Classic Albums: Is This It by The Strokes

So it’s Sept. now and because this week I’ve been blogging some what unknowns, unless your in the know and now you are if your reading my blog! Maybe you were before? Here’s an album everyone knows but here’s how I view it and forever view it like this too.

Which Aussies out there remember when The Strokes were just the support band to the Aussie band You Am I in 2001? Just as they were taking off!

Aussie 2001 tour poster for July!

The Globe is not the smallest/biggest venue in Perth. The Sleepy Jackson played too which is Perth W.A. own Luke Steele from Empire Of The Sun earlier first band. You Am I are wicked cool and now would be label as Aussie legends here. I’m guessing might be totally unknown to listeners or reader of the blog from overseas, maybe you do know them? Anyway I remember all this stuff, like here’s them and on an Aussie music show with Julian saying he loves Tim Rogers guts and going on to call themselves a small band, could be the last time he did? Because as they do talk about in the interview NME magazine just put them on the cover pretty much at the same time, well looking at the dates it was only the month before this tour.

All this is amazing to think about now and most likely forever stay like that for me. Someone said to me recently why do you still like The Strokes? Like they are bad now but maybe they’re now but this early album for me is a time capsule. The hype most likely kill the band even if they are still together today. I say this album because here we have a band from New York that couldn’t been any more New York and off course this came out, well looking at the release date just after that Aussie tour because sounds right because we only had the early singles. Off course, the whole world changed in just a couple of months on 9/11 forever. Making it even more of memory’s of a better time, I don’t think I need to explain that but some don’t remember that point in history for whatever reason. Some were too young or not born even to know it before this part of history but this album was like the moment just before all the shit hit the fan, to put it in the most simple way.

The fact Bob Dylan’s Love And Theft album was released on the very same day, with his lyrics to his track called Mississippi “Sky full of fire, pain pourin’ down” marked out as some kind Nostrum moment for him. If you look up other albums put out that day, two very different acts from NY was also released the very same day as those terror attacks. The Blueprint album by mega-seller rapper Jay-Z and the eponymous debut self-titled album by the indie anti-folk heroes The Moldy Peaches.

I was up, here in Australia when it happened it. It was night, not late but getting there with my TV on waiting for Muhammad Ali’s The Rumble in the Jungle 90’s When We Were Kings doco to come on. The first to start with 24 hour around the clock for day was the ABC who was/should have had Ali on. How I remember is at first no one knew what was happening, the reporters didn’t even know somehow a plane hit the building. It was the twin towers were on fire and unconfirmed stories. The moving image I saw were not very good and I haven’t seen them again, unlike the ones that start to be replayed in the next few days, months, years after the more famous images you seen today, maybe I could find them somewhere but why? When the second plane came in it was unbelievable because it wasn’t the close-up and good shots of it hitting like you see today like the more official ones. It came into frame as the reporters who were talking away and then quickly disappeared from shot and then black smoke poured out with flames. The reporters was left totally speechless and no way prepare to talk about what just happened in front of own eyes. All the helicopters/planes were then grounded because they didn’t know if something else was going clash into it and people believed the earlier unconfirmed reports. The rest they say is history but that how I remember that happened. If you what to know?

Before stopping talking about this bit in time now history, did you know? In the next month October the very first iPod was released by Apple Inc. and maybe more important or not? Michael Jackson releases his Invincible album, his final studio before his death but also re-issuing special editions of his earlier albums Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad and Dangerous the same month. Maybe seems strange to writing about MJ here, when he passed away in 2009 the MJ’s official version of his last moments were in a documentary film called, guess what? This Is It. The very same three words that are the same as The Strokes debut at the beginning of the same decade.

I really still dig Room On Fire, the second album and then the next one had their good bits like I love Heart In A Cage the most out of all on that third. I don’t really know about the last two album but Julian’s solo albums have had some good moments too.

 

So I’m trying something very different, this write-up is different to the rest of my CA posts. it is my part one and intro to the year 2001 with be some part of this with lead into 1001 albums book post or might do it next but at this point I’m not close to finish listening to all of them in that book because I’ve started these posts. I haven’t done this before but 2001 was a hell of a year. Mixing up how your doing things on your blog is always good, I think? Anyway I’ve done one album from 2001 already Vespertine by Björk which is in that book too, Guess what? Is This It album is in the book too. Four more parts are coming to some up my year, the most the important albums to me in 2001, which are not in that book.

