The Strokes- Is This It

Here we have the highly successful debut album from The Strokes, which was released in 2001. The timing of this debut album from the New York band was perfect, as it shot to worldwide success in the garage rock revival around the turn of the millennium. Along with bands such as The Vines and The White Stripes, the magazine Rolling Stone made the retro sound of The Strokes flavour of the month.

Trainspotters will note that this is the Australian version of the CD. The music industry gods somehow granted Aussies an early release, the "glove on ass" cover and the song New York City Cops (which was cut from the worldwide release, due to the September 11 attacks occurring in the meantime).

From my perspective, hopefully 12 years is long enough to get over all the pretentiousness associated with this album! The opening song Is This It kicks things off perfectly. It gets you into the mood of the album, without "wasting" a great song while you acclimatise.

The recording quality needs to be discussed. It sucks! By design, though. As part of the garage rock revival, it was compulsary to have a thin sound, especially with distorted vocals that sounded like they used a 1970s Tandy "build your own microphone for $2" kit. It might be part of the style, but I don't really like it. The Modern Age and Hard to Explain take good advantage of it though, with very distorted verses leading to the "relief" of a fuller, smoother chorus.

In fact, one of The Strokes' greatest skills are their choruses, they are very catchy and enjoyable. The other highlight of the band for me are the lyrics. Illustrative yet obscure enough to leave some mystery; my favourite style of lyrics.

New York City Cops is my favourite song on the album. It feels more unrestrained and energetic, like they dropped their guard of calculated and too-cool-for-school for this song. Trying Your Luck is great for the opposite reasons: gentle, cruisy verses which always make me think of summertime road trips. It would be the perfect finale for the album, however there is actually one more track to go. This means that Take It or Leave It, while being a decent song in its own right, always feels like one encore too many.

While it's a fun album, it'll be interesting to see whether history remembers it. I suspect it will end up in no-mans land: rock purists will prefer the original bands who inspired The Strokes for this album, and pop fashions will have moved on to the Next Big Thing.

Favourite songs

Barely Legal, Someday, Last Nite, Hard to Explain, New York City Cops, Trying Your Luck

Would I buy it again?

I like the songs, but not the concept! I guess in the end, the songs should win out though...