The Strokes
Is this It

THE REVIEW

I see them on the NME, wearing Clarks, flares, bell-bottoms, and tight denim and leather jackets.
From New York.
They must be in their twenties. They make me laugh. They irritate me. Get a haircut, hippie.

Their album is called "Is This It". I always wonder that too.
Nice title, but I already know I'm not interested in the rest.

The scene changes. I'm dancing in a club and an epic song comes on, the repetitive riff of "Enola Gay" (OMD) tananananana slow and relentless introduced by snare drum hits. The tired voice through a distortion. Messy. Words punctuated by snare drum hits: "...I just lied to get to your apartment… now I'm staying there just for a while, I can't think 'cos I'm just way too tired… Is this It?”.
So these are the Strokes?

And a bass riff starts, cool.
And it keeps getting better.

I buy the album. All beautiful. 36’27’’ of masterpiece, a truly short and perfect rock album, with words that stay in your head, sparse, sometimes it seems like you're hearing Iggy when he sings softly.
I buy the copy with "New York City Cops", a song they wanted to remove after September 11th… "New York City Cops, they ain't too smart…".
"The Modern Age" another masterpiece, you hear it once and it stays with you forever, the baritone voice seems like Ian Curtis' and opens into a perfect chorus "let me go go- g-go... living just in time, stayin' there for a while... tomorrow will be different…”.
"Someday" doesn't care at all, like some songs by the Smiths.

Perfect songs from the lyrics to the music to the suggestions they evoke. A masterpiece and I don't want to add anything else. Perfection shouldn't be commented on. It just is.