FEATURE:
The Modern Age
The Strokes’ Phenomenal Debut Album, Is This It, at Twenty
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IT is annoying that…
there is not a definitive database where we get the release dates of albums. There are so many different dates listed for different albums. The Strokes’ incredible debut, Is This It, was released on 30th July, 2001 in Australia (those some sites say it was 31st July). The New York band released the album in the U.S. on 9th October; the U.K. got the album on 27th August. Following from their 2001 E.P., The Modern Age, the band members formed compositions largely through live takes during recording sessions. Songwriter/lead singer Julian Casablancas continued to detail the lives and relationships of urban youth. Listed alongside some of the best albums ever, Is This It reignited guitar music. There was this period at the end of the 1990s when guitar music and bands were not widespread and huge. The Strokes’ fresh and invigorating album led a revival – in October 2002, our very own The Libertines released their debut album, Up the Bracket (they have been compared with The Strokes). I am going to put in a couple of reviews for Is This It. Not long before going to university, I remember the album coming out. It was a real revelation! Even in the 1990s, I had not heard anything like Is This It. I was instantly intrigued by The Strokes. I wonder why the album was released in Australia first?! It is a bit odd that this vital debut album celebrates its twentieth anniversary at various different dates – the U.S. has to wait a few months. That said, the fact it was released first on 30th July, 2001 means the whole world can mark its twentieth at the same time.
Even though The White Stripes came before Is This It – and they were definitely doing something new with guitar music -, the energy, style and tone of the album rejuvenated the scene and set a template for future bands. Back in 2016, NME listed twenty things that we probably didn’t know about Is This It. I have chosen a few points:
“The initial sessions for the record were done with producer Gil Norton (Pixies – ‘Doolittle’) but were scrapped by the band as they felt that the output sounded “too pretentious”. The group then teamed up with Gordon Raphael who they met at one of their live shows six months earlier.
During work on the album, Julian Casablancas and guitarist Nick Valensi received lessons from guitar teacher JP Bowersock, who also helped craft some of the album’s immortal solos.
The entire album was recorded from March to April 2001 in only six weeks, at Raphael’s Transporterraum studios in their native New York City.
During recording, a member of the band’s US label, RCA, heard an early cut of the record and claimed the recordings sounded “unprofessional” and that Raphael was “ruining Julian’s voice and killing any chance the band had of a career”.
The album was released across a three-month span in various locations around the globe. Australia got the album first on July 31, 2001, with the UK following on August 27 and October 9 in the US.
The album reached Number Two in the UK Albums Chart upon release, with first week sales of 48,393 copies. The uplift in sales was attributed to the Reading & Leeds sets that they had played the weekend prior.
As well as admitting they modelled ‘Last Nite’ on Tom Petty’s ‘American Girl’, they also “ripped off” bass parts from English band The Cure. “There are some bass lines on our first album that were 100% ripped off from The Cure. We were worried about putting out the album, because we thought we’d get busted” said Nikolai Fraiture years later”.
Earlier this year, NME ran a feature asking whether The Strokes would celebrate and acknowledge the twentieth anniversary of their debut album. Is This It’s producer, Gordon Raphael, revealed whether the band would get involved:
“Gordon Raphael, the producer of The Strokes’ legendary debut ‘Is This It’, has shared his thoughts on the chances of the band marking the album’s 20th anniversary this year – as well as revealing details of a book he’s written about the era.
The game-changing debut was released on July 30 in the summer of 2001, with a new wave of garage rock and indie following in its wake.
The record’s producer, Gordon Raphael, has now downplayed the chances of the band embarking on an anniversary tour or celebrating two decades of the album in any large-scale way.
“I haven’t heard of any plans, and from what I know about The Strokes – I could be very wrong – but I think the last thing on their mind is a record they made 20 years ago,” Raphael told NME. “For me, it was a real high point of my career and I’ll never forget that moment. I still get calls from bands all over the world that love that album, but The Strokes probably feel like, ‘Come on, man – we’ve made a ton of albums, we have our own solo projects, and we’re writing brand new music. Don’t talk to me about that thing we did when we were 20-years-old’.”
He continued: “I don’t think that they have the same, ‘Oh my God! ‘Is This It’! Woah!’ kinda feeling. That’s just not their personalities, but I could be wrong. Let’s see what happens.”
Commenting on the album’s enduring legacy, Raphael said that was “a complete joy that 20 years later people are still listening to it and they love it”.
“Really well-crafted songs never go out of fashion – no matter what era they’re from,” he said. “A great song just really speaks. Aside from their style, how cool they were and the sound that I might have helped develop, it’s the songs that matter”.
