The Strokes: Is This It poll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXpXpYLoCek

sounds really good

Consider me interested.

hmmmmmmm

that was really cool. you know, i thought julian was the one who was being the diva and like holding all the other guys hostage wrt to a new strokes album but this could be really cool and could make up for them falling off the face of the earth

i really like his voice when he's singing low key stuff like "under control" or this "you only live once" demo called "i'll try anything once" which is better than 80% of first impressions

hopefully the solo stuff is kinda like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcze-UD1D4w

alright that video made me sad

lol the end of the video has some thank yous.

First Impressions sucks so bad, but that song is about the best thing on it

^^ truth bomb

YOLO is awesome, and the rest of the album is such a turd

YOLO, Electricityscape, Evening Sun, and Red Light among my favorite Strokes songs. the album is too long.

despite everything, Someday = one of the best songs i ever heard in my life.

lol yesterday i heard a terrible busker on sauchiehall street doing an acoustic singer-songwritery version of 'someday'

http://stereogum.com/767531/stroked-tribute-to-is-this-it/mp3s/

http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2011/07/cover.jpg

1. Peter Bjorn & John – “Is This It”
2. Chelsea Wolfe – “The Modern Age”
3. Frankie Rose – “Soma”
4. Real Estate – “Barely Legal”
5. Wise Blood – “Someday”
6. Austra – “Alone, Together”
7. the morning benders – “Last Night”

8. Owen Pallett – “Hard To Explain”
"Is This It is one of my favourite records of all time. I like a band when they’re metronomic with zero dynamics, and they never play the chorus more than twice, and when the vocals are buried. It sounds like efficiency. I read a quote, once, from Regina Spektor, in reference to Is This It:

The thing that blew my mind first hearing the Strokes was that they were the closest I had heard rock come to classical. Their music is extraordinarily orderly and composed.

I post on several message boards — less these days, but still on occasion. Spektor’s statement, which made instant sense to me, was the source of lively online debate. Essentially, people disagreed with Spektor’s quote. What followed was a firestorm of criticism, and many things came into question, from Spektor’s familiarity with rock music to begin with, to the worth of “classical training” in the pop context.

A user named Nabisco posted this in Spektor’s defence:

So far there’s like one person on the thread who’s actually bothered to spend half a second thinking about what (Spektor) seems to mean. (…) As of the first couple albums, at least, there is something almost insanely orderly about the Strokes’ eighth notes, in a way that’s pretty much the opposite of the “raw sloppy rock” tag they once got. I seem to remember Tom Ewing saying it was no surprise to have a drum machine on “Hard To Explain,” since the band always played like they were machined and sequenced anyway. It makes sense that this would be what Spektor means when she says the band is “like Mozart”. (…) It would be nice if there were ever any pull on (this message board) to look at something with the expectation that maybe — just maybe — it will be useful for something better than eye-rolling.

When I was asked to cover “Hard To Explain,” I remembered Spektor’s comment and Nabisco’s response. I re-imagined the Strokes as a piano quintet, and had us all playing hard, fast and mechanical. I can’t sing it as well as Julian, but he’s a really good singer — I think he had might have had lessons — not that it matters."
- Owen Pallett

9. Heems – “New York City Cops”
10. Deradoorian – “Trying Your Luck”
11. Computer Magic – “Take It Or Leave It”

Yeah, I just revived the thread Owen's referring to:
'The thing that blew my mind first hearing the Strokes was that they were the closest I had heard rock come to classical,' she says. 'Their music is extraordinarily orderly and composed. It's almost

Ah, hell - sorry... let this one get re-buried...

a lot of these covers are good

well at least a few of them

No worries, SGTS! I don't care where this is discussed -- I just thought people would be interested in seeing the original thread.

cool, i would like to hear about half of these.

Finally, some competition for this

http://www.cmhrecords.com/web/page.asp?pgs=product&catid=1&id=974

lmao, it's on spotify

(((d-_-b)))

John Doran of this parish isn't having it

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=146&p=10830&title=why_the_strokes_is_this_it_changed_music&more=1&c=1

The death of culture. http://sickmouthy.com/2013/03/25/the-strokes-is-this-it-2001/

So, I'm giving this album a listen for the first time since 2001 - I thought it was incredibly overhyped by the UK music press at the time, and I still think it's... well, not as great as people say it is. Not even the best record of 2001, let alone of that decade. The back half is stronger than the front half, but when it comes to the crunch, I've heard this thing done far better elsewhere. The production sucks, too.

i was resistant to the hype but it won me over eventually. still think it sounds great, the only weak cut is the track they replaced "new york city copes" with.

i like the production, it's kind of soft and muted, very "we're here in the studio" but not slicked out... reminds me of the smell of rooms that have been smoked in a lot for some reason?

