The Strokes album Julian Casablancas prefers to ‘Is This It?’ and his four favourite records
“The Strokes came about when it was all Limp Bizkit and Sum 41,” Flyte recently reminisced to us. “They righted every wrong for all 12-year-olds everywhere. Were they the last band to come along and change everything?” There is no finer testimony to that than the account of the next act which shook the etch-a-sketch of culture. “There is always that one band that comes along when you are 14 or 15 years old,” Alex Turner once said. “That manages to hit you in just the right way and changes your whole perception on things.”
For the Arctic Monkeys frontman, much like every other indie band that followed, it was The Strokes. When the cool New York outfit delivered Is This It, it offered up a new bohemian future. As Adam Ficek of Babyshambles told Far Out: “The Strokes shook us from the post-Britpop lull creeping in from ’97. I had slowly moved my attention to the excitement of the London Breakbeat scene, but in 2001, my love of grit and guitars came back with laser-sharp focus. The Strokes, the look, that video! It kickstarted and reinvigorated band culture.”
However, for the band, this meant that they were not only carrying the weight of a masterpiece on their shoulders but also spearheading a new cultural revolution. With that, they decided to do the smart thing and simply hone their craft into a sequel. The fact that they managed to pull this off renders their sophomore record, Room on Fire, Casablancas’ favourite among his own discography.
As he told Rolling Stone in 2014: “I wanted to finish the Is This It? thought; even when we were doing it, I always thought it was part two [of Is This It]. I remember when we started ‘Reptilia’ and ‘The End Has No End,’ I was like, ‘This is the new vibe.’ I think we always felt like we were in jeopardy. When we did Room on Fire, things were established, but things were internally, at least from my perspective, not healthy.”
The tempestuous bay in which the band were docked thereafter may have precluded a continuation of their best work, but for Casablancas, they came back around in with The New Abnormal. Upon the album’s release in 2020, he told the Los Angeles Times that it was the “fourth favourite record I’ve ever been a part of”. Going on to outline that the Room on Fire and Is This It made up the top two spots.
However, when it came to the third-placed album, he coyly said, “You’re going to get me in trouble. Let’s leave it a mystery.” Of course, while in the middle of a promo run for The Strokes, that would imply that the record came from elsewhere. In which case, it may well be Tyranny, which he made with The Voidz back in 2014. By any measure, it certainly creates the song he calls his most emotional piece of work.
“It was very intense to work on. I’ve never worked on a song where the people were close to tears,“ he says of ‘Human Sadness’. Continuing: “I wasn’t quite crying, but it was really intense. It’s like being on the operating table – you’re working on making it emotional. But this was a rare time when I felt swallowed up by it.“
Moreover, it seems clear from his comments to The Guardian that he happily feels his best work is still ahead of him. As he explains: “I think I’ve always been subtle in my songs. That’s why I’ve been working on lyrics, trying to improve them. I’ve been getting a little more specific. I don’t know if anyone cares, but as I hopefully get better I can get better at expressing myself.“
Julian Casablancas’ favourite albums he has been part of:
- Room on Fire – The Stokes
- Is This It – The Strokes
- Tyranny – The Voidz?
- The New Abnormal – The Strokes