There will be features this week that mark the legacy of Is This It. I am going to finish with a couple of positive reviews for one of the most important albums released. One can have a look around today to see which bands and artists have been influenced by Is This It. Kings of Leon, The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys definitely were. I feel even a more modern band like Wolf Alice have elements of The Strokes about them. I don’t know. If one were to do some digging and took a closer look, you could see and feel D.N.A. of The Strokes in a lot of today’s sounds. I want to bring in AllMusic’s review of Is This It:
“Blessed and cursed with an enormous amount of hype from the British press, the Strokes prove to be one of the few groups deserving of their glowing reviews. Granted, their high-fashion appeal and faultless influences -- Television, the Stooges, and especially Lou Reed and the Velvets -- have "critics' darlings" written all over them. But like the similarly lauded Elastica and Supergrass before them, the Strokes don't rehash the sounds that inspire them -- they remake them in their own image. On the Modern Age EP, singles like Hard to Explain, and their full-length debut, Is This It, the N.Y.C. group presents a pop-inflected, second-generation take on late-'70s New York punk, complete with raw, world-weary vocals, spiky guitars, and an insistently chugging backbeat.
However, their songs also reflected their own early-twenties lust for life; singer/songwriter/guitarist Julian Casablancas and the rest of the band mix swaggering self-assurance with barely concealed insecurity on "The Modern Age" and reveal something akin to earnestness on "Barely Legal" -- a phrase that could apply to the Strokes themselves -- in the song's soaring choruses. The group revamps "Lust for Life" on "New York City Cops" and combines their raw power and infectious melodies on "Hard to Explain," arguably the finest song they've written in their career. Nearly half of Is This It consists of their previously released material, but that's not really a disappointment since those songs are so strong. What makes their debut impressive, however, is that the new material more than holds its own with the tried-and-true songs. "Is This It" sets the joys of being young, jaded, and yearning to a wonderfully bouncy bassline; "Alone Together" and "Trying Your Luck" develop the group's brooding, coming-down side, while "Soma," "Someday," and "Take It or Leave It" capture the Strokes at their most sneeringly exuberant. Able to make the timeworn themes of sex, drugs, and rock & roll and the basic guitars-drum-bass lineup seem new and vital again, the Strokes may or may not be completely arty and calculated, but that doesn't prevent Is This It from being an exciting, compulsively listenable debut. [In light of the World Trade Center disaster, the track "New York City Cops" was pulled from the U.S. release]”.
To finish off, I will quote from Pitchfork’s assessment of a truly remarkable album. To me, the way The Strokes talk about the everyday and routine with such gravitas is at the heart of the album. So many people could relate to the songs and how they spoke to them. Of course, many associate the album with the standout single, Last Nite. The Modern Age, Hard to Explain, New York City Cops and Someday are classics. At eleven tracks, the album is quite sleek and focused. Julian Casablancas marked himself out as one of the most important and relevant songwriters of his generation. This is what Pitchfork said:
“Frontman Julian Casablancas' vocals bear more than a passing resemblance to early Lou Reed, but where Reed seemed to accidentally dispense life-changing lyrics through a drugged drawl, Julian sings about the simple trivialities of big-city life with stark lucidity. These songs revolve around frustrated relationships, 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.
There's a hint of Britain's post-punk 70s in the Strokes' frenetic furor. Bands like the Buzzcocks and Wire subscribed to a similar less-is-more production aesthetic, and seemed naturally adept at scribbling out instantly approachable melodies. And like Singles Going Steady (and, to a lesser extent, Pink Flag), there's something in the Strokes' melodies that few other bands possess: they're immediate without pandering, relying on the instant gratification of solid, driving rhythms while maintaining strong but simple hooks that seem somehow familiar, yet wholly original.
Their production is stripped raw, and not terribly divergent from that of their band-of-the-moment contemporaries, the White Stripes. But the difference between the two bands lies in their degrees of skill: the Stripes have an air of amateurishness that belies songwriter Jack White's obvious talents; the Strokes, even on their debut album, sound like experienced professionals for whom mastering the form seems only an album away.
"The Modern Age" stomps like a renegade elephant with bashed kickdrums and turbulent guitar riffs while Casablancas passionately reels off, "Work hard and say it's easy/ Do it just to please me/ Tomorrow will be different/ So this is why I'm leaving," in an unsteady sing-speak that invokes all the right elements of a great rock leadman. "Last Nite" quakes with growled vocals and bluesy, blustery distortion. "Hard to Explain" eerily recalls the blissful pop of the Wrens' Secaucus with an unforgettable hook, distorted drumkits and fuzzed-out ride cymbals”.
Happy twentieth anniversary to Is This It. A lot of wonderful albums were released in 2001 – including The White Stripes’ White Blood Cells and Daft Punk’s Discovery -, though very few had the same explosion and popularity as Is This It. Listen to it now if you have not done in a while. The Strokes are still making music today. Their sixth studio album, The New Abnormal, was released last year to largely positive reviews. I think they were at their very best right out of the gate. Is This It is…
AN undeniable classic.