Vinyl In Alphabetical

I am posting this from work, so please excuse the tiny image.

Anyway, I got this record in the mail this week and it’s already my album of the year. I reviewed it for Potholes in My Blog this week, so I don’t know if I have much to say about it other than that it totally rules.

I guess I’d also like to use this opportunity to thank you for reading this blog, and also to hoist some more of my writing on you. I wrote this short story commemorating the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Fever to Tell and I am proud of it. Read it at Consequence of Sound.

“We’re up all night to get lucky”—Pharrell Heidegger Williams

I don’t know that I have much to say about this record other than that I bought it directly from the band’s bassist when I saw them play in Madison in 2011. I don’t remember much specifically about the show other than that Suckers were maybe the nicest seeming band I’ve seen on tour; they all seemed generally surprised that people were way into them, and they were mega-friendly when I bought this record from them.

I was really close to the stage during their set, and I think my friend high-fived the lead singer when he was leaving, which is something I think about too: that guy seemed pretty pumped to high five on his way off stage. I think that works as a general metaphor for Suckers’ music in general; these guys are so pumped that even if their music isn’t perfect, their enthusiasm makes them memorable. 

1. He taught me to pee on a building and that Styx is the greatest band in the world and the only got a bad rep because most critics are cynical assholes”—the kid from Big Daddy

2.

3. “The album’s somewhat rock-operatic story tells of a future where rock music is outlawed by a fascist government and the “MMM (the Majority for Musical Morality)”. The story’s protagonist, Kilroy, is a former rock star who has been imprisoned by MMM leader Dr. Righteous. He escapes using a disguise (according to the album’s famous song “Mr. Roboto”) when he becomes aware that a young musician, Jonathan Chance, is on a mission to bring rock music back.”—from Wikipedia (I had no idea this was a thing, and I listened to this album in full)

4. The fact that the Rolling Stone review of this album is actually a joint review of a Journey album is a more critical rebuking of Styx than any words could be. 

I have not listened to a single minute of this album since 2006 until I did a few weeks ago in preparation of writing this. It’s probably in the bottom 5% in terms of total plays amongst my record collection. It’s maybe the least “essential” album I own, and I own the musical story version of the Hobbit. So why do I still keep this? And move with it across two states and three living domiciles?

Because I pre-ordered this shit in December 2005, a full month and change before it came out, because I was so sure it was going to be a “classic.” I convinced myself it was going to rule, and was able to keep that facade up for a week after this arrived in the mail. Then I realized I sort of hated it. That it had no good songs after the first six. That it was pretty fucking weak, all things considered.

So I keep this as a reminder that it used to be harder to hear albums in advance (my parents didn’t get good internet until later in 2006) and that I used to have garbage taste, and that anytime I feel like I am “making the right call” about an album or artist, know that I got it totally wrong one time.

Also, I got rid of the poster that came with this, so it’s worth hardly anything now.  

Fuck a sophomore slump. It was cool, circa 2003, to claim that this album was a “bust” or that it was “weak” compared to their debut. And that was understandable; hardly any rock albums from the 2000s can match up to Is This It, none the less this one. But listening to this again for this project made me realize that about 1/3 of the Strokes songs I remember fondly are from this album, and that I left school the day this came out and bought it at Target, and that I put a sticker of this album cover on the front of a text book that I had to pay $25 for because I “ruined” the cover.

Sometimes in the moment of hype, you can dismiss something outright. I feel like the people that panned this know they got it wrong.

Because today, I would seriously entertain arguments that this is the best Strokes album. That’s wrong, but I’d be willing to hear them out. 

A list of 10 thoughts/memories about the Strokes, and Is This It.

1. This is the first “classic” album made by someone relatively near my own age—I was 15 when this came out, and the Strokes were around 22 or 23—and that felt significant for some reason. They were the kind of guys I’d see smoking on the college campus when we drove to school, and it felt like an incredible thing that someone who was young could make an album that feels like it is THE ONLY PIECE OF MUSIC you will ever need. 

2. This is one of the last albums/bands that i discovered through “older” channels: I have a distinct memory of seeing the music video for “Last Nite” on MTV 2 right before the album came out, and being like, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?” and being totally blown away. Then I read the review in Rolling Stone, which was impossibly glowing. And I’ll always remember the end of the first paragraph:

“Less than a year ago, the Strokes were handing out gig fliers to uninterested fans at Weezer shows; now, they are the subject of British magazine covers, schoolgirl crushes (assuming you know the right schoolgirls) and, already, disgruntled in-crowd jealousy.” 

