The Strokes
Room On Fire

that's the mark i would've given it too.
it's becoming a horribly addictive album.
help.

Your comment was as about as original as the sound of all 3 of those bands.

You crashing bore.

Indeed... The Strokes are dismissed as overrated so often these days that they're actually in danger of becoming underrated. In any case, calling them 'overrated' is a criticism of the media and the public, not the band.

Personally, I like The Strokes, because I happen to enjoy listening to their records. Fancy that.

I would love to know the names of all these bands that are better than the strokes, you and the reviewer seem keen to let us know while you enjoy the strokes there is much better stuff around...like what?

It's simply boring. When Supergrass released 'In It For The Money', NME gave them a kicking for slowing down the pace of their songs. Now they and everyone else are praising the Strokes for this new LP? I've had it for a week and a half now and it leaves me totally unmoved. I don't hate it, I don't love it, I don't kiss it and I don't swear at it. The first album was fantastic in the same way the first Oasis album was fantastic: shit that wasn't 100% new but had a new energy stuffed into it. Like Oasis, the Strokes have gone slower on the second album and the energy level has gone down appreciatively. The vocals are the same but the music has no life to it, it's uninspired and sounds like NYC by painting book numbers. A big, big disappointment. I'm onto my third copy of Is This It after two drinking/wall damage incidents and I'd buy it again if I trashed my latest copy. The choice this month was limited to the new Strokes LP or getting Plush's last opus imported. Julian et al - 0, Liam Hayes - 1.

if everyone rates the strokes using your user profiles and other bands they like you'll all get recommendations - tho it would be easier for people to just say who, but we got the technology...

how about....the divine brown, the dirty, the gin palace, etc..etc...and these are only in london..

hey dude--your english is better than that of many people who comment on this site, so don't worry about it! This:

"before them it looked like that if you wanted to listen to rock music, if you were a fan, it was just better to be complacent with it. the strokes changed it and - at least for me - rock became interesting again."

is one of the best comments I've heard about a band in a LONG time. I don't particularly like the strokes--but that was a great way to express how you feel about them. :)

i said that there are many better albums released this year, and that the record has limitations firstly because it's true, and secondly to try and put the hype around the strokes in some kind of perspective. however, i also said in the review that you can't simply judge an album according to what else has been released. if you took that to its logical end, then had 'Room on Fire' been released in 1999, when there was fuck-all about except Gay Dad, Stereophonics and Catatonia, it would probably have been called the 'best album since Revolver,' and the band would've been hailed as messiahs - two statements that are obviously bullshit.

so what i tried to do with the review was isolate it from all the crap that was surrounding it, and judge it on its own merits as a truly great guitar-pop record. and on that basis, it deserves the mark i gave.

thanks for the comments though

It's very simple to separate the album from the hype. All you do is take it home, slip on some headphones and listen to it for the sheer fun of listening to music. The shitty element is that it isn't fun to listen to. If the record has limitations, surely the major limitation is that none of the songs are even close to those on Is This It. How can it be held up as being 'truly great' in one breath and then 'not the best album released this year' in the next? C’mon, give us the names of the albums that are better than this 'truly great' new Strokes ouevre for any record that is better than a truly great record must be covered in golden showers of magical brilliance semen ejaculated by the great god Genius himself and probably has the ability to induce orgasm on first aural content.

"In truth, if you can recognize its limitations and understand that far better records have been made this year, then it's possible to enjoy 'Room On Fire' for what it really is; an adrenaline-fuelled head-rush of precision-perfect pop tunes about modern life – about sex and cynicism, love, despair and the art of feeling weightless."

Making allowances for it? What sort of pisspoor standard is that? Sit around, make allowances for the fact that it's nowhere near as good as the first LP (we're not talking one more bad song, we're talking releasing a follow-up album that doesn't rank halfway to the first) and then praise it? Why not just write 'Well, I'll just let them release any old crap and make allowances for releasing that bilious filth?' And quit the idea that the Strokes write about modern life as if they’re orators of history. They’re residents of NYC and America, both having been hit hard by upheaval and conflict, both socially and politically, the shadows of 9/11 still out there, a right wing cad in charge of the White House, and all you can release is an album of songs about fucking, love and cynicism that don’t come anywhere near to your first effort? I don’t want some deep Radiohead rant about politics, I don’t want to sit down for two hours and listen to some whiny neurotic spad arcing onwards but the effect is as retarded as a band singing songs about the wonder of the summer of love right now.