But in the meantime who love this Strokes album too? Or should it be who doesn’t love it?

Is This It track listing and times, all tracks written by Julian Casablancas.

1. Is This It – 2:35
2. The Modern Age – 3:32
3. Soma – 2:38
4. Barely Legal – 3:54
5. Someday – 3:07
6. Alone Together – 3:12
7. Last Nite – 3:18
8. Hard To Explain – 3:48
9. New York City Cops – 3:36
10. Trying Your Luck – 3:28
11. Take It Or Leave It – 3:16

       

All my Classic Albums posts are in that link or they’re all linked below too!

• Tales From The Australian Underground – Volume 1 & 2 by Various Artists
• Station To Station by David Bowie
• Unplugged In New York by Nirvana
• Rust In Peace by Megadeth
• Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs by Marty Robbins
• Henry’s Dream by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
• Whatever You Love, You Are by Dirty Three
• Gala Mill by The Drones
• Black Monk Time by The Monks
• Ex Tropical by Lost Animal
• Work (Work, Work) by HTRK
• In The Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra
• The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by Pink Floyd
• Songs Of Love And Hate by Leonard Cohen
• Warm Leatherette by Grace Jones
• The White House by The Dead C
• Silence Is Sexy by Einstürzende Neubauten
• Lulu by Lou Reed & Metallica
• Kaira by Toumani Diabaté
• Kings Of The Wild Frontier by Adam And The Ants
• Drowning In The Fountain Of Youth by Dan Kelly And The Alpha Males
• Aerial by Kate Bush
• The Future by Leonard Cohen
• Rock For Light by Bad Brains
• Last Splash by The Breeders
• Sex by The Necks
• Emergency Ward by Nina Simone
• Paradise by My Disco
• Batman by Prince
• Sings Christmas Carols by Mark Kozelek
• What Are Rock Stars Doing Today by Magic Dirt
• Love Of Life by Swans
• Big Name, No Blankets by Warumpi Band
• Blue Valentine by Tom Waits
• In The Pines by The Triffids
• Where Joy Kills Sorrow by Various Artists
• TV Sky by The Young Gods
• King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime by Faith No More
• Jean Lee And The Yellow Dog by Ed Kuepper
• Law Of Nature by Laughing Clowns
• (I’m) Stranded by The Saints
• Super Ape by Lee “Scratch” Perry & The Upsetters
• The Soft ‘N’ Sexy Sound by Dave Graney ‘N’ The Coral Snakes
• Mutiny/The Bad Seed by The Birthday Party
• Bahdeni Nami by Omar Souleyman
• Ascension by John Coltrane
• The Definitive by Blind Willie McTell
• Rid Of Me by PJ Harvey
• Horses by Patti Smith
• Vespertine by Björk
• Hex Enduction Hour by The Fall
• Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood by DMX
• I’m New Here by Gil Scott-Heron
• Charcoal Lane by Archie Roach
• In My Own Time by Karen Dalton
• Stay Sick! by The Cramps
• Primary Colours by Eddy Current Suppression Ring
• Veedon Fleece by Van Morrison
• Trainspotting by Various Artists
• After School Session by Chuck Berry
• Body Language by Kylie Minogue
• Bricks Are Heavy by L7
• Trailer Park by Beth Orton
• Arular by M.I.A.
• Moon Pix by Cat Power
• White Light/White Heat by The Velvet Underground
• Y by The Pop Group
• The Human Jukebox by Scientists
• The Shape Of Things by Pere Ubu
• Congotronics by Konono Nº1
• High Voltage by AC/DC
• Self-tilted by The Seeds
• His Best by Bo Diddley
• Embracism by Kirin J Callinan
• Benji by Sun Kil Moon
• Betty by Helmet 
• Late Registration by Kanye West
• Under The Western Freeway by Grandaddy
• What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have by Sarah Blasko
• Regret Is An Inevitable Consequence Of Life by Ricaine
• Tu-Plang by Regurgitator
• Hourly, Daily by You Am I
• In A Bar, Under The Sea by dEUS
• Gurrumul by Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu
• Twin Peaks by Angelo Badalamenti
• Some Girls by The Rolling Stones
• Adult Themes For Voice by Mike Patton
• Candy Apple Grey by Hüsker Dü

Basically the idea is write a little about each of my fave albums but I don’t know why really I titled/tagged them all as classic albums? Please feel free to leave a reply about this one or any of them or all of them all, Thank you!

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