The Strokes: First Impressions Of Earth

THE STROKES: FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF EARTH (2006)

1) You Only Live Once; 2) Juicebox; 3) Heart In A Cage; 4) Razorblade; 5) On The Other Side; 6) Vision Of Division; 7) Ask Me Anything; 8) Electricityscape; 9) Killing Lies; 10) Fear Of Sleep; 11) 15 Minutes; 12) Ize Of The World; 13) Evening Sun; 14) Red Light.

General verdict: It is mildly impressive to see Julian and the boys last for over 50 minutes, but whereʼs the goddamn money shot?

I suppose that the first thing to cross many Strokes fansʼ minds when they saw the title of this album was — «wait, are the guys going psychedelic or something? this looks like a frickinʼ Eloy title or something!» (disclaimer: I fully acknowledge that not many Strokes fans probably know anything about Eloy, and that they are much better off that way). The second thing, then, would be to note the running length of the album — 52 minutes? Oh boy, deep shit coming on... what exactly happened to that perfect 35-minute limit?

Well, let me tell you this — had the Strokes gone all progressive and pretentious on our asses, it might have been an artistic disaster, but at least it would have made the album into a glorious disaster, rather than leaving it in this state of boggy slump. In reality, nothing much has changed, other than the bandʼs producer (David Kahne stepping in for Gordon Raphael) and the fact that the ever-lengthening stretches in between recording sessions gave Julian more opportunities for songwriting, and we now have 14 of his songs instead of the usual 11–12. Unfortunately, each of these songs is still about 1–1½ minutes longer than it should be, because the Strokes have never bothered to learn the art of dynamic expansion: you learn everything there is to be learned about each of the songs in 30–60 seconds, and then itʼs just repetition of ideas, very few of which deserve to be repeated without development.

The album was announced with a bit of deception: ʽJuiceboxʼ, the first single, is faster, tighter, and rockier than just about any other song on here, starting out with a bona fide ʽPeter Gunnʼ style bassline and quickly transforming into a grungy screamer in which Julian berates his lover for not wishing to join him over for the dubious delights of big city life. It is hard to resist a crunchy ʽPeter Gunnʼ rip-off, but the song does become fairly generic pop-punk in its screechy "why wonʼt you come over here?" bridge part, and the "youʼre so cold, youʼre so cold" chorus fails at delivering a properly desperate vibe either musically or vocally.

The second single, ʽHeart In A Cageʼ, was both more indicative of the overall pulse of the album (slower, poppier, darker) and more musically enjoyable in general, maybe because of Nick Valensiʼs loud, thick, in-yer-face glammy lead guitar lines echoing past heroes like Mick Ronson. Its only problem is that, like everything else here, it delivers one hundred percent of its punch in the opening sixty seconds — thereʼs a tension-relieving bridge section on which Casablancas goes for a tender Ray Davies-like approach, but it doesnʼt fit in all that well with the rest of the song and its melody goes absolutely nowhere. As Casablancas confesses himself within the opening verse of the song, "I donʼt write better when Iʼm stuck in the ground", and there are quite a few moments on this album when he almost literally is stuck in the ground.

The monolithic production style and the bandʼs noble, but sometimes wearying devotion to the same vocal and instrumental tones actually makes it very hard to distinguish between respectable and lazy songwriting when you have 50 minutes of this shit. ʽRazorbladeʼ strikes me as a good example of the former, with its unusual 5/4 tempo and dialog between a folksy, college-rockish, densely strummed rhythm guitar and highly melodic electric lead — but the production kind of eats away at both these parts, muffling them and making them secondary to Julianʼs post-punk nasal drawl. On the other hand, ʽVision Of Divisionʼ is a confusing mess of everything — I know I have complained about the lack of dynamics, and this song has plenty of it, but when you start out all grungy like Nirvana and then follow it up with an AC/DC-esque ʽThundrestruckʼ-style lead guitar, itʼs just... incoherent.

