Music Review - The Strokes: Room on Fire

When I quoted Lester Bangs a few weeks ago and said that no one listens to music, I realized that such a statement was to a degree ludicrous on its face. Of course people listen to music; it's not like it's good for anything else (sans LSD). What I meant was that very few (in elitist exaggerationist language, very few = none) listen to music charitably or unselfishly. This statement borders on ludicrosity (if it's not a word, then I just invented it) as well; I will explain. Most people put a piece of music in their respective audio systems and wait to be moved. The music is judged on one thing; whether it affects you in the way you want to be affected. The musicians themselves are non-entities; one's opinion on them as artists or human beings is based on whether their work pleases.

I'm not going to say that there's anything wrong with this; in one respect it's essential to approach music on a primal level. But in another respect, it's solipsistic. A piece of music touches more lives than just the ears that hear it. Every song has a creator who believes in it as art, and a promoter who believes in it as product. Every song was trying to achieve something intended at the same time to be personal to the artist and relevant to the world at large. Not all music achieves this goal. But unless you consider the goal, you can't judge it as a success or failure.

This goes for all music, even the kind you hate. Michael Bolton has devoted fans. KoRn says things in their music that a lot of kids appreciate. Some people find a great deal of truth in Snoop Dogg's ryhmes, and dig his beats besides. You can dismiss the fans of each as semi-literate sheep who are just to sheltered and intellectually lazy to get into "real" music, but you should keep in mind that they're saying more or less the same thing about you.

With that in mind, we proceed to reviewing the new Strokes album. The Strokes got a lot of attention with their debut, Is This It, two years ago, mostly because people were starving for something that didn't sound like N'Sync or the aforementioned KorN, something that sounded like, you know, rock. Call it the Nirvana Syndrome. Critics praised them as the New Velvet Underground (all bands from New York are VU clones in the minds of the superficial), and hailed Is This It as the biggest things since "Blitzkrieg Bop." The backlash set in just as fast, and before the Christmas season had begun, the Strokes, far from being rock's saviours, had become it's scapegoat: yet another collection of unoriginal wannabes sailing by on hype.

So far, so typical. The album underneath all this hooplah was actually quite a good one, not earth-shattering, but demonstrative of depth, poise, and liveliness. You can listen to it after the initial interest wears off, either deliberately or as background music, and it suits many moods. No, it wasn't revolutionary, but it was what people like me have been wanting to hear.

The second album, Room on Fire, released last month, hasn't met anything like the noise afforded the debut. The fans bought it and liked it, the detractors grumbled and soused and went back to fawning over Modest Mouse (not that there's anything wrong with that). This is typical as well. The problem is that both fans and critics of Room on Fire said basically the same thing about it: that it was essentially the same as Is This It. And that proves that people don't listen to music.

Superficially, yes, the albums are similar, both undeniably by the same band. But careful listeners will not the distinction: if Is This It was the band's homage to the late 70's new wave and punk scene (owing fare more to the Modern Lovers than the Ramones, but never mind), then Room on Fire is the Strokes' 80's album, full of trebly, almost synthesized tones as opposed the previous effort's constant garagey riffage. The songs are cooler, slower, and more comfortable, kept from degenerating into Who-level mod wussiness by Casablanca's vocals, which, in contrast to the rest of the band, are louder and hoarser, the sound of a man whose chill demeanor is starting to come undone.

Moreover, Room on Fire is more of an album than it's predecessor, a more cohesive whole. Several of the songs on Is This It were too thematically close together, which is probably the reason they were called "unoriginal". The new album doesn't have that problem; ideas abound and every song stands more or less distinct. That's an important improvement.

As you might surmise, I'm not going to try and determine which album is "better." Such objectivity is simply not possible. I can say that the Strokes are turning out worthwhile product, and under a good deal of pressure, are still playing with their sound. That's the sign of a band that is going somewhere. I'm definitely interested to see what they come up with next.