As for there being fuck all good out in 1999... using the ever-convenient NME critics poll for that year, shall we mention some albums that were either very popular or, in the case of Mr Wayne Coyne and others, simply fantastic?

The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
Shack – HMS Fable
Super Furry Animals – Guerrilla
The Charlatans – Us And Us Only
Leftfield – Rhythm And Stealth
Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – Spanish Dance Troupe
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead... Madonna

Travis' 'The Man Who' also sold a fair bit...

I really wanted to like Room On Fire. I’ve been waiting patiently for it. I moved from London to Toronto in February and saw firsthand that the cool kids around Toronto were slating the Strokes, all the fashionable kids were placing other bands higher that sounded way inferior. Fuck knows how many drunken arguments I’ve had in this city over the Strokes. Now I’m in the position of disappointment and waiting for the fingers to point and say ‘We told you they were shit’. The sad thing is that, with regard to Room on Fire, I can only agree with them. The Stooges got better with each album. Television’s second album is barely known but is at least as good as Marquee Moon. Here’s hoping that the third Strokes LP brings them back to former glories.

For the record, I wasn't quoting you but raising a question with the allowances, hence allowances not being enclosed by brackets and having a question mark at the end of it. Not just me misunderstanding things, yes? But let’s go further…

"In truth, if you can recognize its limitations and understand that far better records have been made this year, then it's possible to enjoy 'Room On Fire' for what it really is… "

Now then, how is that not making allowances? Recognize its limitations, understand that better records have been made this year... and only then you might think it’s great? How is that not making an allowance for it? Once you’ve done that, you can give it 4/5 out of 5 because it’s quite good if you ignore their better stuff and just take it as an plain old album. Lawksamercy, this record reviewing is simple isn't it? If you do take it as a plain old album then it’s fine. If The Strokes were unknown and had just surfaced out of a dark puddle in Cambridge and presented this to the world then it’s a good record. But they didn’t. They’ve come into the world with a fabulous debut single, played some incendiary gigs, released a brilliant album and have had the music to go with the image. We waited, we expected and they come back with this? An album that critics have not damned but do use words like ‘derivative’, ‘slower’, ‘musically limited’… Oasis followed the first two albums with utter pish and got blasted for it. The Strokes seem to be getting an easier ticket.

You keep using this word ‘great’ in conjunction with this album. Is it going out of fashion? A ‘truly great’ album is apparently a masterpiece but a ‘truly great guitar pop album’ is not a masterpiece? Is ‘Strangeways..’ not a truly great guitar pop album? By you saying that, it seems like you’re demeaning guitar pop as something disposable and forgettable. Room on Fire is ‘thrilling, fun and enjoyable, yet ultimately limited and disposeable’… something so great should never be disposable, it should make you want to have more and more of it, like the first album. Disposable indicates it’s easy to throw away and forget about it. Hardly the hallmark of a great record, yes?

So I haven’t misquoted you. Nope. I haven’t misunderstood you, there were no essays about Descartes’ Third Meditation in there. I don’t even disagree with your view. If you love the album then I’m happy for you, I don’t wish to change your view or encourage you to burn your copy. That’s nonsensical. But it seems like people are almost afraid to bitch this record out and you’re one of those people. Giving it credits like ‘derivative’ and ‘limited’ is a major problem. I’ve seen other reviews you’ve done and I liked them, especially the A Silver Mount Zion review. It seems curious to praise them, bands with a real sound of their own, and then give the Strokes the same number of stars whilst damning them with the derivative-limited agenda.

This year has been mostly disappointing I'd say. But try:

Arab Strap's "Monday at the Hug and Pint"
Explosions in the Sky's "The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place"

Delightful.

hell yeah - i'd much rather hear the Roll Deep lp when it comes out than waste another half hour of my life giving a strokes lp the time of day ;)

i'd mostly go along with that (except venetian snares, who is on a mission to destroy my head), there's also some wonderful records by Herman Dune, M83, Calexico, Goldcard, Royal City, Tes, The Shins, The Postal Service, Silver Mt Zion...

hmmm... the hells i have no opinion about either way, but manitoba's 'up in flames' is wonderful. you're right though... you certainly can't trust me...

its crap! aside from the first two tracks the album is a trudging and overwrought mess! Half the songs are just inexcusable filler, tuneless and running the motions... I thought The Strokes were supposed to be this inventive band? instead the songs finish as they begun with very little change inbetween... I can't understand where all this praise is coming from, quite frankly the album gives me a headache!


