What Ever Happened To The Strokes?

Seriously, whatever happened to these guys? Flash back to 2001 when they were the "it" band, the first "it" band we had gotten in a long time. Remember Creed? And about a million bands that sounded just like them? Imagine a time when that wasn't just what you found if you flipped to adult contemporary radio or some ironic hipster's iPod. But when that was the only rock in roll ever. Granted if you were a fan of the underground scene you could have probably named hundreds of bands (most of which broke up almost immediately before they committed the sin of become famous) that flourished underground and offered alternatives. Hell, alternative rock was even becoming a thing. Some of those acts gained notoriety and received a push. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Incubus, NIN, Dinosaur Jr., the Foo Fighters (who were and still do seem to be all over the damn place). But for the most part? It all sounded eerily similar to these guys.

 Ah yes, Grunge. The grunge revolution kicked the shit out of hair metal and reintroduced the concept of writing songs with a lot less flash and a lot more introspective song writing. But then it took about 3 years for Cobain to off himself for the revolution that he wanted no part of to be butchered and marketed by the very corporate powers he was resiting. The popular kids he was mocking where now wearing his clothes and embracing his life style with none of the depth. Or heroin. But mostly the depth. Post grunge become the bane of rock radio. Bush, Fuel, Candle box, The fucking Calling; you know all those bands that sounded the same? Face it, it had been 10 years of that garbage. The world was ripe for a new rock revolution baby! . And record labels responded in fold with the same solution that worked in the late 80's when the public was sick to death of Bon Jovi. Raid the underground scenes' for whatever was popular, pick a few acts to promote the hell out of, sell a new packaged revolution to the kids, and watch the profits roll in.

Rinse, lather, and repeat.

 Rolling Stone magazine, in classic Rolling Stone fashion, decided to get this revolution ball rolling in 2001 by picking 4 candidates who had the magic of sounding different enough from the current scene but who had enough of the cool factor to lure in the indie kids. It was the best of both worlds. Being different enough to be cool but not too different to deter radio play; back when that mattered. Okay so it sounds like I'm being a little harsh here. Were their other bands that deserved a push more then these guys? Probably. It's always a bit premature to call anyone the greatest of anything and force the mantle of a leading a revolution on relatively young talent. But then again this is Rolling Stone, who sort of have a history of this sort of thing. (Feel free to google RollingStone Top 100 Guitarist and enjoy the comment section)

 

 The White Stripes, The Hives, The Vines, and The Strokes; all talent artist that had something in common despite being from different places musical and geographical. Hell, The Vines were from Australia and The Hives were a Swedish band. But one uniting factor they all had cursorily enough, was they all were heavily influenced by past musical trends that, thanks to public short memory, had all but been forgotten and sounded new again to the 21st century. The White Stripes brought in a' heavy garage rock meets hard blues' sound. The Vines were a throwback to grunge (but somehow different). The Hives brought in a revival of the 60's Americana garage scene. And then we had The Strokes.
 

 

 There debut album Is This It, had an undeniable air of coolness about it like the band themselves. It was like something no one could remember hearing before. Those tight simplistic rhythms, with blistering guitar melodies were a throwback to the 60's punk, Lou Reed, and The Velvet Underground all rolled into one. Of all the albums released by these bands since Rolling Stone christened them the savors of rock and roll, their album had the most overwhelmingly positive reviews which translated into big profit. Everyone won with The Strokes! Musical integrity, greedy record labels, and the horny teenagers desperately trying to look cool.

 

 Is This It, was so what the people wanted that it was on Rolling Stones list of top 500 albums. The fact that they were a band they pushed the hell out of in the first place was something the quietly decided to ignore. But people were listening to it. The Strokes were the it band of the 21st century. And after a non-stop touring schedule and being shoved down our throats, their follow up Room On Fire, was released in 2003 to admittedly less acclaim.... but still it was the fucking Strokes baby! Guys wanted to be them, girls wanted to sleep with them, and dammned if RCA (The Strokes record label) didn't do their best to make sure we didn't forget it. The savvier of you are starting to see the problem.

 

 If the Strokes had just released their debut to much less spotlight they wouldn't have been such a big target. Sure they were popular initially. But give it about 3 months of being reminded of just how goddammned awesome you are, and it wont take long for people to start taking shots. Even if The Strokes weren't being hailed as the second coming of rock n roll Jesus, ask anyone in the business; over exposure is death. And the band didn't help matters by coming across as entitled pricks in their interviews, showing up late to shows and constalty reminding us that we were lucky they bothered showing up at all. Sure it was cute at first. We hadn't had real honest to god rockstars in awhile and we kinda missed the entitled ego's that came with it. Then we collectively remembered exactly why we were sick to death of them.

 The Strokes had hate going for them before. That was to expected. But the chinks in the armor were starting to form right around the time Room On Fire came out. It sold well but the critics jumped on the fact that it sounded awfully similar to Is This Is. It's as if the band only knew how to write a few kinds of songs and were hoping we wouldn't notice. But that turned out to only be half true. They didn't have too many songs in them. But they didn't even write most of those songs to begin with.

