends — Julian Casablancas, Albert Hammond Jr., Fabrizio Moretti, Nick Valensi, and Nikolai Fraiture — formed a band called the Strokes. They released a debut album, Is This It, in 2001. In 2009, NME named it Album of the Decade; Rolling Stone ranked it No. 2, behind Radiohead’s Kid A. This is an account of what happened in between, starting in 2002 (via Vulture).I have always had a hard time getting into anything after The Strokes second album, Room On Fire. I've tried, but outside a few gems on First Impressions of Earth, the rest of their work pales in comparison to their first two albums. Today, Vulture published an oral history of The Strokes that details the rise and fall of the band. The article features interviews with musicians, including Ryan Adams, who were close with the band and witnessed the collapse.