I recommend every take a look at The Fiery Furnace's "Gallowsbird's Bark"... now theres expert songcraft and a highly tuneful album that isn't grating on the ears! and HEY, you don't even have to pretend to like because its "trendy"...

...were doing soooo well until you mentioned Six By Seven...

okay... let's for the sake of argument say that The Strokes are 'average musicians peddling average tunes in a joyless, plodding fashion'... that makes Six By Seven what exactly? A 'fireball of psycho-phonic fury and genre-bending, embittered brilliance?' Don't...think so.

put it this way, they weren't atop of my list when i was talking about how there'd be better albums released this year, but each to their own...

Neil R with you not being a disciple of SixBySeven perhaps you're the wrong person to ask but here goes anyway.You may (or may not) know that a recent Sixby Seven gig in London Town was recently postponed and is to be rescheduled for December,however the Strokes are also playing the smoke in the same month.What would you do if you had tickets for both gigs and they both happened to occur on the same night?Which band would be honoured by your presence?
Please enlighten me!

I actually like Room on Fire.

On first listen I was really disappointed and thought it was a poor.

I've now listened to it a few times and am liking it more and more as the melodies seep into my brain. And the melodies keep returning to me when I'm doing the most mundane and unusal things. To me, it really shows the sound of a band who are under massive pressure and the songs feel very sorrowful to me - sort of like the sound of a band trying really hard to match the hype they've had heaped on them. Of course, this is an impossible task and J Casablancas has turned out some really sad songs here I think.

I'm seeing it as kind of a Pinkerton type effect (although admittedly, I thought Pinkerton was genius upon first listen).

Basically I say persevere with this one and the rewards are there in a different way.

Playlouder got it spot on: http://www.playlouder.com/review/+roomonfire/

Guardian too: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/story/0,11712,1064268,00.html


and I think Blender gave it an average review...

these people obviously made up their minds after hearing the album

can find nothing here of any interest whatsover

Thank you

y'know... i feel strangely cleansed after that little rant.

listen...there's nothing wrong at all with people criticising 'Room On Fire;' it's what happens when people have opinions. but it's one thing making an intelligent case against the record (see the posts above by Dr Furry), and another thing to pass off a clumsy, ill-informed hodgepodge of misdirected cynicism as a competent review - something Playlouder seem to have done with their article. i'm not saying that makes mine a glowing example of cultural criticism (because to be honest, i've written better), but at least, no matter how odious you may think my opinions are, i'm able to back them up...

oh, and yes, Drowned In Sound's reviews may be inconsistent, but that's because they're written by honest individuals and not a team of like-minded indie clones...

i'm feeling even better now. drunken rants are almost better than prozac. almost...

It’s impossible to write a glowing piece of cultural analysis or criticism about this record because it doesn't spark anything off in that field. It doesn’t ask questions, it doesn’t raise issues: much of the lyrical content sounds like Julian having a great big bitch at some people who have slighted him. They’re into cynical rock star mode already? Damn. Does this mean the next record’s going to be going into ‘Heathen Chemistry’ territory already? Playlouder does get it right by saying the lyrics are grumpy but that end pun can never be forgiven. It’s one thing to criticize an album for being lazy and indulgent but closing off your commentary with that sort of pithy no-brainer cuts down your argument.

Everyone is qualified to review an album. You don’t have to be deeply embroiled in the pop world in order to review a Kylie album nor blessed as a member of the Indie Freemasonry to review something on a limited edition 7”. There’s no qualification process that you go through and get freeze-branded with at the end of the process. All you need is a love of music and a passion to write about it. In the end of the day, I don’t care if Neil’s opinion is that Room on Fire is a great record because his opinion isn’t so monumentally forceful that it’ll make me go and buy the album. Nobody’s opinion is that forceful. All you do is read their words, agree or disagree and then come to your own simple conclusion. Arguing about it is valid though, discussing music is a shitload of fun. Going out on the ladder and saying ‘Oh, your opinion sucks leper cock, you’re unqualified to write a review, fatang fatang etc’ is futile and wasteful.

