Album of the Decade: The Strokes - "Is This It"

The very notion of a hyped band means said group is unlikely to live up to that hype, and few bands in the last 10 years received more of it than the Strokes. Eight years after the release of Is This It, the buzz may have faded and the band may have splintered a bit, but the music remains as compelling as it was in the fall of 2001.

Perhaps no band since the Beatles has served as such a template for the way in which popular music was perceived throughout the rest of its decade. In the initial years after that first record, nearly every upstart group of bed-headed would-be garage rockers was positioned as Strokes disciples: The Hives? Swedish Strokes. The White Stripes? Bluesy, sibling Strokes. Kings of Leon? Southern Strokes. The Bravery? Synth Strokes. (And that's not even going into the untold numbers of blatant rip-off artists pilfering the New Yorkers' sound and style that have since been forgotten.) Sure, a lot of that was journalistic laziness, but the band still served as a critical template (and high-water mark) for the way much of the garage-influenced rock spewed forth circa 2001 - 2005 was perceived. Seemingly every new rock band came to be seen as either a vindication of the Strokes' back-to-basics style and/or a repudiation of the late '90s rap-metal jackassery that carried into the new decade.

If there's a prevailing mood on the disc, it's a mix of disenchantment, disengagement and old-fashioned just-don't-give-a-shit. None of that's a surprise considering the late '90s/early '00s culture that preceded the record's release - and the opening title track conveys that with its hazy chorus and middling pace. Hell, the disc opens with an exasperated "Can't you see I'm trying?" But, like their forbearers in the Velvet Underground, the Strokes set their fuzzed-out malaise to inescapable melodies and arrangements, like the radio-ready "Soma" or the bouncy, oldies-tinged "Someday," all while accompanied by guitar lines pulled from the Television playbook. By the time "Take It or Leave It" rolls around to close out the album - with frontman Julian Casablancas straining his vocal chords in hollering out the final chorus - you can almost feel the exasperation. It's tiresome business, after all, trying to give a damn - especially when you just don't have it in you. Still, a bad attitude rarely sounded so good.

It's been recently announced that not only will the Strokes start touring again in early 2010, but they may release a new record as well. At this point, nobody expects them to save rock 'n' roll - and, really, isn't rock 'n' roll the kind of thing that's beyond saving anyway? Would it be any fun if anybody actually did? - but at least they'll still be around to show the next anointed savior just how it's done.

(Originally posted to Spectrum Culture, 12/14/09)