Happy Monday, cats. One day down, four to go. Until we get to the weekend we'll have some sunshine and warmer weather to get us through.
Last week The Strokes were on Saturday Night Live with someone who shall not be named, While watching them play their new single 'Under Cover of Darkness' my better half remarked how it felt like a great summer song, that "we should be grilling and having a drink on the balcony!" I told her it would all come soon enough, but in the meantime we had this great new song to tide us over. It did get me thinking, though, about how fantastic their first album was - NME has actually hailed it as the album of the decade, if that says anything.
The Strokes were New York's darlings, products of the city and making lo-fi pop songs under the guise of garage rock. Their first proper album, Is This It was unlike anything else at the time of its release in 2001 (I know, I know, but c'mon - there was so much good music that gets forgotten!). Instead of relying on over production and five part harmonies the Boy Bands were using or the bombastic idiocy by the likes of Limp Bizkit (oof), The Strokes went 180 degrees on the general movement in pop music - that is, they just wrote killer songs and played them with a lot of heart and soul. When other groups were being over produced or clinically mixed and mastered, Is This It was just a straight-ahead piece of guitar pop-rock, short and sweet. It was like a breath of fresh air. I remember vividly first hearing the single 'Last Night' and thinking it sounded both amazingly, simultaneously retraux and nouveau. It was at the forefront of the DIY revival, the garage-rock ethos making a resurgence in collective pop culture. The White Stripes and The Hives broke wide open around the same time, marking the collective zeitgeist.
Interestingly, rather than being a drab, simplistic affair, the album is deceptively complex. Rarely do the bass lines just double the guitar; they often run in contrapuntal or divergent lines that have their own sense of melody. I think what really sums up the feel of the whole album is front man Julian Casablancas describing what the overall aim was in recording Is This It: he wanted it to feel like a "band from the past took a time trip into the future" to record this record. The result was the urgent, vibrant work of New Yorkers throwing down, piece by piece, a quick and dirty record of power pop. Clocking in at just a hair under 37 minutes, there's not an ounce of fat on the album. Not to say songs don't have a chance to grow, rather they just do so in an incredibly concise and efficient way. You know how the rest of the world looks at New Yorkers and the way they plow through the sidewalks, never slowing down or stopping to gawk at anything? Same thing with this album, just straight ahead, no slowing down, get the job done. You would hardly know it though, from the opener. The titular Is This It? gets off to an almost lackadaisical start, the drums barely chugging as the incredibly hooky, descending guitar line reminiscent of the Pixies kicks in(Gil Norton produced the album, who had done extensive work with the Pixies). The bass hops and leaps in little jumps as Casablancas moans his lines and brings us to the chorus, where everything synchs up and we get a real sense of what's happening. It's new but with the sense of history that signaled it as part of the movement in pop culture that is constantly winking at the past. Irony is part of everything that happens now, it would seem. This album was first in on the joke.
While the afore-mentioned 'Last Night' was the big single off the album, to me it was eclipsed by the infinitely superior follow-ups 'Some Day' and 'Hard To Explain'. Both songs are catchy in their unrelenting momentum. The jangly strumming of 'Some Day' provokes an almost instinctual head bob with it's laid back but fervent energy. Like my fiancée described the new single, this song instantly conveys the sunny days of summer, shooting the breeze and sharing drinks in a warm breeze. Maybe that's not NY but it's how a couple kid from MN chose to partake. The other in the pairing, 'Hard To Explain', rides a little harder, and while it has an insanely catchy melody it still pushes the band harder and faster than anything else on the record. Casablancas' wailing is phenomenally realized here, and when he gets to the word-salad that is the chorus you don't necessarily follow his exact phrasing but the attitude is there, regardless. That seems to be the real vibrancy to the whole thing, anyway - you may or may not be in on all the references but it hooks you regardless, and once it does it's a hard album to shake.
The Strokes have followed this incredible first effort with some strong follow ups, but nothing quite possesses the same punch and joix de vivre as this record. It's fantastic and comprehensible, the rare rock record that anyone can understand yet is impossible to really dissect. It's no wonder it has such a sterling reputation. I have to say I'm incredibly excited for what they have to offer later in the month, hipster darlings or no. They make great, gratifying pop songs that are unparalleled. Let's keep our ears open, shall we?