Lol Turrican, you have the worst music taste.

they have more in common with the cars than television or the vu, really.. though the vocals did get in that lou zone at times, the beat did get in the mo zone at times, and the overall playing did have a kind of vaguely stiff delineated "organized" thing going on that kinda reminds me of television's guitars

tom petty too, i guess. were people pissed off because they were promised revolution and were greeted with a tom petty ripoff?

xxpost:

This is a compliment coming from you, Frederik, so I couldn't thank you enough!

I think people were pissed off because the music press had worked themselves up in such a lather to call it a classic that when they finally heard it they asked themselves, well, "Is This It?" ... It'd be so easy to attack these guys for being a bunch of poshos slumming it, but that's far down the bottom of the list. What it boils down to, for me, is that I'm just not convinced by the songwriting. There's a couple of strong moments at the back half but ultimately the record feels like a style-over-substance deal to me.

Also, I find Casablancas' voice very inexpressive, and even when he emotes it sounds curiously empty - the production doesn't help matters either.

it's only overrated in that it's not 10/10 best album of the decade etc., still pretty great

i do think if the production felt a bit fuller it'd be better but when they tried modern rock production on FIOE it was definitely not an improvement

You do you, Turrican. But I'll laugh when you've also started threads on every early aughts also-ran. I mean, it's hard to argue that The Strokes isn't 'style over substance', since every time someone praises them, it's always the style that we end up talking about. It's a great style. But if the substantive alternative is supposed to be White Stripes and Maximo Park, then... I'm fine with some great style.

I'll laugh when you've also started threads on every early aughts also-ran.

Then I guess you'll be laughing on the other side of your face when the penny drops and you'll find I actually haven't. Might take a couple of years.

Yes, Elephant and A Certain Trigger are superior records to Is This It?, and in fact to describe The White Stripes as "also-rans" demonstrates that you really don't know what you're talking about. Business as usual, then.

Well, it certainly feels as if you have a thread for every also-ran, but if you haven't talked about The Rakes yet, then I profoundly apologize.

None of the '00s indie bands discussed over the last couple of days were also-rans, come to think of it.

I think people were pissed off because the music press had worked themselves up in such a lather to call it a classic that when they finally heard it they asked themselves, well, "Is This It?" ... It'd be so easy to attack these guys for being a bunch of poshos slumming it, but that's far down the bottom of the list.

this. all the snark and hostility upthread could have only come from people engrossed in the music press, reacting against hype. the songs themselves are very catchy and seem hard to dislike. room on fire is still better though.

fred's whiney impression itt gets a C-.

Also, I find Casablancas' voice very inexpressive,

this was intentional, i thought? their schtick is ennui, longing, rock n roll attempted underneath the weight of history

lizzie goodman's recent book meet me in the bathroom about the lead up to and 'fallout' of this album is super entertaining in its just kill me straight dope interviews and also deeply depressing when considering how conservative and limited the musical scope of this scene was. so many people involved in the rise of this album, in goodman's book, at least, are either bullshitting or really believe 'there was nothing good happening in music at all when the strokes came along' i feel sad when i look at my built to spill and yo la tengo etc records

I hate that kind of "X was Year Zero" shit - it's stupid. The whole idea that one can just write off hundreds upon thousands of years of musical history by pressing some kind of reset button is just totally fucking dumb.

xp in goodman's book, they were specifically talking about the New York rock scene, which certainly had hit a lull before the strokes and friends arrived. but yeah a few times I wanted to retroactively buy them a PATH ticket so they could see YLT at maxwell's

I like Is This It but it's not a transcendent masterpiece like Turn on the Bright Lights or Antics.

I don't think either of those records are much cop either, tbf.

is this it has some pretty nice guided by voices guitar, ric o producing pollard/gillard backing lou reed moments, especially "hard to explain". julian is also a way more convincing lyricist, at least early on, than fellow rich kid banks

I've been giving The White Stripes a concentrated listen that I've never really given them before - I actually saw them live at Roskilde 2002 when I was fifteen, one of the first rock shows I saw, and it was so bad I've never bothered with them since - and it struck me how the Stripes and the Strokes are almost opposites in a way. The White Stripes are riffs without rhythm while The Strokes are rhythm without riffs.

err I guess that would be another illustration of the ILM debate "what is a riff ?" but the strokes have plenty of riffs imo !

Well, sorta, in the same way that Television has riffs, but listening to a song like Someday it's striking that it's really just rhythmic cells stopping and starting. Of course it depends on how you defines riffs, but there's nothing like with Seven Nations Army which is constantly being driven along by this big fat guitar figure (though in a way Strokes has way more riffs than White Stripes, because they have at least five small ones per song)

Well, I don't know, just counting the first 2 albums, all these are various kinds of big riffs (for me) :
barely legal
alone together
hard to explain
nyc cops
raptilia
12:51
meet me in the bathroom
I can't win
...