Flat Sides

So yesterday I wrote a needlessly lengthy post about The Strokes, or more accurately my experience(s) with The Strokes. I promised I'd give my thoughts on the new album so let's get right to it, after a very quick explanation of my feelings re: the previous three albums.

Is This It? (2001) - Easily a desert island disc for me, potentially my favorite album of all time. I will fight people who disrespect this album. Not really, but I'd want to.

Room On Fire (2003) - A worthy follow-up to their debut, ROF didn't take any chances but it delivered another strong set of ten songs that arguably doesn't have a dud in the bunch which can't really be said about "Is This It?", When It Started anyone? I realize that's only on the US release but it proves my point so it counts.

First Impressions of Earth (2006) - Somewhat unfairly maligned, bloated album that features arguably the best song The Strokes ever did (You Only Live Once). People often make that point that it would've been a much better album with a shorter track list and I have trouble disagreeing. We'd probably all be better off if we never heard Evening Sun and 15 Minutes but songs like YOLO, Razorblade, and Ize of the World redeem the album a fair amount in my opinion.

Which brings us to...

Angles (2011) - I'll give my thoughts on the album as a whole at the end but first I'll foolishly comment on each track.

1. Machu Picchu - I've heard/read people comparing this song to Phoenix, Duran, Duran, and Men At Work among others. The first time I listened to it I was thrown for a bit of a loop, I'm almost 100% sure that it's the guitar riff that apes Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Starting Something" that was responsible for this. This song has grown on me though and while it doesn't follow in the tradition of great opening Strokes tracks (Is This It?, What Ever Happened?, and You Only Live Once) it's still a solid song.

2. Under Cover of Darkness - Out for over a month now, if you care about The Strokes you've probably heard this song at least once already. This is easily the most "classic Strokes" song on the album and it might also be the best. Don't really think much more needs to be said about this one.

3. Two Kinds of Happiness - It feels like people have been waiting for The Strokes to turn into The Cars for years now. I remember when 12:51 first came out everybody thought "Room On Fire" would be the album that turned Julian Casablancas into Ric Ocasek. If "Angles" weren't so weird/schizophrenic it might've been the album to pull that off. From the opening drum beats and riff you know exactly which automotive band The Strokes are challenging. Julian even throws in some Ocasek vocal tics to blow their cover just in case you may have missed it in the first place.

4. You're So Right - This is where things begin to get messy. Apparently this is bassist Nikolai Fraiture's stab at writing a song for the band. Unfortunately, the lamest Stroke is responsible with one of the lamer songs on the album. To me this song just sounds like a thinner version of River of Brakelights from Julian Casablancas's solo effort "Phrazes For The Young". At least it's pretty short, making it that much more skippable.

5. Taken For A Fool - So far this seems like one of the more enjoyable "Angles" tracks to sing along to in your car to (very important factor for me). It has a very catchy chorus and a good line or two (I'm partial to "Monday Tuesday is my weekend" even though I can't relate to it whatsoever). I've read a lot of people comparing Julian's singing in the verses to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Talking Heads. This is no doubt due to some staccato phrasing Julian uses. I hear more RHCP than I do David Byrne but I'm going to go ahead and agree with the Talking Heads comparisons because, well, David Byrne >>>>>>>>> Anthony Kiedis.

6. Games - This might be the biggest departure on the album from anything The Strokes have done previously. The chorus is drenched in more keyboards than anything the band has done previously. Lots of people saying this The Strokes taking a stab at "chillwave" (I know, I hate that genre name just as much as you do) and a friend of mine described it as "Elvis Costello meets The Cars". As for me, I'm struggling to find a good comparison but I either way this song is really growing on me. Julian veers dangerously close to an unlistenable falsetto when he sings "I'm ok, I'm alright, I was out late last night" (one of the best lines on the album in my opinion, I can absolutely relate to that one as I've uttered it many late mornings/early afternoons while making a beeline to the bathroom and/or nearest glass of water) as the track climaxes but he gets out just in time.

7. Call Me Back - First thing that came to my mind when initially hearing this song was Stroke Fab Moretti's side project Little Joy. I think the cassette tape hiss in the background only adds to this vibe as Little Joy's album had a bit of a low-fi bent to it. I've seen this track get panned a decent amount already as if it's the worst song on the album which I think is unfair. Granted the breakdown in the second half of the song induces some cringes from yours truly but it's not nearly as bad as what comes a couple tracks later.

