Stylish nü-garage rock for a generation trying to have a very good time during a very bad time.
Is This It
The Strokes
68
Few albums in modern rock history can match the instant, game-changing impact of Is This It in 2001. Seemingly overnight, rock ’n’ roll turned grittier, haircuts grew shaggier and the secondhand-blazer section at your local thrift store got a lot more crowded. It’s impossible to separate The Strokes from the wave of like-minded turn-of-the-millennium bands at home in NYC (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, TV on the Radio) or further afield (The Hives, The White Stripes, The Libertines), but Is This It bore a singular mix of grime and glamour that felt like a sea change.
Most importantly, carefree kiss-offs like “Someday” and “Last Nite” refashioned the left-field sounds of previous generations—the streetwise swagger of The Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop, the wounded romanticism of The Smiths and early Cure—into immediate, dance-floor-ready pop music. In another, better universe, the first thing that would come to mind when thinking about New York City in autumn 2001 would be The Strokes. Instead, their debut and all its trappings became emblematic of a generation trying to have a very good time during a very bad time.