  Now, here's were I start to get a little opinionated (like nothing else here is) and your welcome to call me out on any things I get wrong. But the story is basically this. 5 teens in New York meet through friends at school and wanted to start a band. That much is true. But holy mother did they have alot of help. The White Stripes, The Hives, and The Vines all had albums out the 90's that were released to some applause. But the first anyone had heard of The Strokes was from their debut. Released on a major label like RCA no less. Record labels are notoriously finicky about throwing money away to unproven talent and "potential" can only get you so far in getting signed. And yet of all the bands flourishing the the New York scene, The Strokes got the call. Why? No one's taking away what kind of musical chops the band had when they started out. But the fact that Julian Casablancas's (lead singer) dad happened to be the owner of New York Elite modeling agency and had alot of money certainly didn't hurt.

 

 In fact, a little bit of digging reveled that The Strokes all seemed to come from good money. Those New York private schools don't pay for themselves after all. But so what you say? It shouldn't matter. So they aren't musical purists and they had some pushing from their rich dad's to get signed by RCA out of the gate. They still wrote their own music right? Well it turns out that the band worked closely with a hired guitar tutor by the name of JP Bowersock who, by his own admission, worked closely with the Julian on arranging all those crunchy, catchy melodies on Is This It. Okaaaay so they had a little help. They were new to the scene and recording. And granted, not many bands who have never been to a recoding studio before get signed by major labels, but lets' just assume that maybe they were just that exceptional and their demo impressed the label heads. It's not like Bowersock wrote the whole album write?

 

 Well no! Turns out he only wrote most of it and the lyrics we're heavily helped by Strokes gutiarist, Albert Hammond Jr's father. Apparently Mr. Hammond Sr, was quite the song writer in his heyday and penned such hits as "When You Tell Me That You Love Me" and "It Isn't, It Wasn't, And It Ain't Never Gonna Be". No, I wont pretend I know either of those songs, but take my word for it they were huge. Oh and he also penned a few Tina Turner songs, wrote for Ace Of Base, and is one of the song writers credited for Radiohead's "Creep", so there's that. Basically, he's a guy who knows how to write a hit. And it wouldn't have been too out of the ordinary for him to offer to just help his son's band out a little before the label heads found out they just signed a look and not so much a talent.

  Maybe this is all speculation. All I know is that these are the facts. The Strokes decided to take a long hiatus after Room On Fire, and a non-stop touring schedule to work in seclusion for their next album. Personally, I think all the talking had finally gotten to them and this was their chance to prove they didn't need any one to teach them how to write songs. Surely if they had some time alone and some time off, they could come back with an album that would get the critics to shut the fuck up once and for all.

 I'll spoil the ending for you. First Impressions Of Earth, was released to lukewarm reception in 2006. The album was longer then both of their previous one's combined and was criticized for having too much filler and "not sounding enough like The Strokes". Sure, it spawned at least one hit in "Juicebox" but other then that it was seen by most as a step backwards. Not a failure, but definitely a misstep. And this backlash hurt partly because I think it was the first time the lads had tried to make an album on their own, and their loyal fan base didn't just praise them for being God's gift to music.

  As of this writing, the Strokes latest album, Angles, doesn't look like it will be getting much traction time either. With Room On Fire, the fans liked it even though the critics hated it. And with First Impressions Of Earth, the fans and the critics alike lambasted it. And now with Angels, we've gotten to the point where the fans, the critics, and from what's been gleamed from a few sour interviews, everyone in the band hates the new album. Affectionately nicknamed by Casablancas as "Operation: Make Everyone Satisfied", Angels was the sound of the rest of the band trying to prove they were just as capable of writing boring, toothless music as Julian was (who shares 90% of the fault of what's wrong with First Impressions). With only one single that received moderate airplay, a nifty toe-tapper called "Undercover Of Darkness" which harked back to to old days of The Strokes, the album was critical panned.

 

 The final nail in the coffin might just be time. In the hiatus the band took to write a poorly received album, other bands began to generate critical acclaim as everyone moved on to the next flavor of the week. Some of them ironically enough, inspired by The Strokes (Arctic Monkeys anyone?). As it stands now, after the many delays and false-starts during the recording sessions for Angels, it's unlikely that we'll see a fifth album anytime soon. Last I heard, there's talk of getting into the studio, but I wont hold my breath.

 I don't say any of this with glee. I found my old copy of Is This It, the other day in my car and gave it a spin. It sounds a little dated now, but it still feels the same way it did back then. I was and still am a huge fan of The Strokes. They weren't meant to start a revolution.. But we were sold on a revolution and now we have to look back and realize they didn't deliver. They never could. And they shouldn't have been expected too. But that doesn't mean their music wasn't a breath of fresh air from what was being played. You can't take away that magic when for a brief moment in time we truly believed they were the coolest rock band in the world.