The Strokes – Is This It Review

A book heavy enough to maim a home intruder, 1001 Albums to Listen to Before You Die, has The Strokes’ debut album on the cover. Forget the charts, the accolades, and TikTok trends, the fact that you could knock out a burglar with a book where the front cover is a Julian Casablancas-written album, is staggering. In just 35 minutes, The Strokes managed to capture the discomfort of the 21st century. There had been an almost immediate change in the atmosphere, and the alternative scene began to bleed into the mainstream. This was both a conscious decision from consumers upset by the hijacking of, say, Britpop by the political mainstream, but also an unconscious defection from listening experiences which had become predictable. The Strokes offered a different experience with Is This It. An experience that still stands up now. That is crucial. It has been reframed by the consequential moments that followed in modern history and, as a result, has weathered the storm of music history. Is This It is a cornerstone of modern rock and roll.  

Consider the backdrop of when The Strokes released Is This It. Consider too the still beating heart of that opening, title track. It, paired with follow-up The Modern Age, are as staggeringly brilliant now as it was when it was reinventing the genre for a whole new generation. That scene with LCD Soundsystem and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs tackling this surface attitude of dissatisfaction but an undercurrent of deep care for those influential bands before them is what Is This It captures perfectly. A perfect read of the times and a continuation of the great work set by their influences. The Strokes makes what few bands have done, a chain linking the generation behind the Casablancas-fronted group to the younger artists influenced by Is This It. It’s that monumental an experience. A tremendous, punk-seeped vocal delivery with a bit of gain to make it sound a little rougher than he sounds live. Barely Legal highlights the highs of that extremely well, along with being one of the many standout instrumental experiences found here.  

Nothing but hits to be found here and that comes from the rapid nature of Is This It. It’s created in a way that never lets a song linger, despite each implanting themselves in the mind as one of the best tracks you’ve heard from the band up to that point. Is This It levels out with a consistency that is unheard of for most artists on their debut album. They sound totally considered, utterly confident of their position in the alternative scene. Last Nite pulls that all together, a memorable and slick guitar solo with a sense of being misunderstood. It’s what Nina Simone started with Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood and what The Animals perfected. Being an outsider was not about a dress sense or a scene, but about a theory or opinion held by an individual not represented by the broad strokes of pop music.  

You could argue The Strokes is now a representation of pop music, but they were the ones who brought this new phase to life at a time when rock had been placed in cold storage. What an incredible album to return to. A true great not just of the genre or scene, but of all time. The Strokes offered up a chance to fight against the mainstream and were so convincing in their argument against the obvious, they became the frontrunners. That much corrupts a band from within whether they like it or not, and they had burnt the candle at both ends, for too long, by the time their fourth album came around. Hard to Explain would be the writing on the wall for the band. Fame and shame are bedfellows but the creation of both is mere happenstance for those not pursuing it. How you deal with it, which the band had little experience of when writing this, is for the future to decide. Is This It remains an all-time great album, with a cover worthy of being plastered on books that could crack the jaws of those climbing through your bay window.