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Nothing more to say. The guitars are brilliant. Music doesn't get much better than this. Julian's voice is perfect.
Harrington dismissed criticism of the Strokes, writing on the webzine Blastitude an article titled "Why Does Everyone Hate the Strokes.".With repeated listening, Nirvana can be shown to be no different from the stadium bands the critics who adored them despised. Even on the fastest moments he never sings with serious passion, and on the slower songs he seems quite out of place: together it gives the effect of an adult oriented rock album sung by a punk singer. Then "Soma" sounds like many bad 1990s alternative radio bands in its awfully tuneless loud passages that are no better than "Breakfast at Tiffany's". In the early 2000s, many listeners and critics hailed The Strokes as the saviour of rock in the same way they did Nirvana ten years beforehand. The synsthesised voice of "Barely Legal" is another lowlight.All in all, "Is This It" can be described as a terrible kind of record that apes many styles from 1970s power pop through stadium rock, 1980s alternative and 1990s radio alternative without ever gaining a distinctive touch or, before the last track, a memorable hook. Whilst the Strokes are neither childish nor overblown, they certainly are very bland: the volume changes are exactly like a 1980s power ballad admixed with some ordinary alternative rock from that era: a mix that in no way comes close to gelling.More than that, Julian Casablancas' voice is equally bland and unmemorable. Casablancas' grating voice is a further liability: he sings without ever giving his full power in a voice that is terribly tuneless and would be better suited to much more extreme hard rock.
Indeed, "Is This It" could be viewed as being worse than either Nirvana or preceding stadium bands, for it lacks even the catchy hooks and tunes that makes it at least remotely possible to listen repeatedly. Casablancas' voice becomes particularly grating in the middle of this song. The opener, "Is This It", sounds quite like a less tuneful Foreigner ballad, whilst the faster "The Modern World" sounds like too many critically slaved power pop bands to mention. The production and sound on "Is This It" might be designed to ape the great dream pop bands of the 1980s and 1990s, but it has a terrible effect because the Strokes show they simply cannot create the sort of atmosphere to make a record like Treasure or Loveless or Love Agenda. The hardest and last song here, "Take It or Leave It", is an improvement with real hooks and passionate playing, but the macho aftertaste that tends to repel me so much from the hard end of the rock spectrum is enough to prevent me wanting to put this song on my iPod.
Even a critic with the intelligence of Joe S. On most choruses Casablancas fails entirely to get enough breath to give any feeling or memory to the listener, who might almost feel desensitised. More than that, it takes something really special for this type of power pop to attract my attention because it tends to seem either childish or overblown otherwise. Unfortunately, the Strokes are absolutely no better in this respect. The simple, sparse, un-layered, guitar, bass and drums sound has been done in the same way many times before.
It took me two seconds to buy the album after previewing. I would describe them as artists that create beauty out of disgust. The microphone recording style is roughly polished and yet most would consider it "ugly." I listened to them awhile back and I didn't quite understand it till I came back to it at age 19. This is mainly due to the lead singer, who is like Jim Morrison without poetry.
This IS it. Do what I did, and preview "Is This It." and "Someday" and tell me that you wouldn't buy this on the basis of those samples."Is This It." is an album that will go in my generation's collection as a classic. They're recreating grunge with the element of real art. The Strokes are one of the most addicting bands out there.
There are people that will look at this band and say "I Get It." They're displaying a harder message behind their simple abandonement of class.The Strokes are sarcastic, dirty, and rebellious. I feel sorry for those who cannot connect with it as I can, because it generated a lot of good feelings within me. Their sound is influenced by some, but like no other. They have a really rough and grungy style that becomes catchy and original.
The tinny hipster production can wear thin, but often catches the band in striking reach when melodics flow properly, which they usually do, deceptively underneath calculatedly fuzzed-out aesthetics. With the virtual rebirth of instant indie super-stardom, you could bet this NY retro-chic rock debut was heavily debated on quality from the get go.
Say, uh, what son. The Strokes. to be utterly boring, mundane and redundant. I believe this boy has some serious issues, give me a second while I whip this out:I firmly believe the Strokes sound is that of garage whinos, who have a look that is anything but trendy, and everything that your typical RISD/New School student thrives upon, while the transient with medical issues plays guitar in washington square park in the summers, perhaps with inclinations of Peter, Bjorn and John and wondering in 2001 and 2 and 3 how the Strokes are the most engaging band to come around in years, a style perhaps all their own, with a look that screams 'take a bath' and sounds more like a sound I'd make after indigestion sets in from a good Mexican meal.The Strokes will never attain anything but their underground base of wanna-be twenty-somethings, still humping that American Dream of 'different', screeching their sounds with their lackluster outfits, and are as uncool, as unhip and as awfully sounding as the next gutter-indie band bent on making a non intentional hip scene onto an already saturated one with the soon to become has-been's. Are you people serious. Yawn. I may be the only nonfanboy in my groupies of folks who hail bands like the yeah,yeah, yeah's, ok go, 3oh3., the killers [n-radio-killed the fanfare fanboys](more mainstream), dashboard (set me up a bump on suicide alley) confessional (hardcore emo fanboys), Atreyu (neverending story they know not of fanboys), and cute is what we aim for (my pathetic groupie fanboys who still have mom do their wash) and the ever growing on me, but when I first heard them I sighed, 'oh another' (death cab for cutie 'oh you arent hardcore enough for me to talk music to because your plugs arent organic and your lipring isnt large enough, and your hair isnt in your face enough on your left eye for your myspace friend request preteen network).if Coldplay is the stuff that makes you have runs in the hotel bathroom from drinking the tap water in Manila or Cabo, then the Strokes is the kind of non CBGB type excrement that your typical want-to-be Lester Bangs type reviewer in the Village Voice throws some magical prose around and hails the band as the next greatest thing since Christ raising Lazarus from the dead.or Spin Magazine perhaps saying 'the coolest band on earth.' Say what.
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