Onze laatste liverecensie.
Onze laatste albumrecensie.
Ons laatste interview.
Onze laatste video.
Those two days of Christmas often seem like the longest two days of the year. What better opportunity to write some long-overdue reviews using your parents' PC? So I put The Strokes' 'Is This It', this year's Rock'N'Roll Sensation, in the living-room stereo to give it one more listen. And in no time my 69-year-old father was whistling along. Which about sums up 'Is This It': nice album, but hardly a shock to the system. Another example: The band pulled the song 'NYC Cops' off of the American version of their album, because it is allegedly disrespectful of the New York Police Department. The offensive line? "New York City Cops / They ain't too smart." Even Giuliani's notoriously short-fused heroes must be considered to be able to take this "insult" with a smile. Their bio might claim that "the sound of The Strokes is the result of frantic living," but the result of hanging around drugged-up on pot and tranquilizers seems a more likely explanation. Because in that respect The Strokes are very rock'n'roll: They look and sound extremely decadent and wasted. Maybe songwriter Julian Casablancas - or more accurately the girl from the song - can't come up with a worse insult for New York's finest than that they "ain't too smart." Not because she is too innocent. It is just that in her foggy state she can't come up with anything else. The Strokes' heroin chic sound taps right into the late Sixties, when decadence was still an art and not the banality of a huge house with a pool and an even bigger SUV. They draw their inspiration from a small period of time, starting with main inspirator Lou Reed singing quite upbeat that he's waiting for his man and ending with Reed in the gutter on 'Berlin'. They do so with great success: Of the eleven tracks on 'Is This It', only the whiney and repetitive title track is a failure. The other ten are all meticulously-crafted rock gems, their only minor flaw being that they all are a bit similar. With vocals that deliver sarcastic lyrics in a laidback way, buzzing guitars that occasionally burst out in short, noisy, but always controlled, solos, melodic basslines, and driving, yet relaxed, drumming, 'Is This It' is the perfect soundtrack for the day after the party. Excellent. But we've still got to find that rock'n'roll sensation to play at the party.
http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/the-strokes/is-this-it/910/
Meer The Strokes op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/the-strokes
Deel dit artikel: