Understanding The Strokes

The Strokes were one of those bands that created a new movement in rock music in the early 2000s the release of their debut album fueled what was becoming the garage rock revival movement in the u.s. alongside albums from the White Stripes Interpol and yeah yes their simplistic yet evocative sound made skinny jeans and guitars popular again and then managed to keep their sound both congruent and fresh from one album to another as the years have gone by let's take a closer look at one of the most important rock bands of the 2000s singer-songwriter Julian Casablancas guitarist Nick Valencia and drummer fab maratti started playing together after meeting at the white school in Manhattan New York bassist Nikolai Frazier later befriended Julian while the two were attending a private bilingual school in New York and even further down the line Julian later went to Switzerland to a boarding school there as well and while studying there he met guitarist Albert Hammond Jr who joined him back to New York to study and ended up sharing an apartment with him from there on the five guys decided to start a band together they played at different gigs around New York for example the spiral Luna lounge and eventually Mercury Lounge after Herzing a bunch of songs many of which would eventually end up on their debut album they decided to record an EP the modern age which was released in 2001 through British record labels beggar's banquet and Rough Trade Oh the EP started a massive bidding war amongst record labels who wanted a piece of the band they eventually landed on contract though with RCA [Music] the modern age I think that was the first song where Julian and Nick and Albert and Nikolai all kind of looked back at me and said if you're gonna be a drummer you might as well hit hard and I was just like tapping a tapping away tap tap tap tap and I learned how to try to hit hard at least if anything their debut album was soon recorded off sure the release of their EP and has ever since that time been regarded as one of the best debut albums of all time Julian's lyrics are notable for being quite simplistic and for the most part paints different pictures of what it's like to be young in New York and falling in love their sound also captured something simplistic most of the songs were fleshed out through live takes in the studio and on the record you can hear these metronomic drum lines beat and sometimes conflict and melodies that meld together with Julian's effortlessly clean vocals that sometimes breaking too strident have screams people really needed is this it the record became number 71 on the UK album charts in 2001 and reached 33 on Billboard Top 200 in the US the next year but despite him not reaching the top tens the album gradually picked up popularity as time went on and was certified with platinum sales in Canada UK and Australia but again why did this album all of a sudden pick up speed in terms of sales why did it become such a phenomenon well let's put it into context so it was the early 2000s runch was getting old Britpop was thrown out of the window and new metal well a lot of people hated that genre to begin with The Strokes take on garage rock and post-punk revival blue life into rock culture again popular opinion moved from DJs and pop music to skinny jeans and guitars whatever The Strokes were doing it definitely caused change in the music culture it became acceptable for record labels to scout for new wavers in rock music like The Libertines Arctic Monkeys and kinks of Leone now The Strokes started recording their second album in 2002 with producer Nigel Godrich it was probably best known for working with Radiohead but they eventually decided to scrap what they did with Goderich and went back to working with Jordan Raphael whom had produced their debut album and talking about their debut album when they recorded as visit they were able to test their material in different venues for quite some time before they recorded the material but with room on fire their second record they went straight from touring into the studio with a deadline to reach which really restricted their creative output guitarist Nick Valencia mentioned that the album would have ended up a lot better if we'd had another couple of weeks the album's creative process was quite a stretch for the band and it didn't achieve the same commercial success as their debut but it was still a solid effort their sound followed the same reference points as before and the album was a definite move forward for the band in terms of their media reputation first impressions of earth their third album was released in January of 2006 it was recorded over a ten-month periods together with Jordan Raphael initially stepping in as the producer but since the band wanted to David Kahne to co-produce it and Rafael found it hard to work with him they ended up with just having Kane doing most of the producing now I want to say that this album cemented the band's sound while at the same time showing a few glimmers here and there of novelty and experimentation along the way a great example of this is ask me anything which only features what seems to be samples of cellos and violas [Music] about the song Julian said it's funny I dreamt it was a scizor scizor song and there was just a chorus where they kept saying I've got nothing to say and it was so hypnotic and weird and [ __ ] with my head I woke up thinking it was a real song and then I realized oh wait I made that up in a dream so I can just do it and I'm not plagiarizing [Music] after touring first impressions the band decided to take a break for some time they didn't return back to writing new material again until 2009 and when they announced that they were back they actually shared some other creative process on social media stating that they were making a mixture of 70s rock and music from the future they also explained that they were much more collaborative in terms of songwriting now everything was fine to begin with as the band was always together in the entire first stage of creating material but after going into studio sessions they started facing some problems Jo chick or Ellie was hired to produce the album but feeling disappointed with his efforts because of his reserved production style the band ended up scrapping all the material that created with him except for one song [Music] the band was looking to create something more experimental something similar to what they'd heard on other records from MGMT Arctic Monkeys and Crystal Castles they then decided to go for Gus Oberg as their producer for the rest of the record but although the production met their expectations for some reason Julianne became less engaged during their sessions he showed up to fewer sessions and when it was there he wouldn't really say that much guitarist Nick Valencia noted I won't do the next album if we make it like this no way it was awful just awful working in a fractured way not having a singer there I'd show up certain days and do guitar takes by myself just me and the engineer in terms of sound unless album they still stayed true to their origins but they did experiment with some media electronic samples since and more guitar effects producer Gus over would also record the digital guitar tracks onto tape and then re-recording them back to digital later on to achieve a more analog sound but this was no they also notably changed their ways of recording Julian's vocals too this was the first time they used backing vocals in their music they included vocal harmonies and experimented with different layering techniques [Music] now The Strokes were back at it again with a fifth record a couple of years later comedown machine was released in March of 2013 and with this one they fulfilled a record contract with RCA and marked this departure clearly through the artwork it actually resembles one of our CA s old tape reel boxes the band strangely enough decided to pull a media blackout before during and even after the release of this album no interviews photos TV appearances shows or tours were made fans weren't able to see them playing live again until 2014 and 15 where they would eventually set up a limited amount of shows now last but not least we have their EP future present and past that was released in 2016 featuring three new songs and a remix the title is said to represent the three original songs on the EP drag queen refers to the future oblivious is referring to the prescient and thread of joy is the past now I want to mention at the end here that Julian Casablancas needs to be tackled in another video because it's been branching out during the last few years he's done so many awkward interviews started a solo career is collaborated with a ton of artists and even started another band called the voids so let me know guys if you want me to make a video specifically about Julian Casablancas okay let me know in the comments below thank you so much for watching guys I just want to give an extra shout out to these people over at patreon these are actually the people that make it a lot easier for me to create these videos so if you want to help me create even better videos and make rock music more meaningful for other people then make sure you hit the first link in the description below and I'll see you over at patreon thank you so much for watching goodbye