Maybe the worst thing about it all is that over the course of three albums, Julian Casablancas has still not managed to convince me that I should really truly care about himself, his girl problems, or his difficulties in coping with the complicated urban lifestyle with which he has this love-hate relationship. As the album begins its long crawl towards the finish line, it seems to become more and more personal, with superficially panic-stricken songs like ʽFear Of Sleepʼ inviting you to identify with their concerns — but the tune offers nothing to me other than a jumbled mess of distorted guitar and vocal noise, and I do not feel any real panic behind the mess. Maybe itʼs because of this sanitized production: I keep thinking about how, say, the Birthday Party would have recorded this song in the early Eighties, and against those memories the Strokes do not stand a chance. Basically, the deeper and more psychological Casablancas wants to go, the less he is liable to make a real impression.

Throw in a really unsatisfying conclusion — the album closer ʽRed Lightʼ sounds like a mildly passable monotonous pop-rocker that should have legitimately occupied a filler position in the middle — and it is not easy to understand why First Impressions Of Earth did not make much of an impression on most of Earthʼs critics. It is not a bad album: it is an album that tries very hard to transcend the inherent limitations of the artists, like a great 100-yard dasher betting on a 200-yard dash despite the doctorʼs wise advice. Cut out half of the songs, trim down the other half, invest a bit more in the arrangements, slightly de-sanitize the production, replace the annoying lyrics with simple boy-loves-girl stuff, and you have here the potential for an excellent modern pop-rock EP. As it is — another filler city for an already filler-choked century. 

The Strokes: Room On Fire

THE STROKES: ROOM ON FIRE (2003)

1) What Ever Happened?; 2) Reptilia; 3) Automatic Stop; 4) 12:51; 5) You Talk Way Too Much; 6) Between Love & Hate; 7) Meet Me In The Bathroom; 8) Under Control; 9) The Way It Is; 10) The End Has No End; 11) I Canʼt Win.

General verdict: Same as before, but slightly less intense, slightly more philosophical, and much more indicative of this bandʼs limitations.

This is one more of those albums which, though not altogether boring or repulsive by any means, is tough as nails to write about if you want your writing to make any sense or have any usefulness at all. In a way, it is quite telling that the first lines to be sung by Julian on the first track on the album go "I wanna be forgotten and I donʼt wanna be remembered"... oops, "reminded" actually, but from the very first listen I got this ingrained as "remembered" and thatʼs the way it is going to stay for me, because this is what Room On Fire is: a decent record that sounds so goddamn much like a pale carbon copy of Is This It, it is almost like a textbook-oriented definition of «sophomore slump».

Scuttlebutt says the band conducted its original recording sessions with none other than Nigel Godrich, the wizard behind classic Radiohead magic — but, apparently, he was not able to hit it off with Casablancas, and in the end the band returned to their original producer. I do not know whether we should be happy or sad about this, because if Godrich was indeed trying to give the Strokes a «Radiohead touch», the results might have turned out seriously grotesque — then again, they might have ended up far more interesting than the expectedly bare-bones and, by now, fairly predictable dry-cleaners production style of Gordon Raphael; the most surprise you are going to get out of this is the occasional synthesizer-like effect on the lead guitar, e.g. ʽ12:51ʼ which is made to sound like a stereotypical Cars track, albeit even more sanitized.

Other than that, Room On Fire simply repeats the original formula of alternating between loud, but not aggressive mid-tempo to slow-tempo guitar-based pop-rockers, written from the same post-modern perspective of an NYC hipster with serious relationship problems. Since I cannot for the life of me identify with this perspective, and since the artistic personality of Julian Casa­blancas gets me indifferent at best and annoyed at worst, all I can do is try to concentrate on the music — like, are there any interesting guitar riffs? do the grooves make me want to headbang? does the twin guitar interplay brighten my mood? that sort of thing.

