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The Strokes: The Media Is the Message by C. Bottomley The Strokes' Is This It begins with the sound of a reel of tape rewinding before chiming guitars start up over a midtempo beat. "Can't you see I'm trying?" the singer asks in a voice either on loan from Lou Reed or about to be the subject of a Tom Waits/Frito-Lay-style lawsuit. The query helps unfold a street map of ennui, and prompts an additional couplet: "I can't think, because I'm just way too tired." Is This It is good. The band members have tuned their instruments to sound dead dirty, but play with a proficiency that betrays an inner cleverness. The pogoing bassline on that opening title track is just one example. The Strokes are also neat three-minute pop songwriters. Is This It's "The Modern Age," "Barely Legal," and "Last Nite" wriggle into the ear to leave calling cards of louche cool. The more I heard, in fact, of the Strokes' debut, the less I wish I knew. Because it's been hard to open up a rock magazine lately without hearing a trumpet blast tootling their greatness. Earlier this year, when the group was still dreaming up T-shirt designs, Rolling Stone slapped its name on its cover. The hype soon wafted across the pond. "Why New York's finest will change your life - forever!" screamed the NME in its cover story, before putting the group under 24-hour surveillance ("The Strokes Order Pizza!") and breathlessly anointing it the best band to come from New York in 25 years. Sorry, Sonic Youth. Change our lives forever? Perhaps if pop consumers really are too jaded to discover the Velvet Underground, or ever listen to Television's 1977 Marquee Moon, essentially Is This It with added things like drama, maturity, and - dare we say it? - sorcery. Is This It has an air of blank mystery, but the incessant publicity machine has worked to clear it faster than a sidewalk vendor's burning incense. Strokes singer/songwriter Julian Casablancas might look like he's just woken up in his mismatched suit (Elvis Costello ©), but journos needing a hook soon learned that his dad founded the Elite modeling agency. Far from making like Vic Morrow in The Blackboard Jungle, Casablancas first struck a pose at Switzerland's L'Institute Le Rosey before meeting guitarist Nick Valensi at prep school. And while they drop references to 2nd Street and Avenue A, they've probably played more fashion shows than dives. These great gaunt hopes are also lacking when it comes to that necessary talent of talking up themselves. Not for them the wit of Morrissey, the radicalism of the MC5, or even the jive of Lou Reed at his highest. Nick Valensi's guide to life? "Just dress every day like you're going to play a show," he told (of course) the NME. Julian's big dream? "I just want to do something good," he confided to the same magazine's court biographer. And life is like a box of chocolates. Swiss chocolates, in fact. The Strokes might have already taken action against the intense scrutiny. As produced by Gordon Raphael, Is This It unfortunately sounds like it was recorded in a meat closet by a microphone jammed in the adjoining toilet. Radio wouldn't touch it, which is rather sad. While the New York Dolls were too obnoxious for public consumption, the Strokes might just be too inadequate. In one interview, Julian had already added one and one and realized, "A lot of this hype around us is bullsh*t." But as Van Morrison once noted, it's too late to stop now. If Casablancas' muse holds out, it's still going to take a lot of LSD to keep album two from sounding much like the first. And, as Moby Grape discovered when they released 12 singles from their debut, the band itself might get lost in the column inches. The best solution? Turn on Is This It, lie back in bed, and imagine them to be the band you want them to be, not what you're told they are. |
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