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.