As for the accusation that I debate intelligently… I’d prefer ‘personal rant with occasional long words in a desperate attempt to look like the owner of a thesaurus’ but I take what odd praise I can. And the Deadly Snakes aren’t very good at all. Playing at being rock stars… my wife went to school with them and says they haven’t changed. Ah the joy of living in Toronto…

The current issue of Rolling Stone landed in my mailbox this morning and it’s based around a large Strokes interview. Personally I think it’s the best article I’ve read about them since NME’s interview a few years back just prior to the Reading festival. That article was exciting, it showed them being cool as fuck rock stars, they looked the part, they talked the part and, most critically, their music backed up their feelings. It was an article that made you want to be like them, like the early Oasis interviews did.

The RS article is the flip side of the coin. In it, they talk of music and how Julian receiving a Velvet Underground CD from Nikolai’s brother was a huge catalyst, how it made them want to take the model provided by the Velvets and bring it up and into the commercial mainstream, and how hearing the Velvets gave them the spark that made Is This It? so fucking good. It all goes downhill from there. Albert Hammond talks of the musical influences that helped shape the songs: Cyndi Lauper, Guns n’ Roses, basslines from the Cure. Some feature films watched are mentioned: Pretty in Pink and Fletch. There’s a picture of Hammond and Valensi hanging out with lovers and friends like Amanda de Cadenet, Perry Farrell and Hilary Swank, at a Marc Jacobs fashion show. The musical and film influences are all 80’s, the fashion show image is one of media celeb togetherness. It seems like the Strokes left the 60s and 70s and hopped onto the fucking 80s revival, the one that gives Duran Duran lifetime achievement awards (despite doing fuck all beside making music videos as 'important' as the music itself, style and gloss over content and music), the one that lets a group as godawful as Fischerspooner exist, the 80s vibe that gives us Vice magazine, bad fashion and a big thumbs up to snorting coke. The 1980s was the most culturally deprived decade in existence, especially the middle part of that decade. If this is the cultural pool that inspire the Strokes then it backs up everything I feel about this album and how lazy it is.

Take these two quotes from the article:

“…The actual seed for the Strokes was planted when Pierre, the brothers of Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture, gave Casablancas a Velvet Underground CD for Christmas while he was in high school. The music was an epiphany… The dream when they formed the Strokes, according to Casablancas, “revolved around taking the Velvet Underground and thinking ‘If only they were really famous’. And the goal was to be really cool and nonmainstream, and be really popular… Why does everything that has to be big and popular suck?… I got a problem with that, so I’m trying to do something about it…”

That is a clear statement about the original intent of their music. However, you can follow this up with a later quote which totally encapsulates everything I’ve bored everyone shitless with, during the course of my rantings in this thread:

“…Guided by Voices, a band that, according to Fraiture, the Strokes aspire to be like: semipopular, making enough money to survive and staying in the game long enough to release more than a dozen albums”.

Wheeeew. The career mentality has set in already. Just that whole word ‘semipopular’ conjures up images. The rock n’ roll fireballs that you were jealous about not being now don’t want to be those guys anymore. You think of that image from the fashion show, the celebrity relationships, the money, the decadence, and then think of that last quote and only one thing comes to mind: complacency. They’ve got their rewards, a nice life, the music doesn’t matter so much. They’re slipped into Be Here Now mode without the string arrangements, divorce proceedings and release of a ‘more mature’ second album. For Patsy Kensit and Meg Matthews, read Drew Barrymore and Amanda de Cadenet. Harsh? Perhaps but the Oasis similarities discussed in the Guardian review are there for all to see.

This actually isn’t the main thing I get from reading this article. I can’t quote all of it but I suggest people go to Rolling Stone’s website and see if it’s up there. I get the overwhelming opinion that celebrity status and magazine covers does not make Julian a happy boy. I think it’s telling that he’s the only single member of the band, the final section interviews him and he actually comes across as being pissed off with the whole celebrity ride but still fanatical about the music. When the Vines came along, NME made some stupid fucking comparison with Craig Nicholls and Cobain, stupid claims about Craig’s sanity and if he’d be the next rock n’ roll casualty. The RS article gives off the impression that all is not well in the mind of Mr. Casablancas.

