Libertines "Up the Bracket" [2002]

Apparently, these boys were so wasted they thought they could win something by proving they were more inebriated than Keith Richards -- and thus be the drunkest, stonedest people in the UK (pre-Amy Winehouse) -- while recording their debut "Up the Bracket," without realizing Richards had already moved to Connecticut by 2002. In fact, there was plenty Libertines didn't realize: they weren't that cute, intelligent or talented, and all they did was widen the chasm of disappointment opened by less-drunk (but equally as clueless) American garage morons The Strokes. Sure, Libertines' self-imposed metabolic crippling gives them a nifty excuse for sucking this badly, but nothing excuses the involvement of ex-Clash member Mick Jones from producing this volume of curried vomit (unless one considers his career nadir: the abysmal Big Audio Dynamite catalog). All in all, this album sounds like what Oasis would have released after they were completely on drugs and ready to kill each other. Thus, "Up the Bracket" has all the appeal of a grisly car accident at an English roundabout.