as you might have noticed by things like the style of my site or my coverage of shows on G4 or by how I talk about things from the era, the late 2000s and the fandom of the time is something that means a lot to me, its the time of my life where my connection to fandom was its strongest and its the time I have the most nostalgia for, things like gaia online, early tumblr and myspace, fujo blogs and yaoi paddles and fanfiction.net and deviantart kingdom hearts shipping and there's nothing that quite encapsulates this era of fandom to me into a singular *thing* quite like the music of the L33TSTR33TBOYS, an online rock band that reached viral success in the early internet but would eventually go on to draw the ire of a more irony poisoned and hateful modern internet. they're an unfortunate victim of the kind of cynical cringe culture (aka bullying, cringe culture is just bullying given a new word do not lie to me that's what it is and has always been) that has made the net unusable for many people like myself, but I'm not like that and i'm not afraid to admit that the band fucking rocks and I really want to talk about them in hopes that some of you might gain a new appreciation for the band and their work. of note is that while I was ordering the bands physical CD's (which are still purchasable from their site here at this link ( + here ) I asked matthiew of the band for an interview and I'll be sprinkling bits of that in here and there, the full interview can be found on another page linked here and I want to again thank mattthiew for the interview ( + here )

so a small bit on the history and just who they are before I go into their actual music album by album. the band is an otaku band that started in the late 2000s and first gained attention because of an animated music video for their song "yuri the only one for me" which is still arguably their most well known song, only possibly surpassed by their second big music video "she's so kawaii" which came about the next year and they went on to do a *ton* of convention tours, 3 main albums and an unplugged album and even some game OST's like the one for the pc and PSVITA game roommates (which I will one day cover, it's very good!) the bands music was even featured at several video games live shows as seen here ( + here ) something that came about according to matthiew because "Tommy Tallarico from Video Games Live contacted us about showing the video and we reached an agreement for him to show it." which is super cool and just goes to show how big the band was in fandom at the time, the convention appearances too seemed to be pretty filled out if you go by the old videos and they seemed super fun to be at, the atmosphere here just seems so nice and I love the detail that some of the people on stage would be using guitar hero controllers, which is just the perfect amount of nerdiness and is very funny, it's something I was always curious about the context of and according to matthiew "I came up with the silly idea of playing a Guitar Hero controller in the Yuri The Only One video. Later when I performed I aimed to recreate the character from the video onstage. Guitar Hero was a hugely popular game at the time and I thought it would have been cool to have that song in the game, but it never happened."

over time things would take a turn on the reception of the band and in the late 10's and early 20's you started to see a lot of hate, much of it very vitriolic, by this time an aura of cynicism had very much taken over the vibe of fandoms, post-gamergate vitriol and the aforementioned cringe culture had led to a style of fandom that was much less fun and free and a lot more about shame and pessimism and something like leetstreetboys, which was wholley about embracing what you love and showing others your passion was like the antithesis to this much more cruel form of fandom, so you did see lots of youtubers spewing hate, you saw letsplayers sending their fans after the band and people on sites like rateyourmusic trying to tank the bands score, it was very hurtful to see all of this in the aftermath and I wanted to take a bit of time out to just say how gross all this is, this band is out here showing the bright spots of fandom and spreading a pretty positive message, something that many of these more gross youtubers don't do, they spread an aura of gross cynicism and cultivate fandoms that often engage in things like brigading, doxing, hate speech and bigotry and people buy into it because of how much mindsets like this have became normalised, so if you see the band and have the visceral reaction that's been instilled into you by this culture of anger and hate, please don't be like that, you're better than that and I hope you can overcome it. the criticisms were always baseless and in many cases including outright lies as to the quality of the music and using things like an RYM score to justify calling something bad is silly, art (and leetstret *is* art, it's passionate music made by people who care, art is art regardless of weather or not people like it) is what you as an individual make of it, not what other people you don't know make of it, listen to the band with an open mind and form your own opinion, don't let others decide for you, not these youtubers and not me either, take this page as a jumping off point to give the music a try and form your own opinion, maybe you'll have a good time and learn more about yourself and your tastes in the process. over time things are starting to turn in the other direction though, I personally have noticed tons more positivity and people latching onto it as something that makes them nostalgic and this is I think a great way to view it, this is the epitome of a certain era of unashamed earnest and passionate fandom and I think there's a lot of value in that to anyone who grew up in that era, or even just people curious about where the fandom was at the time many of their favourite pieces of art were made, and that's super cool, plus the music owns like seriously. i want to talk about the albums themselves for a little, i wanted this to be like a retrospective for the bands main big albums so ill talk for a while about those starting with their first album.