From that simple stance, ʽWhat Ever Happened?ʼ is quite a disheartening opener, because it puts the Strokes into flat-out shoegazing mode, just vamping out on one chord in total prostration mode, where even Julianʼs gurgling scream feels like a robotic, sleep-walking accompaniment. ʽReptiliaʼ is much better, picking up tempo, churning out a simple, but distinctive and memorable punk-pop riff and then reversing its tonality for the refrain. ʽAutomatic Stopʼ has a nice moment when the lead guitar comes in to weave a plaintive woman-tone melody in between the choppy syncopated reggae-pop chords of the rhythm, but you still have to chase the song for chemistry, rather than having it chase you in person. ʽ12:51ʼ is probably the best of the lot, because the melodic hook is doubled on vocals and that quirky synth-guitar at the same time. ʽYou Talk Way Too Muchʼ is boring; just how long is it possible to go on switching between those A and E chords, over and over and over again?..

Re-emerging back from the simple virtues and just as simple flaws of individual songs into the bigger picture, I would say that Room On Fireʼs principal crime is that it tries to be a little more moody and sentimental than its predecessor — now the songsʼ main reason for being so simple is not because these New York City lads just want to have some fun and get back to their roots, it is more like because they do not want to over-complexify things when telling you about their troubles. I do realize this is a gross generalization — Is This It was far from a completely blunt and mindless record, just as Room On Fire is not exactly a thirty-minute long metaphysical treatise. But the overall atmosphere, with its minimalist melodies, pensive lyrics, ever so slightly slowed-down tempos and mechanic singing, shows that The Strokes are already trying to jump over from their Please Please Me phase into at least their Rubber Soul one, and thatʼs way bigger a leap than such a band could ever handle. In their own words, "good try, we donʼt like it, good try, we wonʼt take that shit". 

The Strokes: Is This It

THE STROKES: IS THIS IT (2001)

1) Is This It; 2) The Modern Age; 3) Soma; 4) Barely Legal; 5) Someday; 6) Alone, Together; 7) Last Nite; 8) Hard To Explain; 9) When It Started*; 10) New York City Cops; 11) Trying Your Luck; 12) Take It Or Leave It.

General verdict: Well, a pretty fun album to sing along to when youʼre feeling a tad rowdy... wait a minute, what do you REALLY mean by «the stuff of which legends are made»?

When it comes to basic rockʼnʼroll narrative, I do not like to make things too complicated, or go for trendy revisionist perspectives — at the basic core of things, rockʼnʼroll was invented in the mid-Fifties by a buch of black and white guys from Little Richard to Elvis, and since then, it has been seriously shaken and stirred three times: the British Invasion in the early Sixties saved it from going under, the punk/New Wave explosion in the mid-Seventies brought it back in touch with the modern world, and the grunge/alt-rock movement in the early Nineties cleansed it from the hedonistic and futuristic excesses of the Eighties. There is certainly more to this established narrative than meets the eye (for instance, it often comes hand in hand with a professed hatred for progressive rock, which is ridiculous, or a professed hatred for hair metal, which is adequate but still requires exceptions) — but it does represent several distinct stages in the evolution of rock music, which, according to this scenario, needs a sort of shake-up, «cleansing» every 10-15 years or so to get back on its feet and continue kicking everybodyʼs asses.

Is This It, the debut album by the Strokes, is very often held up as the main symbol for the next stage of this «cleansing» — the record that, according to a commonly shared critical perspective, almost singlehandedly (well, not really) re-established rock music as a powerful force in the 21st century, and opened the floodgates of acceptance for a huge flock of «neo-garage», «post-punk revival» and general indie-rock bands, ready to retake the spotlight from whatever other genres it had been occupied by after the grunge revolution had sagged and fizzled out — pop, electronica, boy bands, hip hop, trip hop, whatever. In this twist of the narrative, the Strokes were essentially the new Sex Pistols, their brethren such as the Hives and the Vines were the new Ramones, Clash, and Jam, the upcoming post-punk revivalists like Interpol were the new Joy Division, and the analogies go on ad infinitum.

