The Strokes

Certain Songs #2527: The Strokes – “Juicebox”

January 12, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: First Impressions of Earth
Year: 2006

. . .

And so the second Strokes album, Room on Fire, was pretty good. And over the years, as we get away from the circumstances of its release — follow-up to a impactful album — it sounds even better. But at the time, it kinda felt like More of The Same, which was the exact opposite of a second album we discussed a couple of weeks ago, The Stone Roses’ Second Coming, which was slagged as being Not More of The Same.

Second albums are a trap, man.

Certain Songs #2526: The Strokes – “Hard to Explain”

January 10, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Is This It
Year: 2001

. . .

On the song that was the first single released from This Is It, producer Gordon Raphael compressed drummer Fabrizo Morettis drums so much that they sounded like a drum machine, which I guess begs the question why not use a real drum machine? But of course, the answer is in the question, and even if Moretti’s snare is almost fully lost, there is so much forward momentum in “Hard to Explain,” it almost doesn’t matter.

Certain Songs #2525: The Strokes – “Last Nite”

January 9, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Is This It
Year: 2001

. . .

The biggest song on Is This It combined two flavors you wouldn’t think would taste great together and made a cool punk-adjacent hybrid out of them.

The first element was the jangly guitar rock of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, whose initial signature hit, “American Girl” was lifted pretty much wholesale for the opening, the guitars of Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr bouncing against each other as the song builds into its verses, at which point bassist Nikolai Fraiture and drummer Fabrizio Moretti go all Motown on us, just as Julian Casablancas sings the first verse.

Certain Songs #2524: The Strokes – “The Modern Age”

January 6, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Is This It
Year: 2001

. . .

Hey Millennials, wanna feel old? Is This It has been out for over 20 years! Hey Zoomers, wanna feel ignorant? The whole “Nepo Baby” discussion y’all recently been having happened around this record when it came out. Hey Boomers, ahhh never mind.