It is a crushingly real place, rendered in such vivid emotional detail that it rings true even to those who have never set foot in the city.
It is a darker and more complicated place, fraught with disappointment and disconnection. But the early-aughts New York of Turn on the Bright Lights is not the young, vibrant, and impossibly cool place of cultural myth. On the surface, the story of Interpol's 2002 full-length debut Turn on the Bright Lights is almost annoyingly of its place and time: four guys meet in New York, start a band, make tightly-wound indie rock jams that sound great at your favorite mid-gentrification Williamsburg bar, sign to a renowned independent label, and the rest is history.