And on a purely formal level, it is hard to deny this perspective. All these bands found critical and commercial fame, and I do remember the huge hype over Is This It very clearly, since this was the first major «rock revival» to occur when I was already writing musical reviews. I even went out and bought the album, slightly blushing at the cover — such was the hype that I must have probably chosen it over completing my collection of Eightiesʼ Bowie albums or something. But I also distinctly remember my disappointment over the initial listen. It was like, «thatʼs supposed to be the latest rockʼnʼroll revival? it sounds like a bunch of polite college boys doing a sanitized take on the genre! Iggy Pop in his prime would have swallowed these guys alive!» And the songs werenʼt all that interesting melodically, either. Still, at the time I was not a major fan of classic punk rock, either, and did a bad job properly distinguishing Nirvana from the hair metal bands it was supposed to replace, so who was I to judge?

Now, fast forward to 2020. Rock music is in an obvious state of decline (as, to be fair, are most other musical genres), and it has now been almost twenty years since the last «cleansing», so it is fair to ask the question — did the Strokes-initiated «cleansing» even happen in the first place, or was it just a figment of critical imagination triggering a bit of a popular delusion? And if it did happen after all, did it already contain the seeds of the imminent downfall by being significantly different in nature from all the previous «cleansings»?

Before tackling these philosophical issues, though, let us first try to give a simpler answer to a simpler question — is Is This It a good album? Now that I am able to give it another chance without the constant «saviours of rock!» buzz in my ear, I would definitely say yes. Julian Casablancas, the bandʼs lead vocalist and principal songwriter, has a good ear for melody, a good taste in lyrics, and the same kind of nonchalant, humbly arrogant charisma that had been the key resource of all bad boys of rockʼnʼroll from Mick to Iggy. I am not a big fan of the production style chosen by Gordon Raphael, where Julianʼs vocals sound as if they were processed through the same effects as Nick Valensiʼs and Albert Hammondʼs guitars — thereʼs a subtly «electric» feel to them, subtracting from the potential rawness of the sound that should be an obligatory part of any true garage-like experience; however, this by no means deprives the songs of their hooks, and you could certainly argue that making your lead vocals sound like a third lead guitar is at least a bit of a novel approach to running things.

Most importantly, though, the music is fun. The bandʼs guitar players are no virtuosos, and their use of chords and modes is quite traditional, but they are honestly searching for cool ideas, rather than just believing in the raw power of total minimalism. Check out something like ʽSomaʼ — one guitar in each speaker, a simple Malcolm Young-ish riff in one, a slightly more complex ringing pop melody in the other, both gradually gaining in intensity from verse to chorus along with Julianʼs vocals which also cover the ground from grinning-lazy to wolfish-angry. None of these ingredients is emotionally awesome by itself, but the overall dynamics is captivating. Or take ʽBarely Legalʼ — starts off as a fun, upbeat, totally derivative pop-rocker, only a tad slower and softer than the average Ramones number; then, right after the first verse, an entirely new riff is introduced that absolutely didnʼt need to be there, but there it is, subtly changing the songʼs retro mood from Sixties to Seventies. Itʼs all in these little touches that consistently prevent the music from becoming repetitive and boring.

The bandʼs chief influences are usually in the open: there can be no denying that ʽThe Modern Ageʼ is more like ʽWhat Would A Velvet Underground Song Sound Like In The Modern Ageʼ — mostly like a Velvet Underground song in the old age, given the 100% Lou Reed-like snarl of Julianʼs vocals and the relentless one-chord punch of the main riff. Sometimes they are more subtle — a song like ʽNew York City Copsʼ is nowadays mostly remembered for the provocative chorus of "New York City cops, they ainʼt too smart" and the fact that the song had to be replaced by a different one on the album in the wake of 9/11, but how about that "Ninaʼs in the bedroom, she said time to go now..." bit which is delivered precisely like the "Judyʼs in the bedroom, inventing situations" bit in Talking Headsʼ ʽFound A Jobʼ, just at a faster tempo? Nevertheless, no single song here is a direct rip-off, with the interlocking guitar and vocal melodies providing enough variations and typically metamorphing at least once or twice within the confines of every song — no mean feat, considering the strict adherence to the three minute length format.

