One of the more under-appreciated bands of the last quarter century, and certainly the one with the the most unfulfilled promise. Doherty/Barât were set to take their place, if not by Lennon/McCartney, then alongside Strummer/Jones in the pantheon of great rock songwriting partners, before Doherty's all-consuming drug habits brought things to a screeching halt.
"Likely Lads", as the final track on the Libertines' last album, has always retained something of a tragic aura thanks to the "what-might-have-beens" surrounding their career. That they were able to construct such an elegy for themselves out of a nostalgia for something that had not yet ended, speaks to their gifts.