Is This It
Is This It is the debut studio album by American rock band the Strokes. It was first released on July 30, 2001, in Australia, with RCA Records handling the release internationally and Rough Trade Records handling the United Kingdom release. It was recorded at Transporterraum in New York City with producer Gordon Raphael during March and April 2001. For their debut, the band strived to capture a simple sound that was not significantly enhanced in the studio. Building on their 2001 EP The Modern Age, the band members molded compositions largely through live takes during recording sessions, while lead singer and songwriter Julian Casablancas continued to detail the lives and relationships of urban youth.
Is This It
July 30, 2001
March–April 2001
Transporterraum, New York City
36:28
After completing the album, the Strokes embarked on a promotional world tour before its release. The album was released progressively to coincide with their tour dates, with it being released in Japan on August 22 and the United Kingdom on August 27. The album's cover photograph was deemed too sexually explicit for the US market, and was replaced there.
After the September 11 attacks, the American compact disc release was delayed from September 25 to October 9 and had its track list amended, with the song "New York City Cops" being removed and replaced with the newly written track "When It Started"; however, the American vinyl release still includes the track as a result of its release falling on September 11. Three singles were released from the album: "Hard to Explain", "Last Nite", and "Someday".
Promoted by the music press for its twin-guitar interplay and melodic, pop-influenced sound, Is This It peaked at number 33 on the US Billboard 200 and number two on the UK Albums Chart, going on to achieve platinum status in several countries. The album received widespread critical acclaim, with many critics praising it for its charisma and rhythm, which often referenced the works of 1970s garage rock bands. The release of the album is widely considered to be a watershed moment, and crucial in the reinvention of post-millennium guitar music. It has featured in several publications' lists of the best albums of the 2000s and of all time.[1][2][3]
Background[edit]
In 1998, the Strokes consisted of singer Julian Casablancas, guitarist Nick Valensi, bassist Nikolai Fraiture, and drummer Fabrizio Moretti. Casablancas's stepfather and Moretti's and Fraiture's older brothers introduced the quartet to the music of reggae artist Bob Marley, protopunk group the Velvet Underground, and alternative rock band Jane's Addiction. Discussing the formative stages of the group, Moretti noted, "Our music was, like, [the Doors'], but trying to be classical. We all took music classes and tried writing songs, and when we put them together they were this crazy amalgam of insane ideas that we thought was really cool." In 1998, Albert Hammond, Jr., whom Casablancas knew from his time at a Swiss boarding school, moved to New York City to attend film school and joined the Strokes as a second guitarist.[4] His arrival provided the catalyst for the band's musical and emotional evolution.[5]
By 2000, all band members had part-time jobs and were practicing new material several nights a week in a small hired recording space. In the fall of that year, their demo caught the attention of Ryan Gentles, a talent booker at New York City's Mercury Lounge. He scheduled the Strokes for four December gigs.[4] With support from personal mentor JP Bowersock and producer Gordon Raphael, the band recorded three tracks which later appeared on Is This It: "The Modern Age", "Last Nite", and "Barely Legal". British label Rough Trade Records was impressed by the songs and released them as a January 2001 extended play titled The Modern Age. Music press reaction was very positive and the Strokes embarked on a sold-out UK tour, followed by US support slots for alternative rock groups Doves and Guided by Voices.[6] Gentles quit his job to manage the band full-time and, in March 2001, the Strokes signed to RCA Records after a protracted bidding war.[4]
Composition[edit]
Lyrics[edit]
Casablancas's writing discusses life and relationships of young people in New York City. Exemplifying this theme, "The Modern Age" is a rant about the oddness of modern life.[13] "Barely Legal" concerns a girl who has just arrived at the age of consent. Discussing its risqué nature, Moretti has stated, "It should be taken the way you interpret it. The lyrics mean different things to different people."[12] "Alone, Together" continues the sexual theme by dropping hints about cunnilingus,[14] while the yelp at the start of "New York City Cops" was created as a pastiche of rock band Aerosmith. "Soma" takes influence from the fictional drug in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World. Here Casablancas is discussing drug use to fit in with the cool crowd.[15] During the studio sessions, Casablancas introduced tracks with comic lines and some quips were used when the album was mixed.[16]
