Someone said a few days ago that they were thinking about some sort of album discussion group, and it got me thinking about album reviews. I may never do another one, but I was just listening to Is This It and it occurred to me that what I was thinking could be written down.
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Is This It was a cultural phenomenon, a clarion call signaling the ascendancy of a new (old) genre, but that's not why I like it. It's supposedly the album that reminded rock what rock was and ushered in a new generation of Jack Whites and bus-stop hipsters, but that's not why I like it either.
I love it because the moment Julian Casablancas starts singing, I'm not sitting in an office or a bedroom anymore. Suddenly, it's 3:30 AM in a bad neighborhood of an unnamed city, and I'm the hoodie-clad, dirty-gray jeans wearing bum-by-choice that parents in the '50s subconciously pictured and feared the moment they heard Elvis croon or Little Richard wail. I walk along a dark street; head down and hands in pockets. I've got some secrets that will make you stay -- Julian says so. There's never been an album more equipped to make you feel cooler, in a sick sort of way, and living vicariously through a singer has never been so tragically easy. This is intentional; but it's masterfully done and so immersive that you don't notice.
I've never encountered an album that drew you in, that built a story, quite like this one. Other records (Stay Positive comes to mind) can build a narrative -- but Is This It doesn't even need to do that. It builds instead a lifestyle, conjures it out of thin air and adds a dash of film noir. It has that special cohesion -- 11 tracks that may as well be 1 -- which allows an album to be more than just a series of songs.
I could say more; I could talk about the album's perfect title, the irony of the instant, blinding fame that fell on the Strokes within days of its release. I could go on at length about how, because of the finality and overwhelming depression of Is This It, I wish they had never made another album, even though Angles was great and Room on Fire was better, but that's not the message to take away. Is This It is about living in the moment, however shitty that moment is. And when I listen to Is This It I'm still a twenty-something and I still have no idea -- but thank god, neither do the Strokes.
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Here is Someday.