Channel: Lie Likes Music

Views: 546,741

Rating: 4.8727956 out of 5

Keywords: The Strokes Documentary, The Strokes New, The Strokes Best Album, Julian Casablancas Best, Julian Casablancas Story, The Strokes Early Demo, The Strokes Early Tapes, The Strokes Full Album Debut, The Strokes Full Debut Album, The Strokes History, The Strokes New Album, The Strokes New Music, The Strokes New Documentary, The Strokes Early Songs, Lie Likes Music

Id: TDNTeibPgD4

Length: 10min 59sec (659 seconds)

Published: Mon May 28 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/prowl16]

Ah yes Juicebox. My favourite song on Room On Fire

[u/MeetTheBand]

The whole background of how they met is out of order and in some parts just wrong. He said ITI was #71 in the UK when it was #2, that's a big difference!

The whole Juicebox/Room On Fire thing. (He basically Juicy Juice - Stroke'd it.) There's no way you can make that mistake if you're actually a fan.

He obviously didn't research this very well, and I liked his videos, but now I don't know if I can watch them if it's a band I don't know about because the information might just be incorrect.

[u/Walksonthree]

Wasn't Ask Me Anything recorded with a mellotron?

[u/jackintheivy]

This whole thing seems wildly inaccurate, a book report from someone who read the cliff notes.

[u/SavesTheDy]

This video is terrible. He's playing the wrong songs with the wrong albums. He didn't even read the spark notes. He read half the book and wrote the report!

[u/Rollon_Vegabond]

This didn't feel like a passion project. I found it kinda boring.

[u/NoSignal-]

Omg, FINALLY! I was nagging about doing this vid for a month!