Is This It?

Recently myself and other trainee journalists put together a list of sporting icons, mine was Ryan Giggs (you can still vote here), and now we have moved on to The Album of The Decade. This is my choice:

The Strokes – Is This It

In 2001 I remember everyone was talking about this new band from New York, and how they were set to change indie music forever. I hate hyperbole and reckless praise being showered on the ‘next big thing’ and I didnt really get involved with The Strokes even when I walked into Ourprice aged 13 and ‘Is this It’ had gone straight in at No1. I then got given a copy by my dad with a knowing look and realised that for the most part, it was all true what they said.

I was going to write about The Libertines first album, or Ryan Adams’ Gold, but every time I thought about the music that defined the decade I couldnt get this video out of my head, it is so good it blows everything out of the water. In it, a 23-year old Julian Casablancas manhandled his mic stand, eyed the camera with a hypnotic mix of rage and anxiety, tugged at his jacket as if he was about to burst. At one point, Casablancas swatted his mic down and left the stage in a huff only to return exactly as guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. wrapped up a brief solo. The chaos, the control. The opening lyric sums it up: “Leave me alone, I’m in control”. The performance showed The Strokes at full tilt, and Casablancas even falls over and still looks cool. They showed what a rock band should look, sound, and feel like in a new millennium.

This album is jaunty, scruffy, carefree and accomplished. All 11 tracks on Is This It are straight-ahead, ebullient, desire-fuelled guitar music. They are typified by the lyrics of Someday:

Oh, My-ex says I’m lacking in depth
Say I will try my best
You say you wanna stay by my side
Darlin’, your head’s not right
See, alone we stand, together we fall apart
Yeah, I think I’ll be alright
I’m working so I won’t have to try so hard
Tables, they turn sometimes

These songs revolve around frustrated relationships and hectic lives fueled by adventure, never coming near to approaching anything that might resemble insight. Yet, with Casablancas’ self-assured, conversational delivery, and the almost primal energy of the four guys backing him, attention shifts from the simply present lyrics to the raging wall of melody these guys bang out like it’s their lifeblood. It isnt just the lyrics, its everything about them, they sound like a collective, who come together and act as one, propelling themselves forward as one. They are not ‘awe-inspiring’, ‘god-like’ or any of the other ridiculous epithets that were poured onto them when they came out. They were not the new Rolling Stones, they were a rock band. And Is This It is just a great rock record, pure and simple. They have no laser sounds, no ethereal reverb, no pre-programmed Aphex beats, just the drawling narratives of singer Julian Casablancas, the clanging of Albert Hammond Jr and Nick Valensi’s guitars, the uncomplicated recording, bassist Nikolai Fraiture and drummer Fabrizio Moretti joyfully getting on with the business of making music.

For me, great music should be about boiling down everything until all you are left with is the essence of music. Yes, of course theres a place for massive overblown, overlayered, overproduced music that exemplifies everything that is possible in music, and thats wonderful. But music, deep down is about the base emotions that it invokes, and The Strokes prove that all you need to do that perfectly is to strip it all back and just play rock music. Give me Chuck Berry or Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs or Robert Johnson anytime. The Strokes kicked real rock music out of its slumber on both sides of the Atlantic and set the blueprint for pretty much every other indie band of this decade, they were that good. Anyone who says they are style over substance or gets put off by the fact that the NME gave them 10/10 and voted it album of the decade does not deserve Is This It anyway.

To sum up, Ryan Schreiber wrote on Pitchfork in 2001 : “Of course, none of this changes the fact that Is This It lacks the creativity and unconventionality inherent in any of the all-time great rock bands they’re so impulsively compared to. Still, the Strokes have struck an incredible balance between the two extremes of rock music: sentimentality and listlessness. Any sentimentality in these songs’ lyrics is countered by Casablancas’ self-reliant indifference, and his listless delivery is offset by the band’s fervid attack. Beyond that, it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly it is about the Strokes that keeps me listening. All I know is that it’s not easy to come by, and I like it. A lot.”

I couldnt have put it better myself. I will leave you with this:

Please vote for The Strokes, how can you not?

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