Sunday, October 21
The Strokes, "Is This It" (RCA 2001)
There's not much I can say about the Strokes that hasn't been said. Their press kit came with a thick packet of xeroxed review clippings, all of which said, essentially: "the Strokes have been getting a lot of hype." So much hype that it's hard to approach them, unless of course you were there before it all started. Which, actually, I was. I saw the hot-shit New York five-piece open for Guided by Voices last winter at a venue Robert Pollard likes to call the Living Theatre of Arts, when their median age was a shy 21. Vocalist Julian Casablancas (who has, it's been pointed out, the ultimate rock star name) staggered drunkenly about the stage, complained about his day job, broke a microphone, while the rest of the group smirked disinterestedly or bobbed along to the beat. There's no denying they've got the look: black suits, leather jackets, scruffy mod haircuts, straight out of late-sixties London, or maybe late seventies New York. (Unfortunately, the sexy black-and-white cover on the British version of their debut album is replaced in the states by an image alarmingly similar to the cover of one of my Physics 006 textbooks.)
And the music? Driving, direct, dirty, impassioned, inevitable. Terse guitar riffs, tin-can drumming, bounding bass melodies, clipped vocals, addictive choruses, snotty lyrics ("You say you wanna stay by my side? Darling, your hair's not right"), rock and roll. It's nothing we've never heard before (remember the Who? the Stooges? How about that group Lou Reed used to be in?), but who cares, maybe we need to hear it again. And there are at least a couple of the eleven songs on the Strokes' debut that aren't the catchiest thing to come around the block in ages, but then your air guitar would probably start to feel pretty heavy after thirty-six solid minutes.
The Strokes are the kind of band rock critics love to write about, and they know just how to play it up. Take their album title, for instance - an all-too-easy tag-line itching to be referenced in the last line of a review. Is This It? I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. 8/10
There's not much I can say about the Strokes that hasn't been said. Their press kit came with a thick packet of xeroxed review clippings, all of which said, essentially: "the Strokes have been getting a lot of hype." So much hype that it's hard to approach them, unless of course you were there before it all started. Which, actually, I was. I saw the hot-shit New York five-piece open for Guided by Voices last winter at a venue Robert Pollard likes to call the Living Theatre of Arts, when their median age was a shy 21. Vocalist Julian Casablancas (who has, it's been pointed out, the ultimate rock star name) staggered drunkenly about the stage, complained about his day job, broke a microphone, while the rest of the group smirked disinterestedly or bobbed along to the beat. There's no denying they've got the look: black suits, leather jackets, scruffy mod haircuts, straight out of late-sixties London, or maybe late seventies New York. (Unfortunately, the sexy black-and-white cover on the British version of their debut album is replaced in the states by an image alarmingly similar to the cover of one of my Physics 006 textbooks.)
And the music? Driving, direct, dirty, impassioned, inevitable. Terse guitar riffs, tin-can drumming, bounding bass melodies, clipped vocals, addictive choruses, snotty lyrics ("You say you wanna stay by my side? Darling, your hair's not right"), rock and roll. It's nothing we've never heard before (remember the Who? the Stooges? How about that group Lou Reed used to be in?), but who cares, maybe we need to hear it again. And there are at least a couple of the eleven songs on the Strokes' debut that aren't the catchiest thing to come around the block in ages, but then your air guitar would probably start to feel pretty heavy after thirty-six solid minutes.
The Strokes are the kind of band rock critics love to write about, and they know just how to play it up. Take their album title, for instance - an all-too-easy tag-line itching to be referenced in the last line of a review. Is This It? I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. 8/10