the bands first album, the self titled leetstreetboys is the first one I listened to in full. the first song, masquerade is a cute opener, I assume it's about cosplay masquerades, which I've been to and they're a lot of fun, it's a perfect intro to what the band is about, catchy chorus's and dorky innuendo references to things like FMA "skirt short like Edward elric" or final fantasy "my buster sword is going to limit break" or DDR or whatever else was popular at the time, much like a lot of the songs it's a perfect time capsule, guitar hero references and glomping and pocky included, shoutout for having a lain reference too a full decade before it was cool to do that, I love the KH and death note references too :) . the song after "otaku anthem" shows another side of them, less heavy on the direct references and heavier on general otaku positivity which is something we really need more of and it is super relatable, a lot of younger listeners could totally feel felt by this with references to things like wanting to go to Japan or about being unashamed of what you like and I think that's super cool and could be really important to some people, I know I would have felt really scene by it, it's such a good vibe. after this is "yuri the only one for me" this is the big one and the one you've probably heard, and honestly it's for sure one of the bands best hits, it's cute, the video is super charming, its one of the best written with its references "priceless like a ps3" a line so good they even had merch for it at one time, seemingly very popular merch as matthiew said " Years ago we were selling pink "girl" midriff t-shirts with that text on them. Girls bought them. Big dudes who couldn't fit into them bought them. It was really silly, and they sold out sometime in 2009" and I hope one day we see a return of those because I would 100% buy one. it also has a good guitar line, taken from final fantasy 7, a game the song also references with things like "sepphys mom has got it going on" and the sepphy dancing like napoleon dynamite in the video, the reference is so dated but in a way that you just have to smile at. the whole thing is such a time capsule of what was popular at the time, chobits, Final fantasy 7 (with things like dirge and advent children coming out around then), FMA and WOW and the video has tons more like the guitar hero controller and the ouran looking uniforms and the whole thing is just so damn catchy, throwing on top of that the pretty good animation and the video is honestly a stone cold classic of otaku net culture, many things from that era have came and went and been forgotten and i think the fact it is remembered at all should say something to it, even if some are remembering it for the wrong reasons, that legacy is not something every piece of viral art gets to have.

guitar hero hero is the next song on the album and it also has its own video, this one i am much less equipped to talk about, i can talk about anime and games because i know and love those but when it comes to guitar hero i'm kinda lost, i played them like, a few times but i was never good and did not get far, i'm more of an IA/VT taiko no tatsujin miku bakumatsu rock kind of rhythm game fan, but the song is cool, again some fantastic animation in the video, one of the catchiest chorus's and its another great time capsule of just how *big* the series was at the time, it's easy to forget that these days (unless you're a thrift store afficianado in which case you'll be very familiar haha) plus the BELIEVE IT was very funny and the design of the villain in the video really owns honestly. haruhi is next and this is probably my least favourite on the album, but it's still solid, it's a fun sendup of traditional love songs and it's got some good puns, but i don't have much to say about it, has a doom reference, i don't like doom but thats neat. pixelgirl is up next and this one is in the vein of haruhi again, a sendup of love songs but put through the video game lense, in that way it pairs up pretty perfectly with haruhi, it's fun and i like the bioshock and virtual boy shoutouts, and frankly as someone who plays a *ton* of otome games and basically any game i can find with attractive men in it, i get it, even if i think "imaginary boys" from one of the later albums hits this cord much better for me. next up is LeetStreet Fighter and this brings us right back to one of my favourites, a perfect example of a leetstreet hit it has fun references to fighting games including some that caught me off guard like to dissidia, dead or alive and bleach (it had tons of fighters like bleach: dark souls, blade battlers and heat the soul) and some that aren't fighting game at all like god of war, unless you count kratos in soulcalibur and MK9 or double dragon, but still its a very good song and one of the most fun written on the album, it also shows a dip into a different genre, with some metal'y visual kei'y instruments and vocals, it's a great song! you know fanboy of the opera is a good one because it has a reference to eternal sonata, nothing with a reference to eternal sonata can be bad, the organs on this one are really cool and it's a neat reference to a cool musical. rockstar is another top tier song from the band, this one is so wonderfully of its time, with references to jack Thompson of all things, it has the same energy as almost any post i remember from around the time and i agree with its message too and it has some soundclips from the real silly news reports from the time, like jack Thompson himself and the Hillary interview though it'd have been funny to see the fox news + sexbox interview there too. even if i dislike rockstar games myself this song is cool and i can see this super having resonated with people at the time who did feel like they were getting a lot of flak for their passion. in another time is the final song on the album and it's a good closer, it's slow and sad and it's just nice to listen to, it sounds very like a lot of slower pop-punk from its era and it'd fit right in with a lot of the best of that, just with some dorky references thrown in, the vocals are very good for this kind of music i think. overall it is a really good album and there's nothing here thats anywhere nearly egregious enough to deserve any of the hate it's gotten, it's nice and short and doesn't overstay its length and every song is super listenable, i liked this one a lot.