Music[edit]
Musically, Is This It has been described as a garage rock revival,[17] indie rock,[18] and post-punk revival album.[19] All songs on the album were mixed using 11 or fewer audio tracks.[8] According to Valensi, the album contains "no gimmicks, no tricks" to try to get the listener to like the compositions.[20] It opens with the title track, which features a simple, metronomic drum line, a recurring feature in the rest of the record. Containing one of the slowest tempos, "Is This It" is the Strokes' attempt at a ballad.[14] "The Modern Age" follows and includes a guitar riff accompanied by a complementary drum line. Its staccato verse is followed by an upbeat, singalong chorus and a guitar solo.[12] Discussing the album's simplicity and measured approach, Valensi has commented, "We don't put in a guitar solo just to have one."[20] "Soma" incorporates jerky rhythms and starts and ends with the same guitar and drum chimes,[14] while "Barely Legal" contains some of the album's softer guitar melodies inspired by Britpop as well as drumming patterns that evoke the sound of primitive 1980s drum machines.[12]
The fifth track on the record, "Someday", is infused with rockabilly elements and interlocking guitar lines, the latter a recurring element of Is This It. "Alone, Together" is driven by a staccato rhythm, and climaxes first with a guitar solo, then a repeat of the central guitar hook.[14] "Last Nite" is also a guitar-driven song, but leans towards pop music influences. At its core, there are reggae-inspired rhythm guitar lines played by Hammond, and studio noise effects. The rhythm section plays simple interlocking notes and beats.[12] Like "Soma", "Hard to Explain" contains processed drum tracks using dynamic range compression and equalization studio techniques to make them sound like a drum machine.[8] The song incorporates spliced ad-libbing extras from Casablancas, a feature also used on "New York City Cops". "Trying Your Luck", the album's mellowest point, follows and shows more melancholic vocals. The last track on Is This It, "Take It or Leave It", is the only song in which Hammond used the bridge pickup of his Fender Stratocaster guitar.[16]
Packaging[edit]
The international cover art of Is This It is by Colin Lane and features a photograph of a woman's rear and hip, with a leather-gloved hand suggestively resting on it.[21] The model was Lane's then-girlfriend, who explained that the photoshoot was spontaneous and happened after she came out of the shower naked.[22] Lane recalled that a stylist had left the glove in his apartment and noted, "We did about 10 shots. There was no real inspiration, I was just trying to take a sexy picture."[23] The result was included in the book The Greatest Album Covers of All Time, in which Grant Scott, one of the editors, noted influences from the works of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin. Scott concluded, "It's either a stylish or graphically strong cover or a sexist Smell the Glove travesty." Although British retail chains HMV and Woolworths objected to the photograph, they stocked the album without amendment.[21]
For the American market and the October 2001 release, the cover art of Is This It was changed to a psychedelic photograph of subatomic particle tracks in a bubble chamber. The image first appeared on new age artist Bruce Becvar's 1988 album The Nature of Things. The same image appears on the cover of The Scientist as Rebel by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson. A portion of the image also appeared on Prince's 1990 album Graffiti Bridge. RCA product manager Dave Gottlieb commented that "it was straight up a band decision", while Gentles indicated that Casablancas had wanted it to appear globally. According to the band's manager, the frontman phoned him before the Japan and Europe release and said, "I found something even cooler than the ass picture." At the time, the Lane photograph was already at the presses and was included in the July and August 2001 versions.[24] The Strokes' 2003 biography mentions the fear of objections from America's conservative retail industry and right-wing lobby as reasons for the artwork's alteration.[16]
The group deliberately left out the grammatically correct question mark from the album title because aesthetically, "it did not look right".[16] The booklet insert contains stylized separate portraits of the Strokes, Raphael, Gentles, and Bowersock, all photographed by Lane.[10]