In the late 1990s, Doherty and a friend from his youth named Carl Barât decided to create a band together. The pair, along wit hthe rest of The Libertines lineup worked hard at finding gigs to make themselves more widely known. The band’s first major breakthrough was with the 2002 release of the album ‘Up the Bracket.’ The album contains twelve songs such as ‘Death On The Stairs,’ ‘The boy Looked at Johnny’ and ‘Boys in the Band.’ The album earned stellar reviews from critics.
Rolling Stone magazine awarded four out of five stars, and other critics such as Blender gave the album a full five out of five stars. The album was also placed at number ten in a list by NME of the greatest British albums of all time. As the band began to become more and more popular however, Doherty’s drug problem got worse and worse, causing him to fall out with his bandmates and to end up in prison.
After serving two months in prison, Doherty reunited with The Libertines and shortly after sought treatment for his problem. He traveled to Thailand to a treatment centre that specializes in treating individuals with heroine or crack cocaine problems. The treatment was not easy, and Doherty was forced to take medicine to induce vomiting and he gave up after only a few days. Because of the failure to clean up his act, Doherty was once again asked to leave the band, and was told to return only when he had completed treatment and was completely sober.
After the break-up of The Libertines, Doherty founded another band named Babyshambles. The band play indie music and have released two albums so far, such as ‘Down in Albion,’ a sixteen tracked album containing songs such as ‘In Love With A Feeling,’ ‘Back From the Dead’ and ‘What Katy Did Next.’ The album did relatively well amongst critics, earning three out of five stars from British newspaper The Guardian, as well as similar ratings from other respected critics.
