Scan down the list of the highest selling albums of the year 2000 and you will find a list of manufactured pop stars – Britney Spears, N-Sync, Destiny’s Child, Chrsitina Aguilera.
Anyone hitting their formative teenage years at that time, as I was, had the choice of Limp Bizkit and the rest of their ‘nu-metal’ compatriots to choose from if you wanted to hear anything that was deemed modern and alternative.
Then, on the 29th of June 2001, The Strokes appeared on Top of the Pops, debuting material from their first album, Is This It. The UK watched, bemused and transfixed, as Julian Casablancas delivered the lines of New York City Cops with aggression while the rest of the band pounded on their instruments. And that’s when everything changed.
The Strokes were a group of five New Yorkers who entered their studio in Manhattan’s East Village to record an album that consciously would not sound like any modern music at that time. With producer Gordon Raphael at the helm, the band created their debut album, a collection of eleven songs that don’t sound polished or synthetic but which, on the contrary, sound gritty and raw with an aggressive energy just waiting to burst out your speakers.
The jaggy guitars and punk-rock attitude that fed into the album were complemented by Casablancas’ lyrics, and it is easy to see why I and thousands of other teenagers around the world fell in love with this album. Last Nite had the vital, energetic sound of a weekend about to begin, while Barely Legal, documenting coming-of-age, has upbeat drumming and lyrics that made me long to travel to New York. There is no stand out point on the album, because all the songs are amazing and unlike anything you’ve heard before. The staccato guitars and Casablancas’ voice, distorted through a Peavey amp, are accompanied by simple beats, melodies and chords, and they make something totally different.
The album’s influence was soon felt worldwide Is This It was released to the world along with the band’s uber-cool image. It seems fitting that a record which seems so disapproving of modern life should be made by a band who sport outfits that seem to have been dragged reluctantly here from the past. Leather jackets, skinny jeans and the dirtiest pair of shoes you could find were the only things to be seen wearing. The look was completed with a cigarette poking from the corner of the mouth just like Albert Hammond Jr. on the album’s inside sleeve. A million imitators appeared in The Strokes wake, and they spawned a slew of bands with ‘The’ in their title, but they remain the original and best, with their New York chic and mysterious upbringings (Hammond Jr. and Casablancas met at a Swiss boarding school).
Difficulties were surely bound to follow the release of such an eponymous and era-defining album. But Room on Fire was not the disappointing or difficult second album critics had thought it might be. And third album First Impressions of Earth saw them depart from long-term collaborator Gordon Raphael to work with David Kahne, producer of Paul McCartney amongst others. Casablancas lost the distortion over his voice, leading the strokes in a new direction. There may have been mixed reviews, but the album shows the band developing, as does each of the band members new ventures into solo careers and work with other groups.
I am proud to be one of The Strokes’ army, in my leather jacket and skinny jeans. Their sound is unmistakable and it has shaped the last decade of our lives, in both music and fashion. And that’s why Is This It is the album of the decade.