Details
Track Listing
1. Is This It
2. Modern Age, The
3. Soma
4. Barely Legal
5. Someday
6. Alone, Together
7. Last Nite
8. Hard to Explain
9. When It Started
10. Trying Your Luck
11. Take It or Leave It
| Details | | Producer: | Gordon Raphael | | Distributor: | BMG (distributor) | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
The Strokes: Julian Casablancas (vocals); Nick Valensi, Albert Hammond, Jr. (guitar); Nikolai Fraiture (bass); Fab Moretti (drums).
Recorded at Transporterraum, New York, New York.
Arriving on a wave of well-earned hype rooted in tight chops and a confident swagger, the Strokes offer a rock & roll antidote to the plague of boy bands, teen divas, and petulant rap-rock outfits. Despite this quintet's prep-school background, their sound comes from the same primordial ooze that spawned Big Apple legends like the New York Dolls and the Velvet Underground.
Clocking in at 36 minutes, IS THIS IT packs its perfect length with stellar songs that draw inspiration from all over the map. Among the many highlights are "Last Nite" with its insistent Motown backbeat and choppy Johnny Thunders-like guitar solo, "Barely Legal," sounding like 1980s-era Cure fronted by a saucy Iggy Pop, and the jangly "Someday" with its hairshirt of vulnerability from a bad break-up. While frontman Julian Casablancas (son of Elite Models founder John) drawls like Lou Reed through a busted intercom, guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. do Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd proud as their sinewy chords intertwine to great effect on the angular "The Modern Age" and equally neurotic "Alone, Together." Thanks to the Strokes, rumors of rock & roll's demise appear to have been greatly exaggerated.
Industry Reviews
Included in Magnet's 20 Best Albums of 2001.
Magnet (12/01/2002)
...One big rock'n'roll orgy...
CMJ (10/15/2001)
10 out of 10 - ...Concise and elegant rock music by 5 young men....Indispensable....There's nothing unnecessary here...
NME (08/25/2001)
...A heartily uplifting brew of scruffy street style, swear words and stammering pop tunes which sweat musical history...and sound infuriatingly easy to make...
Mojo (09/01/2001)
...A blur of sooty grit and grind... - Rating: A-
Entertainment Weekly (09/28/2001)
5 stars out of 5 - ...A breathless, goggle-eyed, assuredly brilliant album...it works wonders.
Q (09/01/2001)
4 stars out of 5 - ...Pure New York rock & roll: all gray-pavement aggression wrapped in black-leather cool....The music leaves no doubts - more joyful and intense than anything else...heard this year.
Rolling Stone (10/11/2001)
Ranked #1 in NME's 50 Albums Of the Year 2001.
NME (12/29/2001)
Ranked #25 in AP's 25 Best Albums of 2001.
Alternative Press (02/01/2002)
Ranked #3 in Mojo's Best [40] Albums of 2001.
Mojo (01/01/2002)
Ranked #1 Album of the Year.
Entertainment Weekly (12/28/2001)
Ranked #18 in Spin's Albums of the Year 2001 - ...Super-catchy songs that make you wanna pogo...the male Elastica!
Spin (01/01/2002)
Ranked #8 in Rolling Stone's Top 10 2001.
Rolling Stone (01/03/2002)
Ranked #49 in Rolling Stone's 50 Coolest Records.
Rolling Stone (04/11/2002)
Ranked #33 in Mojo's 100 Modern Classics -- Rattled together hastily, The Strokes' debut captured the Bowery-basement cool of 'their moment'.
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