The Strokes: Is This It poll

What I always liked about The Strokes was this sense of disconnect that was in their music, it felt so jaded and bored. Just those narcotised muffled vocals, the guitar solos that nearly always repeated themselves, it felt like rock as this washed-out premeditated-act. This is all probably doing a pretty good job at making them sound as awful as a lot of yall think they are but its probably a big contributor to that NYC glamour that clung to them when this came out. Whoever posted that picture of them upthread is way otm imo, they looked good I think its pretty underrated how important it is to look good in photographs when you're in a band. These good looking, rich, grubby New Yorkers just had to to glance in your direction and it was like they were hitting on you, that's why those half-assed, tossed off Blondie riffs and VU chuggs sounded so great. Still, I think Room on Fire definitely stands up better all round. It has this glassy sheen over the fuzz.

I have no problem w/ this band and enjoy this record, but "they looked so good that it made their shitty music sound great" is not really the best argument in their favor.

haha, that post should have a neon sign saying "I had a crush on all of these guys" pointing at it tho

love everything on this album, but hard to explain is maybe the best thing on there. but barely legal is great too.

Listened to it again and got it down to NYC Cops v. Trying Yr Luck. Think I'm gonna go NYC Cops.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

damn straight

I never, ever heard any Television in this band either, other than a really dry, staccato (recorded direct?) guitar sound maybe.

Television is there in terms of the attitudinizing, but, at least sonically, I see your point. Surely the better reference point wasn't so much Richard Lloyd's work in Television but his appearances on Matthew Sweet's mid-90s albums. I know for a fact the band did admit a certain guitar style came from M.S. - and you can hear it.

I knew a guy in HS who tried desperately to look like the sixth member of the Strokes, and you can mark the day the band lost their way as being the day this guy stopped idolizing them and moved on to Spoon (Animal Collective is today's bedroom poster band btw)

FASCINATINGLY I have this on vinyl, and it features both NYC Cops and the alternate cover. Woo.

always heard more mid-period guided by voices in the guitars than television. the opening of "hard to explain" could have come straight from under the bushes under the stars

don't they gave gbv in one of their videos?

Someday. Because GBV are in the video.

― SourPatchCorpse, Wednesday, July 8, 2009 4:05 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Every song got a vote, that's something.

I hope their next one is good. Casablancas said in March -

"Some of the new stuff has a Seventies vibe, like Thin Lizzy or Elvis Costello," he says. "But then some of it is bizarre music from the future that we're trying to tone down to sound catchy. So we're trapped between the future and the Seventies."

The votes for singles crushed any votes for deep cuts, that's also something.

"But then some of it is bizarre music from the future that we're trying to tone down to sound catchy. So we're trapped between the future and the Seventies."

http://www.toonjokes.com/data/media/9/30.jpg

lol i couldn't even muster any energy to pick apart that quote

Was he talking about his solo record?

Julian Casablancas is wrapping up work on his debut solo recording scheduled for release this fall on Cult Records/RCA.

The eight songs were written and recorded over the last 12 months with studio work completed in Los Angeles, New York City and Nebraska. The project was produced by Jason Lader with additional production by Mike Mogis.

The album, entitled Phrazes for the Young, features all new material written by Casablancas. Track titles include: "River of Brake Lights," "Glass" and "Ludlow St."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXpXpYLoCek

sounds really good

Consider me interested.

hmmmmmmm

that was really cool. you know, i thought julian was the one who was being the diva and like holding all the other guys hostage wrt to a new strokes album but this could be really cool and could make up for them falling off the face of the earth

i really like his voice when he's singing low key stuff like "under control" or this "you only live once" demo called "i'll try anything once" which is better than 80% of first impressions

hopefully the solo stuff is kinda like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcze-UD1D4w

alright that video made me sad

lol the end of the video has some thank yous.

First Impressions sucks so bad, but that song is about the best thing on it

^^ truth bomb

YOLO is awesome, and the rest of the album is such a turd

YOLO, Electricityscape, Evening Sun, and Red Light among my favorite Strokes songs. the album is too long.

despite everything, Someday = one of the best songs i ever heard in my life.

lol yesterday i heard a terrible busker on sauchiehall street doing an acoustic singer-songwritery version of 'someday'

http://stereogum.com/767531/stroked-tribute-to-is-this-it/mp3s/

http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2011/07/cover.jpg

1. Peter Bjorn & John – “Is This It”
2. Chelsea Wolfe – “The Modern Age”
3. Frankie Rose – “Soma”
4. Real Estate – “Barely Legal”
5. Wise Blood – “Someday”
6. Austra – “Alone, Together”
7. the morning benders – “Last Night”

8. Owen Pallett – “Hard To Explain”
"Is This It is one of my favourite records of all time. I like a band when they’re metronomic with zero dynamics, and they never play the chorus more than twice, and when the vocals are buried. It sounds like efficiency. I read a quote, once, from Regina Spektor, in reference to Is This It:

The thing that blew my mind first hearing the Strokes was that they were the closest I had heard rock come to classical. Their music is extraordinarily orderly and composed.