this album was followed up a while later by what i think is the most underrated of the albums, otaku hearts, this one starts with an instrumental which is pretty good but it doesn't really kick off until the second track "up all night" which is a shoe-in for being the best song on the whole discography, it's easily the catchiest one and it's really sentimental feeling, i love it, it's only competition for my favourite is "Imaginary boys" from the next album. the references are kept to a minimum with just some Konami games called out like silent hill and metal gear and a single warcraft reference and instead its more focused on just being a vibe, shoutouting out to all nighters with friends, it's a nice vibe and it makes me want to do just that, it's nice, i think this is also where just musically they peaked, it's by far my most listened to song from any of the albums. she's so kawaii is the biggest single on the album and beyond "yuri the only one for me" it's probably the bands biggest hit, it has a great MV full of fun references to things like kingdom hearts and FF7, loveless and gravitation and Zelda, your staples, plus other things like code geass and brawl and death note and lucky star and so much more, much like yuri the only one it's a perfect time capsule, one a little later than that so you do get slightly more up to date references but its still steeped firmly in that 2007-9 range, shoutout the tales of the abyss cameo too. this one is much more about the woman in the song too, about what she likes and it has tons of references to things like josei anime like paradise kiss, the aforementioned BL shows and j-fashion, it's a level of acknowledgement that women in fandom so rarely get especially nowadays (even if it is from the perspective of someone interested in her) and it's really nice to see it, this song owns and i love it, the music itself is also still a top tier, an essential leetstreet i think, much like up all night, rockstar and yuri the only one. cosplay girlfriend is the other major track from this album and the other one with a video, it's good,if not one of my favourites, but the video has some really cool "Canadian anime" vibes to it that i really like, it's very like something like 6teen, super of its time and i love how it looks, full of fun references too. lady in the trap is one that is maybe the one poorly aged song here, but i also really don't know how to address that, i can't speak for trans people and i won't try and act like i feel in any way offended by this when i'm also the exact opposite of the kind of person this song would upset, so i'll just avoid talking about that aspect too much, make up your own mind and i'll let the people who it effects speak for themselves, to me it was a different time and also seemingly not directly even talking about that group of people in question , so i'm not going to let it effect how i see the album, but if it does upset you then i think thats valid too, but the song sounds fine, a middle of the road song for the album and doesn't reach the highs of some others, also i don't like portal, that's my only other comment.

expert mode is back to the guitar hero references like guitar hero hero from the last album and it's great, super high energy and fun, fun enough to make me wish i got the references and it makes me want to give those games another try, i might someday, but with a controller and not the guitar, did you know guitar hero 3 lets you use a controller, it does, give it a try if the guitar controllers put you off. vkei band is way more my speed, i don't know much about GH but i do love mid 2000s visual kei and this has tons of references to a lot of the best bands of the time, an cafe, mizer and mr bujingai himself, gackt, it's fun, one of the best songs on the album, even if it doesn't quite sound vkei, the earlier song from the band leetstreetfighter sounds more vkei, but this one is still a solid hit, another big recommendation here. super seiyan is back to things i have zero idea about, i've never seen dragonball, i don't think i ever will, the extent of my knowledge on dragonball is evolution (it's good) and it's psp game (also good) and i think its funnier if that remains a part of me, i like being able to tell people my only experience with dragonball is evolution, it's my defining trait. so i can't speak on the song as a dbz fan thing, it's catchy though, a good chorus and it sounds like it could be an opening for that show, i think, I've never seen it so i'm just going by vibes, the achievement unlocked bit is :) though. noobslayer, noob fell too far out of style we should really start using it again, is also really solid, more on the metal side again, but its nice, the chiptunes go really well in this one, the use of chiptune in this album in general is really good and its cool to see the band do something a bit slower paced . the song miku hits me right off the bat with a few hetalia references, and let me tell you, if there are no hetalia defenders left on this planet then i am no longer here, hetalia was always good and so is this song, it has references to watching anime on your PSP, i did this and also on my vita, that thing got me through highschool with pirated episodes of black butler, hetalia and ouran, throw in TWEWY and lucky star and some honestly ahead of their time loveplus references and its like the song is made for me, its one of the best songs on the album, you wish you were cool enough to be onto loveplus in 2010. wide eyed princess closes out this album and it's a cute sad song, the slowest one on the album and its nice, it has a good melody and its good to go out on something slow and nice, it's a great album overall, all good tracks and i can't say i disliked listening to any, it even has a few favourites like up all night and miku and shes so kawaii.

