The Strokes achieved fame through fashion media before releasing any music.

Evidence

The Strokes landed a profile in fashion mag V before getting a record deal, and they appeared on the cover of the UK’s NME before putting out an album. They eventually signed with major label RCA, run by veteran mogul Clive Davis. As music critic Ryan Schreiber wrote at the time, the Strokes were “a band that’s seen enough publicity in 2001 to make bin Laden jealous.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 55

Categorization

• XREF: This is an early concrete instance of the ‘fashion-and-cultural-capital-first’ pathway Marx will trace as a signature of omnivore monoculture — image precedes music in the attention economy.