I don’t disagree with you Neil over the Strokes not wanting to be The Answers To The Prayers of Rock n’ Roll (copyright reserved for bad NME hacks). They claimed the same for Campag Velocet so all NME opinion is worthless and we’ll leave them to their website and their annoying advertising (how many fucking pop-ups does one site need?). But starting out wanting to bring the spirit of the Velvets to the mainstream and ending up now wanting to be semi-popular, in other words to not embrace the mainstream to a degree and remain on the periphery, and be as popular as Guided by Voices seems endemic of two possibilities. One of them is a lack of ambition as I stated above, that they’ve reached the comfort zone of celebrity partners and schmoozing and the music is secondary to that. The second is that they have had their brush with the mainstream and the pressure has scared them, and it’s scared one man in particular: the lead singer. All throughout the album, Casablancas sings lyrics of frustration, annoyance, 12:51 talks of being lonely on a Friday night, Between Love and Hate bases its chorus around ‘I never needed anybody’… go through each song and the majority of the lyrics sound like a man who’s frustrated as fuck. Casablancas has spoken in the past about the pressure he felt over making the album and, after reading interviews with Gordon Raphael and others, it’s clear that Julian takes a hell of a lot of pride in his work. I defy anyone to say that those lyrics sound like a man who sounds full of the joys of life and I do recommend getting a hold of that RS interview as there’s a whole load of things in there that suggests all is not well in the Land of Julian, from his drinking habits to his regular nightmares.

The whole Guided by Voices thing is something we could debate for hours. They’re known in indie circles but the mainstream? The likes of Mercury Rev, the Flaming Lips, all of these have a greater coverage than GBV. It just feels like a cop out, that the Strokes came along and wanted to be more than bog standard indie guitar people, tasted the pop star life and are now backing toward the door marked ‘Semi-known safety’. People here can bitch about the mainstream and the pre-packaged shit that the labels dish out but there has to be an alternative provided and that alternative can only come from more left-field circles. Oasis did that, they were an alternative to the lachrymose shit in the charts then and the Strokes were the same for a while. To be part of that pop world means condensing everything into a few months, maybe a year, interviews, appearances, the gossip, all of that crap. I won’t criticize them for backing out of the pop game though, Julian’s a few months younger than me and I can’t imagine how I’d begin to handle the pressure he’s under to be this figurehead that the press seems to be screaming out that he is/should be/has to be. Perhaps it’s the ultimate proof, just like Oasis and the Manics, that the mainstream does corrupt and that is impossible to maintain your performance, your music and, frequently, your sanity when you’ve got to go around living with the celebrity trappings. Again I agree with you in that if they aspire to be like GBV in terms of integrity and creativity, then that is a good thing. Hopefully it means that they can get back to writing material with all the power and punch of the debut album and that Room on Fire is a mere blip. I believe that they have way better records to come in the future, that I am sure of.

Don’t go into the public school bullshit though man, that’s lame. Oasis may have had spells on the dole queue but they had this precious thing called talent at one point. Your comments almost sound like you look down on the Scous element. Making comments about the Scousers being dole queue regulars and the Strokes being public school guys who have had the easy ticket is as ultimately as derivative and grossly stereotypical as making generalizations about white skinny indieschmindie university student men (had it, seen it, been it). Obviously now I’m an international dandy who swans about between two continents and dines on fresh octopus as I have tonight. You can get some great seafood over here for not much money at all.

but the album is STILL terrible...

hang on.....isn't *retreading old ground* the Strokes raison d'etre anyway??? ;)
ho ho hzzzzzz...

fuck them anyway, the ads are over & the exorcist's back on..

"The 1980s was the most culturally deprived decade in existence, especially the middle part of that decade. "

sorry... but this is an idiotic statement. yea the 80's were just skinny ties and sunglasses just like the 70's only had bell bottoms and disco. Please!!! The Minutemen, Sonic Youth, The Pixies, The Replacements, Husker Du, Big Black, Fugazi, etc. sorry you think Michael Jackson and Poison were the only things that existed in the 80's.

I just wrote a lengthy diatribe/commentary on the 'discussion' between Neil and DrFurry and promptly deleted it by a mistake. I am going to be briefer this time... I'll start by staking out where I stand. I have two favourite bands: the Strokes and the Stone Roses. Musically socially continentally worlds apart. The only thing you could say they have in common is the fact that both made albums that might make Top Ten Debuts of all time lists (if you like that sort of 'chat'). I think Room on Fire is an absolute triumph. I will go further and say that is a sign of greater things to come: the weaker tracks on the album (though as a massive fan I can't really speak of such...) are the 'old' ones on the album, the ones that had been kicking around on the net and in their sets (Bathroom, way it is, between love and hate (ze newie anyone?), and you talk way too much). The other seven songs I think are a lot better.