l3g3nds is the final big album they did, there was the roomates OST which was sold as being made by them but i'm not going to count that here, and it might be the best, a really solid swansong made after the era the music spawned from, in a time where this kind of fandom was starting to shift into something closer to what we have now. sakura feels like a warm welcome back after 4 years of absence, it's cute, upbeat and it feels like the opening to a JRPG, which fits an album opener perfect, shockingly not a naruto reference in sight though, just a cute game themed love song, one of the albums better songs. booth babe ends up being one of the more nostalgic songs here purely because it's referencing something that actually doesn't exist anymore, while booth babes do (sadly) still exist at shows like TGS, E3 is long since dead and seeing a song hype it up really brings me back to being hype for the show and wanting to go, so this one really strikes a chord with me, it also has one of the funnest innuendos with that wii comment, also shows the chiptune is back, the bands biggest staple and one that always makes for a catchy song. imaginary boys is the best song on the album, maybe even the bands best song, it's easily the catchiest on the album and its also the first one with a video, a really good video, the best yet in terms of animation and the song really deserves it, it's a level of recognition that, again like i mentioned earlier, the interests of women in fandom rarely get, especially in 2014 with what was going on in the fandom space then, it means a lot to have a band like this basically give us a shoutout and yeah it all tracks, as a woman who was into fandom back then stuff like inuyasha and the FF7 boys and ouran were huge, yaoi and early kpop bands and even FMA, you have no idea how many edgy angel Edward elric pics i saw in blingees back then, could have used some otome game references though! but yeah the songs great and one of the main ones i recommend checking out, it's an all timer and peak LSB, a nice reminder that not everyone is hostile to us in the fandom space and a reminder thats sometimes very much needed. my life is an RPG reminds me a lot of pop punk songs of the 2000's, it sounds so much like something i'd have heard on myspace or karrang, alongside the likes of MCR, you know, it has that vibe, it's the most 2000's sounding of any of the albums songs and its worth listening to for that alone, it fits that vibe perfect. final boss almost feels like the final guitar hero song, it has a similar vibe to guitar hero hero and expert mode and it makes me wonder if that was intended, the chiptune is super heavy on this one and its good, the slow sections are really great.

otaku rave is another new genre they try here, very late, it's a dance song and i have to say it kind of suits them, the voice goes well for it and it works well if you want to really commit to the vibe and nightcore it, for some reason it also reminds me of a song from the PS all stars ost and do really like the leeroy Jenkins reference, committing to those old meme vibes is good, they're all still funny. Harajuku girls has some really nice album art to it and i like the references to utada and ouran, though i expected more references to the district itself since I've always been super into the fashion from there, but it is what it is. hikikomori surprised me with putting a pulse reference front and centre, which, hell yeah, that's my favourite j-horror movie so points there and it's just a good song all around, one of my favourites on the album and the art reminded me a lot of welcome to the NHK, it's nice, almost makes being a hikki sound appealing. worlds apart isn't the final song on the album but it feels like the one that should be, it has a really sentimental sound to it and the lyrics make it fit well for that kind of finisher, its slower and even a little sadder sounding and it's honestly pretty romantic even with all the talk of convention stuff, i like this one a lot. song of time is the real album finisher and it's still a solid ending, while i haven't finished any Zelda games so a lot of these references are like, fully lost on me, i can see how that sense of "the quest is over and its time to move on" fits the album perfectly, it is like a finale to this whole thing, you can see on the album art that this was intended to be some kind of swan song and thats what this is, a closer to the bands whole thing, and much like yuri the only one taking heavily from FF, this does that for Zelda and its nice for them to go out like how they started, a sincere reference filled song full of love for the things they're passionate about and in a way you could see this as a goodbye to this era of unashamed dorky fandom love, a kind untainted by things like irony poisoning and with where things would go in the years since i actually found myself getting pretty emotional about this, it feels really symbolic in that way, a marker to the end of an era in fandom that is long since gone, and if an album can make me feel that way i have to say it's something special, weather intended or not.

that's the main 3 albums there's more too like an unplugged album that has a really good version of up all night on it and some singles like leetstreetdansen, plus a bunch of game OST's that all seem very good, plus i hope one day a future fourth major album however unlikely it may be, but i think I've went on enough, the music is easily available over on Bandcamp and there's those physical CD's which are pretty affordable if you want to go that route so listening to their stuff is very accessible, the band has uploaded some to youtube but i would say support them on Bandcamp or with the cd sales if you can, they deserve the support. the point of this was i wanted to get across that there's a lot of good here and that this band is more than they're made out to be, there's some serious passion and love put into these albums that are never really given a chance and there's some genuinely talented writing and music in here and even beyond that it's just nostalgic to go back to albums made with such an uncynical mindset towards media and fandom, it's pure and nice and i really like these albums, these are not the trainwrecks music snobs and cringe culture assholes would try to make you think they are, don't listen to those people and go in with an open mind, you'll probably have fun with it, i did and i don't regret buying any of these albums. thanks again to my patrons for helping pay for them, it was a big help in getting this made.