Ultimately, it all works as a fun, pleasant listen. Energy, creativity, intelligence, charisma, pure gutsy entertainment, itʼs all there, and, for what itʼs worth, Iʼd take the simple pleasures of Is This It over the pretentious psychologisms of, say, Interpol anyday, just because the sheer musical care going into these songs rubs off on me to a far greater extent than the monotonous coldness of «post-punk revival». And also for what itʼs worth, Julian Casablancas is no better or worse a rock lyricist than any of the less-fun-more-existentialism-oriented indie-rock heroes of the 2000s — after all, the base ideology of Is This It is not so much raw, in-yer-face dumb cock rock as it is a slightly glammified, decadent-hipster look at New York Cityʼs social life, from which you, too, can draw as many existentialist conclusions as you wish to. It is no coincidence that the sexy cover of the album brings to mind the likes of Roxy Music — titillation with a touch of cheap glammy chic.

But as for the large-scale, long-term implications of Is This It... well, this is where the story gets complicated. All the previous «rock revivals» were characterized by two important features — they brought forth a completely new type of sound (same chords, maybe, but very different sonic effects) and a new type of socially relevant statement (yes, even the Ramones, who made a very serious socially relevant statement by refusing to make any socially relevant statements). Julian Casablancas and his merry band of white-collar New York schoolboys do satisfy both of these criteria, but in a very different manner from things past. Note that the sound of Is This It is not in the least punkishly aggressive — compared to all their idols, it is quite peaceful and poppy, just look at how the title track opens the record on a note of slow, limp, mopey cuteness rather than a blast of raw energy. In a way, itʼs like what the music of the Velvet Underground and the Stooges and the Clash would sound if you took away most of that distortion, snarl, overall fussiness, but preserved the base chord structures — a sanitized approach.

In other words, roughly speaking, the main idea of past rock revivals was — «letʼs take the music of our closest ancestors and make it even more aggressive, snappy, dangerous, disturbing!» The main idea of the Strokes revival is — «letʼs take the most aggressive, snappy, and disturbing music of our closest ancestors and make it less aggressive, snappy, and disturbing»... and also more palatable for the tastes of the relatively complacent, well-to-do, socially conscious and gentlemanly modern hipster (I think the term was not yet in vogue around the time that Is This It was released, but we were getting there). In doing so, Casablancas and Co. may have created their own thing, indeed, but by becoming one of the leading acts in the rock revival business they were unintentionally taking the wind out of rockʼs sails. The main reason why I dislike the term «garage» (or, more accurately, «neo-garage revival») applied to this record is that garage rock was 99% attitude, and attitude — at least, the kind of attitude that is bound to piss off people — is precisely the one thing that I find lacking on Is This It. A good rock record is supposed to make you want to punch a hole in the wall, sooner or later; Is This It makes me want to... want to... heck, it really doesnʼt make me want to do anything, and thatʼs its biggest problem.

It is still one of those perfect records to illustrate almost everything that was right and wrong with rockʼnʼroll in the 2000s — definitely historically important in how it shows that original ideas were used up, but subtle combinations of and variations on unoriginal ideas were still possible; that the lines between rock and pop were once again to be blurred, if not completely erased, opening possibilities for new vibes but also potentially castrating rock of its power; that the future of rockʼnʼroll was placed in the hands of polite and generally pampered kids with good pedigrees, which raised its level of intelligence but lowered its level of gut power. I might even go as far as to state that Is This It is the record that saved rock music and killed it at the exact same time, but perhaps this would be way too much of an honour for this little, generally unassuming collection of pop-rock tunes whose authors probably had no idea just how deeply — for a while, at least — it would become enshrined in popular consciousness. What is really quite telling is that, unlike the Velvet Underground, unlike the Stooges, unlike the Clash, unlike Nirvana, unlike just about anybody who mattered in those revolutions of the past, the Strokes were catastrophically unable to repeat, let alone outdo the impact of their debut album in their subsequent career — which, I guess, is sort of a trademark for most of the rock bands relevant for the 2000s and beyond.