new york times' kelefeh sanneh on the white stripes, get behind me satan and retro-rock

I think that, maybe since Suede but definitely since Britpop, the UK Press has had a devoted hype machine focused around the idea of resurrecting older variants of rock. The period between Oasis and The Strokes was a period of failed attempts - remember that quasi glam revival with bands like Ultrasound and Gay Dad.

I suspect that from a UK Press perspective, The Strokes weren't really a reaction against non-rock (though there were still a lot of "Rock is back!" taglines) so much as a reaction to not-so-rock rock that had had a lot of currency at that point in time - on the one hand US pansy-psych-pop like latter-day The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, and on the other hand the mournful MoR of Coldplay and Travis. The battlefield as such is more intra-rock (and only a small part of it) than rock vs [x].

"Music Mick" position on The Strokes on that other Strokes thread is a case in point...