The Strokes: Mondo Sonoro’s rearview mirror

Taking advantage of that The Strokes They will be performing at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona on October 20, we dedicate our rearview mirror to them.

The Essential: “Is This It” (2001)”
The first, as in so many other bands, is still the best. And even more so with a group whose studio releases barely exceed half a dozen references. This is the album that redefined 21st century guitar rock for young people with its million copies sold in the United States alone. He put them on the map, and in what way. Guitars that intertwine and intersect inherited from past times with a consistent and deliberately dry production by Gordon Raphael. Making classics with immediate impact like “Last Nite” or “Someday”. Barely half an hour to leave on the table a work that would not be approached again but that brought the names of Julian Casablancas or Albert Hammond Jr. into our homes. For Rolling Stone and its famous (and debatable) lists, it was number two on the Best Albums of the 2000s, only surpassed by “Kid A” by Radiohead.

The Rarity: “Comedown Machine” (2013)
This time we didn’t have to go live, or to a B-sides album, or anything similar. Getting to the group’s fifth work has been enough for us. Misunderstood practically since its launch, and no wonder. They came from the disaster of their worst work – they just have to finish the text and they will understand it – and they marked an album that moved away from the sound that had worked for them, now betting on synthesizers and sounds close to eighties pop, wanting to experiment as in “One Way Trigger” or “Call It Fate, Call It Karma”. Lukewarm reviews and, as usual, it became a cult album in the long run. If they have to start now with The Strokesdon’t do it here or you won’t understand anything. Clash magazine defined it with few but accurate words: provocative, strange and sexy.

The Disappointment: “Angles” (2011)
Bad, bad, it’s not, but we had waited five years since his previous job and we expected more. In that time, the five members of the group had had enough time to get angry, get angry, hate each other, love each other, get angry again, and get angry again. Come on, things in the studio were tense, tense. And it shows. Casablancas and Hammond Jr. were more focused on their solo careers and Fabrizio Moretti had formed the group Little Joy, which motivated him much more. Furthermore, they had no songs, because Casablancas, the main composer, allocated the good ones to his own project. So they tried a revolutionary method. Valensi, Hammond Jr. (also with addiction problems), Fraiture and Moretti got into the studio and wrote the songs, and their friend Julian came later to put the icing on the cake and play the pear, basically. That just broke them. And despite this, things were not entirely bad, I insist, although it lacks coherence. In songs like “Under Cover Of Darkness” they seem to recover their classic sound, but everything is too disjointed. In short, expectations were through the roof, and they were not able to meet them.