I post on several message boards — less these days, but still on occasion. Spektor’s statement, which made instant sense to me, was the source of lively online debate. Essentially, people disagreed with Spektor’s quote. What followed was a firestorm of criticism, and many things came into question, from Spektor’s familiarity with rock music to begin with, to the worth of “classical training” in the pop context.

A user named Nabisco posted this in Spektor’s defence:

So far there’s like one person on the thread who’s actually bothered to spend half a second thinking about what (Spektor) seems to mean. (…) As of the first couple albums, at least, there is something almost insanely orderly about the Strokes’ eighth notes, in a way that’s pretty much the opposite of the “raw sloppy rock” tag they once got. I seem to remember Tom Ewing saying it was no surprise to have a drum machine on “Hard To Explain,” since the band always played like they were machined and sequenced anyway. It makes sense that this would be what Spektor means when she says the band is “like Mozart”. (…) It would be nice if there were ever any pull on (this message board) to look at something with the expectation that maybe — just maybe — it will be useful for something better than eye-rolling.

When I was asked to cover “Hard To Explain,” I remembered Spektor’s comment and Nabisco’s response. I re-imagined the Strokes as a piano quintet, and had us all playing hard, fast and mechanical. I can’t sing it as well as Julian, but he’s a really good singer — I think he had might have had lessons — not that it matters."
- Owen Pallett

9. Heems – “New York City Cops”
10. Deradoorian – “Trying Your Luck”
11. Computer Magic – “Take It Or Leave It”

Yeah, I just revived the thread Owen's referring to:
'The thing that blew my mind first hearing the Strokes was that they were the closest I had heard rock come to classical,' she says. 'Their music is extraordinarily orderly and composed. It's almost

Ah, hell - sorry... let this one get re-buried...

a lot of these covers are good

well at least a few of them

No worries, SGTS! I don't care where this is discussed -- I just thought people would be interested in seeing the original thread.

cool, i would like to hear about half of these.

Finally, some competition for this

http://www.cmhrecords.com/web/page.asp?pgs=product&catid=1&id=974

lmao, it's on spotify

(((d-_-b)))

John Doran of this parish isn't having it

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=146&p=10830&title=why_the_strokes_is_this_it_changed_music&more=1&c=1

The death of culture. http://sickmouthy.com/2013/03/25/the-strokes-is-this-it-2001/

So, I'm giving this album a listen for the first time since 2001 - I thought it was incredibly overhyped by the UK music press at the time, and I still think it's... well, not as great as people say it is. Not even the best record of 2001, let alone of that decade. The back half is stronger than the front half, but when it comes to the crunch, I've heard this thing done far better elsewhere. The production sucks, too.

i was resistant to the hype but it won me over eventually. still think it sounds great, the only weak cut is the track they replaced "new york city copes" with.

i like the production, it's kind of soft and muted, very "we're here in the studio" but not slicked out... reminds me of the smell of rooms that have been smoked in a lot for some reason?

Lol Turrican, you have the worst music taste.

they have more in common with the cars than television or the vu, really.. though the vocals did get in that lou zone at times, the beat did get in the mo zone at times, and the overall playing did have a kind of vaguely stiff delineated "organized" thing going on that kinda reminds me of television's guitars

tom petty too, i guess. were people pissed off because they were promised revolution and were greeted with a tom petty ripoff?

xxpost:

This is a compliment coming from you, Frederik, so I couldn't thank you enough!

I think people were pissed off because the music press had worked themselves up in such a lather to call it a classic that when they finally heard it they asked themselves, well, "Is This It?" ... It'd be so easy to attack these guys for being a bunch of poshos slumming it, but that's far down the bottom of the list. What it boils down to, for me, is that I'm just not convinced by the songwriting. There's a couple of strong moments at the back half but ultimately the record feels like a style-over-substance deal to me.