The Strokes - Classic or Duds?

obviously I don't know them enough but doesn't Adam Levine have a Sting thing going ? He seems to follow the same kind of career path...

actually has there been another new rock band with such a hype/success since the strokes ?

― AlXTC from Paris, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 2:42 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Arcade Fire's first album? Bright Eyes? The Shins?

that whole era of fashion spread version of junkie '70s rock is pretty dull.

This is otm and the reason the idea of an oral history of the scene also seems so boring. "Please Kill Me" is partly great because so much of the actual music that came out of that scene was actually great, but also because for better and worse a lot of the behavior in it is really spectacular in its decadence and depravity. Lots and lots of people died! Lots of people were legit crazy. "Ryan Adams got me into heroin for a while" is not interesting or even particularly sad.

pretty funny tho

first time as tragedy, second time as comedy iirc

True enough. I just don't think I need a whole book of it.

I've heard a rumour that one of FF is apparently a massive alky, for what it's worth

i met bob from ff in a pub once just ahead of the release of the sparks collab so i can only assume it must be him

The Strokes and that TV show Vinyl are essentially the same thing in the end. Reference 70s NYC rock scene stuff stiltedly, wonder why nobody gave a shit after initial hype, pretend they were too pure for this world.

it was ridiculous to ever pin the entire hopes of a genre of music on a band that was so stylistically reductive, but that make Is This It any less of a masterpiece of songwriting, production, and dynamics. what they did sounded easy but clearly it's not or more albums of that ilk would be that good.

I would say the thing that makes Is This It less than a masterpiece of songwriting, production, and dynamics is how incredibly boring it is.

The Strokes and that TV show Vinyl are essentially the same thing in the end. Reference 70s NYC rock scene stuff stiltedly, wonder why nobody gave a shit after initial hype, pretend they were too pure for this world.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 11:52 AM (forty-one minutes ago)

yeah but the spirit of rock 'n' roll!

I think they had really good songs on the first and second album and i dug their kinda robotic take on garage rock, nice guitar lines, overall that real cars-type efficient new wave thing

i think the records stand up pretty well now that the hype is gone

yeah, I get the "reference 70s NYC rock scene stuff stiltedly" complaint, but the stiltedness is what made them great!

honestly, what NYC rock scene stuff do ppl feel they sound a lot like? early Blondie maybe musically a bit? The Ramones I guess in a way but they are so influential it's almost like saying a rock band is influenced by Chuck Berry.... Like they def don't remind me of Television, Dead Boys, Patti Smith, Heartbreakers, Dictators, NY Dolls, Voidoids, Talking Heads

or is this just they dressed like it?

the stiltedness is what made them great

Oh, you're one of those "it's so bad it's good!" people. I didn't know there were any of you left!

Like they def don't remind me of Television, Dead Boys, Patti Smith, Heartbreakers, Dictators, NY Dolls, Voidoids, Talking Heads

No, no they don't.

'the stiltedness is what made them great'

Agreed. With Hard to Explain as the finest example.

they probably don't use deodorant and stink of BO

People arguing for stiltedness as a positive are reminding me that at the time (hell, probably back then on this thread) I said they'd be much better off with a drum machine. I wish to revise my judgment: they would have been better off replacing all the bandmembers with presets.

In hindsight, the new wave inspiration was obvious. It always sounded mechanic, computerized, even when it was done in gritty seventies style and before they learned how to make the guitars sounds as keyboards.

And yeah, at their best they sounded like human presets.

to that point, they def sounded modern, there's a way a lot of bands now approach drumming and mixing and drum sounds that betrays they grew up in a post-dance/hip hop drum machine era, they had this weird mid-range-y snap to the production that didn't sound like a 70s record at all to me. and also not 90s lo-fi like guided by voices either, it had a lo-fi feel but was also very polished and "pro"

i think the bassist is really good actually, he had nice little melodic touches

They are the first rock band my 17 year old seems to deeply love. She's listened to the first two records a ton in the last year, has started playing guitar, and is now analyzing all sorts of pop trying to figure out what makes it work. But it was the two-guitar interplay of the Strokes that made it all gel for her.