Songs 1 -3 are just amazing.
Whatever Happened - preempts the critics with 'did they offend us cos they want it to sound new?' It is obvious they LIKE playing that sort of music - they ENJOY staccato guitars and beats, drawled slightly distorted vocals, a pared-down sound etc. That is why they got rid of Godrich for Pete's sake. To be honest, whey people snipe saying they are rehashing the same formula, it is clear that frankly they don't really care. If the tunes are different (which these are) then so what? And as for that bit where Julian growls 'Oh Tennessee what did you write???' Presumably he is talking about Williams, but in what context? It doesn't really matter - that I think is Casablancas' great art. In couplets he manages to allude to a greater whole, a sense of something ungraspable, unfathomable, a deeper emotion. Being slightly lost, but enjoying the rollercoaster of it all. Hey, it beats 'A man should never dream these kind of things/Especially when she came and spread her wings'... The use of 'especially' in a way of which a four year old would be proud.
Reptilia - Albert's guitar riff. Wow wow wow. The energy and mesmeric confusion coupled with the raucous line 'yeah the night's not over you're not trying hard enough'... is just amazing.
I am not going to go through the whole album like that, don't worry. Neil, I really enjoyed your review.

Interestingly (in my opinion!) I disagree with your take on the Strokes 'not caring about our pain'. You seem to have formed the opinion that they have struck gold and are going onwards and upwards to greater things and are pleased that their songs make us feel better but ultimately don't care. I don't think that is really the case. As the Rolling Stone article suggested (though Dr Furry I did not really care for your 'watching a train crash' attitude to Julian - so what if he is the only single member of the band? Big f'in deal - it's not as if he couldn't get have a girlfriend if he tries) the band do have issues and all is not that rosey (excuse the pun). A quick dip through their lyrics reveal a band/singer who is slightly lost and complicated - not unlike all that many 25 year olds. His music means a LOT to him as a refuge and inspiration and you have to admire their work ethic, and refusal to compromise. They have a good life, yes, they don't have the answers and at the moment they are having a damn good time.

Live. Room on Fire comes into its own in a way you cannot possibly imagine (unless of course you have seen it). I went to the two london shows this weekend and I can honestly I have not seen a better gig in a very very long time. 'Incendiary' is a great hack word but they really were. I have been on a high all week since those two gigs and I don't think I am alone.

It is a great album. Broken Social Scene is also a great album but whereas BSS has a rambling feel to it punctuated by 'singles' Room on Fire is stripped. In that album a riff will pop up for 4 bars which would form the substance of an entire song in a lesser band's repertoire. Never has 33 minutes had quite so many ideas crammed into it. A bit like a great Simpsons episode - if you aren't concentrating, you'll miss the good bits. I think it's a better album than Is This It?, in the long run. Saying that I don't think they will ever replicate the heights of Hard to Explain, but hey, that's about the best song ever. In my opinion...

But Six by Seven????? Please....

It's a funny business. Somehow Flaming Lips managed to avoid a slating for Yoshimi. Although good, it is markedly inferior to Soft Bulletin, and yet Wayne Coyne, being the nicest man on earth with all those fluffy toys on stage with him, escapes the firing line. The Strokes, 'hyped up rich boys', are the easiest targets since Kula Shaker but I can't bear it when a reviewer plays the lone ranger card and tries to stake a claim as the man who shot JC.

Another thing is I quite like the fact that the Strokes have broken class tradition and have dared to be successful when they are so, shhhhhh, Port Out Starboard Home... Why the hell not? Why does a rock band have to be belligerent and raging, from the wrong side of the tracks and wearing a tracksuit? A lot of hacks probably hate the Strokes because they think they wouldn't have spoken to them in their uni bar. The irony is that they are probably wrong.

I have babbled on long enough and this missive has precious little structure. I just cannot help but think that you, Dr Furry, will grow to like it more and more and more.

Everything's alright forever...

Hmmm, yes, forgot I'd said I was brief. I lied. Probably took longer than the album to read it.

listen to both albums together its hard to tell which track is on hwich album :]. (ok i exagerate a little...)
the nme review is shocking, nothing on the second album they hadn't tryed or experimented with on the first. room on fire sure isn't going to win over anyone who didnt like is this it.