The Strokes: Is This It poll

Well, sorta, in the same way that Television has riffs, but listening to a song like Someday it's striking that it's really just rhythmic cells stopping and starting. Of course it depends on how you defines riffs, but there's nothing like with Seven Nations Army which is constantly being driven along by this big fat guitar figure (though in a way Strokes has way more riffs than White Stripes, because they have at least five small ones per song)

Well, I don't know, just counting the first 2 albums, all these are various kinds of big riffs (for me) :
barely legal
alone together
hard to explain
nyc cops
raptilia
12:51
meet me in the bathroom
I can't win
...

(argh I did it, I got in the "what is a riff" debate !)

Let's do Barely Legal :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64-JxFMsbr0

What part of it would you call a big riff?

I kinda like this discussion, could be fun if we keep it cordial.

oh of course, don't worry, I don't get upset for that kind of things !
again, it obviously depends on what one considers a riff is.
for me, it's usually (but not set in stone) the musical phrase played by whatever instrument that is recurrent along a song and kinda defines it when you think of said song.
In your example, it would be the opening lick by the lead guitar.
to take your other example, seven nation army is obviously a perfect example of another kind of riff (the kind that most people consider IS a riff).

and for instance in NYC cops, the opening lead guitar also plays a big riff.

Well, nitpicking, but the opening lick never recurs, does it?
I mean, I can't really disagree with you, it's definitely riffs as in it's - quite memorable - figures, and a lot of them define the song. But on the other hand, they're just small two tone figures, so simple, so mechanical, and really much more distinctive for the way they change the rhythm - the way the bass and rhythm guitar begins being syncopated right before the chorus.

ahah, right after writing about "barely legal" I though the exact same thing : I haven't listened to it in a while so yeah, maybe it doesn't come back... which makes it even stronger than I thought it was !
so yeah, you might not count it as a riff then (that said, that reminds me of an interview with Bernard Butler about "animal nitrate" where he said that its opening riff was very important especially because it's only played once during the song).
as for the other riffs, yeah, I totally get what you mean. of course, riffs like "seven nation army" are more obviously "riffs".
but back to "barely legal" and its 4 notes riff, there's not really a difference in nature if you compare to classic riffs like "satisfaction".
and the riff for "hard to explain" is also not essentially different from "sweet child of mine".
(not comparing quality here obviously)

"soma" has a great riff

For me, the difference is that the riff in Satisfaction lives by it's singularity, the way it sounds like an alarm, the little human ways it's played differently through out the song. It communicates as a figure. The riffs in Barely Legal doesn't communicate on their own, but in their interplay. I would never say the opening figure defines the song, I remember the switch between verse and chorus, mainly.

But we are mostly just having different ideas of what riffs are.

I mean, clearly there are rhythms in a White Stripes song as well, but making totally accurate descriptions wouldn't sound so good.

Soma is one of their songs where I really don't get what is rhythm guitar and what is lead guitar

Is "Sweet child o'mine"'s lead guitar line a riff for you ?

i love that Hard To Explain gets away with only a single chord in the chorus

uh ? nah there are like 3 chords in there iirc.

But the rhythm guitar plays one chord only. Good trick. They do the same in Barely Legal opening riff, that stays the same though chords change around it.

Yeah, I'd say Sweet Child of Mine is a riff, and a kinda Strokes'y one at that, no? 12:51 especially sounds a lot like it. But it has that precise inhuman nature as well.

yeah it's only the bass that changes and it's relatively low in the mix,

there are a lot of strokes riffs/parts that sound very like sweet child o mine, but always in a much tenser context

yeah, they did that trick a lot. it's a good one to create some harmonic tension (and it was fun watching Albert Hammond Jr strumming his guitar like a maniac on these parts).

The whole thing is really just a G-chord, though, you're right it's true, with Julian traveling from D to H to G.

love them H chords

Oh, right, it's different in England and US. B, not H.

I've been laughing my tits off at the idea of a riff without any rhythm in it for the last half an hour... I assume Frederik drinks water without the h2o in it, too...

Well, I'd wish you'd laugh a while longer, but it was nice to have a cordial enriching discussion while you weren't here.

It was fun learning Last Night with my band and realizing that I just play one chord during the intro and chorus. The parts of that song sound very weird individually

xp

omg the riff debate is back!! yesssss

yeah the "one chord" thing is everywhere on their first lp (I don't remember for the following ones).
like on "hard to explain" alone they use it during the pre-chorus AND the chorus !

someday

used to hate Last Nite when it was ubiquitous, now I love it and would probably be my vote

if only for the chorus

it's a fucking incredible song

honestly embarrassed to say I finally heard the album for the first time a couple of weeks ago. its good

+1 love this record

room on fire is good too. would have taken 10 more records in this same vein

first track got robbed. that sick bass line.