114. The Strokes, "Is This It"

 


It truly warms one's heart to think that the son of the founder of Elite Model Management and the son of a million-selling songwriter could meet at boarding school in Switzerland and reconnect back in New York City and somehow be able to get started in the music business.  I kid, but this is all true.  What really pisses me off about the Strokes is that the band was born of privilege and opportunity and there is no excuse for them making a record as good as this.

The Strokes are largely credited with the garage rock revival of the early aughts.  Kings of Leon, when they first started, were known as the "Southern Strokes" and the Strokes were an obvious influence on the Arctic Monkeys and the Libertines.  I was giving them shit at the beginning, but they came by their acclaim honestly.  They practiced every night and played a ton of gigs around NYC and honed their sound into something recognizable but also brand new in some way.  

And, I mean, having a great sound doesn't mean shit if you don't have the songs to back it up and they have the songs.  There are so many great, hummable, catchy as fuck songs on this album.  "The Modern Age" is as prototypical a Strokes song as there is - that rhythmic strummed guitar, four on the floor drum beat, Julian Casablancas's Lou Reed-esque vocal that sounds like it's being sung through an AM radio.  Casablancas is not a naturally gifted singer but he's kinda perfect for the kind of garage rock the Strokes are trying to do here.  Their sound is obviously influenced by Reed and Velvet Underground and Television and the Stooges and all that sludy NYC rock of the 70s but polished up and given a more melodic sheen.

Lyrically the songs aren't really about all that much at all.  From "Last Nite," coincidentally one of the best songs on the album:

Last night, she said
"Oh, baby, don't feel so down
Oh, it turns me off
When I feel left out"
So I, I turned 'round
Oh, baby, gonna be alright
It was a great big lie
'Cause I left that night, yeah
Oh, people, they don't understand
No, girlfriends, they don't understand
In spaceships, they won't understand
And me, I ain't ever gonna understand

OK.  Anyway, no one is here for the lyrics.  Or the guitar, for that matter, and certainly not the drums.  It's the overall sound, which just feels like sticking your head out of the window of a cab at 2:30 in the morning on your way to the afterparty and knowing that somehow life is never going to get better than this.

So I think this album is great (the only great album the Strokes ever made, incidentally) and all, but it is certainly not this high on the list.  I see this in the 300-350 range, maybe 250-300.  I suspect that if we revisit in 20 years it will have fallen considerably.

Is this album in my personal Top 500? Sure.

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