Was showing her Ramones youtubes, and she was fascinated by the realization that the whole skinnyjeans-converse-leatherjacket-buzzyguitars thing actually had a starting point. It was fun to see someone get the "1-2-3-4" gag with completely fresh ears!

the stilted thing is a big selling point. She's surrounded by peers who make over-emotive Florence and the Machine covers on their phones.

People arguing for stiltedness as a positive are reminding me that at the time (hell, probably back then on this thread) I said they'd be much better off with a drum machine. I wish to revise my judgment: they would have been better off replacing all the bandmembers with presets.

Or even better, The Presets.

Listening to Is This It right now and it's absolutely classic. The 'stiltedness' plus the fact that 90% of what they're doing is with rhythms. The chords just go up and down. In hindsight the obvious heir is LCD.

Soma and Alone Together are so much better than I remember, love the drums at the end of both.

Constantly amazed by how many of my peers just totally adore the first two Strokes records (me too but I go so far as the third). No disrespect but continuing to be bitchy about them 15 years later seems kinda silly.

The perception of silliness can run both ways.

there were so many new york bands at the time that were better. and put on better shows! the yyys. the rapture. radio 4, remember them? le tigre. the liars. fischerspooner. savy fav. holy shit maybe it WAS a golden age?!

what did Fischerspooner do besides a Wire cover and hideous fashion?

LSF was so good

EMERGE alfred do you not remember?? that song built an entire (and almost entirely illusory) "scene"! their shows were outrageous/hideous/amazing. nobody did spectacle like that at a show that i can think of until like, fever ray? i'm sure i'm forgetting someone amazing. but still.

I will always rep for the YYYs and the Rapture

rapture were a really fun live band imo

The Rapture's follow-up to Echoes (the post-DFA one with "Woo Alright Yeah Uh-Huh" on it) is mad underrated.

we played a super tiny show w them (before they moved to NY) and they absolutely tore the place up, opened w a Gang of Four cover. Will always be sort of forgiving of their excesses/stumbles because of that show.

we played a super tiny show w them (before they moved to NY) and they absolutely tore the place up, opened w a Gang of Four cover. Will always be sort of forgiving of their excesses/stumbles because of that show.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 2:59 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I saw them right before the Sub Pop ep came out and they completely blow me away, played to like 20 people or something, one of the best bands I saw in that era. 6 months later when they came back and I had been talking to them up to everyone who would listen they were a totally different band & the charms were lost on me.

Echoes is a fantastic album.

The Rapture's first and third albums are their best.

J Escobedo elsewhere:

http://jezebel.com/early-2000s-rock-dudefight-ends-in-a-surprisingly-sick-1795264939

The origin of this fight is an oral history about the end of the band The Strokes published in Vulture (excerpted from Lizzy Goodman’s forthcoming book Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011) which, if you can get past the notion that The Strokes were some kind of rock saviors and not just a kinda decent band in a scene surrounded by way cooler and more interesting other bands, has a couple fun nuggets to mine.

Embedded links going to the YYYs and Ex Models in particular.

I would happy erase their master tapes.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, May 15, 2017 7:19 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ OTM.

was Enon part of the "scene"? They were great. Though I guess a lot older.

lol who

The Ratpure

Franz Ferdinand's debut pisses all over anything The Strokes ever did.

The only hyped band of the time I can think of that I liked less than The Strokes was Interpol.

Yeah, I thought Interpol were garbage also.

Hear hear

was Enon part of the "scene"? They were great. Though I guess a lot older.

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, May 16, 2017 3:37 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah Brainiac, rip :( they prefigure a lot of this in a way but sound a lot more 90s, when you go back to them. and Six Finger Satellite!