The Strokes-Is This It (JHO Hall Of Fame)

In 2001, there were many avenues you could drive your car down to continue listening to modern rock music. You could take the familiar, boring watered down path of adult alternative rock which began to wear on me like old tires on a car. Post-grunge acts living for a moment or two to shine on modern rock radio. Some stuff was OK, other moments quite good (I'm a sucker for another Stoke...Stroke 9's "Little Black Backpack") but nothing in the scene really flew out to excite you. There was the road mined by acts like Rage against the Machine in the decade before which gave way to nu-metal, an abundance of heavy metal with rapping or some sort of white boy rapping induced in every tune (check Limp Bizkit or Crazy Town). This got old really quick, but some acts are still around today. And there was Creed who kept churning the same horrible song over and over and over. Or you could take the press hype expressway of a New York band who sounded too lazy to get out of bed, but their songs were tightly wound rock pleasures. The Strokes? Um, sure why not.

The first thing that attracted me to the Strokes was the video for "Last Nite". These guys were doing absolutely nothing that was popular at the time, and this video showed a bunch of lads who look liked they came out of a 1979 time machine but were dressed like upper class, silver spoon, Abecrombie and Fitch style rockers. For some, the hate meter goes off. The antics in the video? Lead singer Julian Casablancas throwing the mic down and strutting the stage aimlessly, microphone stands crashing down on the drummer Fab, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. looking like Slash's little half-brother. They just wreaked of a disaster. But what a great freaking tune. Each instrument carefully coming in precisely at the right time and then Casablancas' wail of a Frank Sinatra meets Tom Waits in a really swanky bar. It worked: it was clean sounding rock with a total lazy attitude. And I don't like to judge bands by image, but these guys reminded me of a Ramones or a Smiths, bands the masses, in general, are going to hate but they simply have just enough to have purists love. Putting aside the positive press they were getting, I could've just listened and looked at this video once and automatically said "Show me more, and quickly, before one of them is sent off to jail."

So what did I get? "Is This It". The title says it all. Eleven songs. All simple in nature. It's said only eleven tracks of audio were used on the album. This is the complete definition of "Less Is More". Are the songs good and worthy today? Absolutely. "Someday" is a breezy guitar strewn delight, "Hard To Explain" is a full forced art-rocking driver, "Barely Legal" is the most catchy song about adult consent since "Adult Education" from Hall & Oates, and "When It Started"'s drum rhythm screams "Try to dance to this fool". And to top it off, the closer "Take It Or Leave It" is so exciting that Casablancas can barely contain himself screaming "Take It Or Leave It" over and over again in the chorus. Casablancas' lyrics don't show much depth, but once in a rare occasion...it doesn't matter one iota. "Is This It" is that exception.

So the press said it was the savior of rock 'n roll. That, I'm still scratching my head over. It is fantastic, and it sounds just as good today as it did nine years ago. So why so special? This will still be an album regarded as route marker to the kind of music I really enjoyed for the rest of the decade. I could've gone off with 3 Doors Down. But Why? They've released the same stuff over and over. The Strokes were a dead end to begin with, a one night stand that led to other one night stands and some more meaningful bands as the decade wore on to get more familiar with and meet the folks(White Stripes, The Black Keys, and My Morning Jacket come to the top of my head). Yes their follow up "Room On Fire" was just as good and will be criminally under rated in the grand scheme of things but their last album "First Impressions Of Earth" showed they had boundaries. This I've always known.  I won't get excited about a new Strokes release like I did in 2003.

Opening up "Is This It" for face value is most of the fun. And it's one of the very few times in my life I can pinpoint where my everlasting craving for new music took a good, smart turn. I have the guys who look constantly hungover but yet so Village sheik to thank for that. All I can do is put their debut in my personal hall of fame. They may not have saved rock 'n roll, but they put up one hell of a great detour sign...I've been following it ever since.

Source: http://www.jhostation.com/2010/10/strokes-is-this-it-jho-hall-of-fame.html

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