All I knew is that I needed to meet schoolgirls who listened to this kind of music.

3. I didn’t get this album until Christmas, however, because at 15, I could never put $15 together at one time to buy this. Shouts out to my mom for buying this for me. I listened to it 10 times in a row while playing some PS2 game. I think this was the exact moment I became more of a music geek than a videogame geek. 

4. There was about a week in January, 2002, that I listened to “Last Nite” over and over, obsessed with the rhythm guitars under the guitar solo. That this coincided with some of my most desperate non-girlfriend times is not a coincidence.

5. I have owned 4 copies of this in my life: My original CD, the one I had to buy when I scratched the original one when I was 17, the import version (“NYC Cops”, obviously) and this record. This was the second full LP I bought on vinyl, because it would have seemed stupid to even have a record collection without this.

6. This was the first album when I took my parent’s van out the night I got my driver’s license, and I have distinct memories of hitting a curb while listening to “Hard to Explain” and being sure I was going to die driving that van. 

7. The Strokes are a good band to have your heart broken by. When you stop caring about them when they make a turd of a third album, you get the sense even they don’t care about the Strokes anymore. 

8. It’s possible I have listened to this album more than any other album in my life. I bet I have spent a solid month of time in minutes listening to this. It’s maybe the only album I feel I am qualified to write a 33 1/3 about. I could do a chapter on the drumming alone. 

9. The last thing I want to mention about this album is that I remember having HEATED arguments about it in high school, particularly with this girl who was way into pop punk, and she said that NOFX were better than the Strokes. I knew this to be untrue, even though I had never even listened to NOFX. And I still haven’t; she made me so mad, I never listened to a band’s music. In retrospect, this was us having some obvious sexual tension—she was about the only girl I could talk to comfortably at that point, and the idea I was able to argue about bands with her is crazy to me in retrospect—but I probably cock-blocked myself out of talking to her anymore/ever listening to NOFX when I called her “an idiot” for saying something like that. I am the opposite of Julian Casablancas when it comes to talking to girls who maybe hate-like me. 

10. I guess the point of this list—which I had hoped prior to stream of consciousness-ing this thing 10 minutes ago—was that the Strokes are a band that have had a major impact on the history of the pop culture of my life. I’m not sure I’ve done it justice. But if I had to take one CD on a one-man journey to Mars where I would die, it would probably be this, because it makes me remember what it was like, and it’s the closest thing I have to a musical teddy bear.   

I think if anyone tells you they’ve listened to this more than once all the way through since 2007, they are full of it. This album became a right of passage for anyone currently between 24 and 32, despite all odds. But at this point, when you are an adult, and not trying to establish your personal brand re: indie bands, all you can hear here are the flaws. The fact that “John Wayne Gacy” is top 10 dumbest songs ever—you are not just like a guy who raped kids, and pretending you are dulls the horrible realities of his crimes. The fact that this is at least 20 minutes too long. The fact that the lit-school affectations of this project are cool and all—writing an album about a state— but they are also something that is so easy to parody it’s too easy of a joke for Portlandia.   

That said, this is maybe one of the most memorable albums of the era of indie when it was possible for an indie dude to be enormous on the internet, but make virtually no impact in the real world. A few years after this, bands could make a living touring for Mountain Dew and selling songs to Lincoln, but the best thing Sufjan could do was soundtrack indie movies and be a star on Pitchfork. I think for a lot of us, this dovetails with the era that we got way into this kind of music, and Sufjan will always have a stake over part of our hearts.  

So, while I might not think this is as good as I thought it was when I was 19 and just starting to believe I could prove how “different” I was by listening to indie rock, this is one of those albums I’ll carry in my collection until I die.  

As a record collector, I don’t really “get” the 7-inch collector. I’d rather blow my racks on full LPs than on a bunch of singles, so I’ve bought like 10 in the eight years I’ve been a serious collector. This is one of them, and I mostly bought it because it was the last copy at my local shop on Record Store Day 2012, and because this is sort of what 7-inches are for. This song—the most ripping, badass track by St. Vincent—wouldn’t have fit on any of Annie Clark’s solo albums, so burning this off as a single makes sense. But it’s still kind of a toss-off purchase. It’s a great song, but this isn’t the most responsible use of $7 in my life.