Classic Album of the Month - January

Already I've messed this up. As part of my New Years' resolutions, I came up with a set of new and interesting features for this blog; one of my main ideas being a classic album from either 10, 20, 30 or 40 years in the past being re-reviewed and brought back to your attention; with one being reviewed every month. And I fail in January. I apologise greatly, but here a bit later than planned is an album which in 2011 celebrates 10 years since it's release:

THE STROKES - IS THIS IT?

It has now been ten years since The Strokes released ‘Is This It?’, and the world is a very different place to what it was in 2001. Of course, that was the year of the 9/11 Terrorist attacks, but in terms of music there has since been a outpouring of R’n’B music, while countless indie bands still fight for their moment in the limelight. But one thing hasn’t changed; ‘Is This It?’ is still every bit a great album as it was back then.

‘Generation-defining’ is a term that isn’t thrown around to often with real meaning behind it, and it takes a lot of time and even more quality to be considered that ten years on. Albums like The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, The Sex Pistols’ ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ and Oasis’ ‘Definitely Maybe’ have qualified to be thrown in with this term, but even then they have their detractors. But, with the gift of hindsight, ‘Is This It?’ still stands tall as one of the best albums of the last ten years and therefore earns this title.

As someone who came to The Strokes later in their career, I missed the initial impact of the album. I missed the excitement that hundreds of young rock fans, looking for something new after Britpop, experienced when they first heard the lo-fi demos leaking from some band in New York. I missed the rush to their first live shows as their reputations blossomed on the underground. I missed NME champion them as the new saviours of music in the early millennium. But all of that is encompassed in a truly brilliant 36 minutes of music.

The confident and endlessly optimistic lo-fi style that made The Strokes is evident from the first note of every song; the chilled and simplistic ‘Is This It?’ is as close to a perfect song that there has been in the past ten years, ‘Barely Legal’ powers along fantastically and ‘Take It Or Leave It’ is a guitar-driven toe-tapper. The Strokes’ reputation was built on a combination of instantly gripping guitar hooks, a charming fuzzy production and the now exemplar vocals of Julian Casablancas.

‘Is This It?’ gave birth to many of the early indie anthems; ‘Hard To Explain’ is worth its billing as NME’s 3^rd Best Song of the last decade, ‘Someday’ is blissfully optimistic guitar rock and ‘Last Nite’ is an anthem custom made for the emerging music crowd of the 21st century. ‘Soma’, ‘The Modern Age’ and ‘Trying Your Luck’ are along the same lines; immediately classics in their own right for their bold re-writing of modern rock that sees this album set the benchmark for hundreds of bands since. The best moment? Well that comes in the exhilarating ‘New York City Cops’; moody guitars, pacy drums and an anthemic chorus topping off an album of immense quality.

The Strokes have gone on to release the tepidly-received yet pleasing ‘Room On Fire’ and the album that cemented them as a modern rock titan, ‘First Impressions Of Earth’, but they will not better ‘Is This It?’ and only a very select few have come close. The confidence, optimism, addictiveness and sheer charm of this album make it a true classic of its time.

Still a great album, I cannot believe it took me so long to get into it. But I'm well and truly hooked now, and here's my favourite track 'New York City Cops'.

NWR