8. Gratisfaction - "I want Thin-Lizzy style, kung-fu rock with cool 80's melodies" - Julian Casablancas when asked about the new Strokes album in 2009. Gratisfaction is pretty much just that, The Strokes doing a take on Thin Lizzy and it's...ok. It kind of just makes me want to listen to an actual Think Lizzy song instead. This song also features backing vocals (as do a few others on the album) which as far as I know is a first for The Strokes.

9. Metabolism - I may have gone a little easy on Call Me Back before but that's only because I knew this song was just around the corner. In my mind this is without any question the worst track on the album. It starts off with a very similar riff to Heart In A Cage (a mediocre track off of FIOE) and doesn't get any better from there. From that point the song turns into what is basically The Strokes doing a Muse song. I suppose there are some people who might be into that sort of thing but I am anything but a Muse fan. This is an unfortunate addition to their catalog but as my friend who made The Cars/Elvis Costello comparison earlier said, at least it's not seven minutes long.

10. Life Is Simple In The Moonlight - The Strokes have a solid history of closing tracks to albums. Take It Or Leave It is a classic, I Can't Win is one of my favorite songs off of ROF, and Red Light is a nice song that gets overlooked. LISITM doesn't come close to TIOLI or ICW but I can't really say it's a lot better or worse than Red Light. My understanding is that this is one of the only songs on this album that Julian has a sole songwriting credit on which makes sense is true. Most of the song grooves like a typical Strokes track with the only glaring issue in the song being the completely unnecessary "don't try to stop us" that Julian tags onto the end of the chorus.

So there you have it, those are pretty much my thoughts after spending a good 48 hours with the entirety of "Angles" (I was familiar with about half the songs on the album before the whole thing finally leaked Sunday). I've probably listened to the entire thing 5 or 6 times now and while I was initially underwhelmed, some of the new songs are starting to grow on me. My initial disappointment was probably heavily influenced by the songs I already knew being the better tracks for the most part. As it stands now this album seems like a high 6/low 7 to me with that rating obviously subject to change as I spend more time with it. I think the real question about this album (at least for me) is how it stacks up to "First Impressions of Earth". Will it be regarded as a step in the right direction for the band or part of a continuous decline? I don't think it's really fair to say one way or another just yet but the next several days should be very interesting as we get to watch the Internet sink their teeth into "Angles" and see whether or not The Strokes get torn to shreds or manage to stay relevant in the end.

Five Years Is Long, Ten Is Longer

I had no idea when I woke up this morning (well barely this morning, thanks to the time change) that today would be a day I've been waiting over five years for (no, it's not the day this blog finally gets an update). Today, after an excruciating wait, I finally got to listen to the latest album from The Strokes. I'll get around to my early thoughts on the album but first...why?

Believe it or not I've actually been trying to update this blog with a post about The Strokes for over a month now. I even had what I thought was a decent start to a post about the first single, Under Cover of Darkness, but it didn't autosave or something and got lost in the ether of the Internet somewhere. How Google is able to keep every other thing we contribute to the Internet and lose my post is beyond me but that's neither here nor there. There have been plenty of articles written about The Strokes in the past few weeks so it's unlikely I have much to add to the conversation beyond my personal experience with the band so that's what we'll have to go with.

On what was probably my third listen of the new album I asked myself why I cared about this band so much. Ever since the 30 second sample of UCoD went online over a month ago I have been devouring any articles/interviews/songs regarding the new album I cant find. Throughout this my expectations for this album have risen to dizzying highs (finally hearing UCoD), fallen to terrifying lows (hearing You're So Right for the first time), and eventually settling into a creamy middle. That sounds kind of dirty but I assure you it's just a poorly used Simpsons quote.

Now a big part of all this is obviously that The Strokes are one my favorite bands, I can say Top 3 with little hesitation. The length of time since their last release and the countless stories, quotes, etc. regarding turmoil with the band also added to all the uncertainty surrounding "Angles". Still, that does not explain why I and others I know were anticipating and sweating out the wait so much. If this were a new album from say Modest Mouse or Spoon I'd be really excited but not nearly as invested in the outcome like I am with The Strokes. Part of this is because neither Modest Mouse or Spoon seems to be in any risk of no longer being a band in the near future whereas The Strokes throw out the idea of being a group no longer more often than I start a blog post and never finish it (it happens a lot more than you might think). The other reason for this emotional investment is that for me (and many others I think) The Strokes are very much a throwback to a different era of music.

When I say "throwback" in this context I don't mean the actual music, even if that word was brought up a lot when The Strokes first broke onto the scene more than ten years ago, I mean it more in the sense of following a band's career. You don't need me to point out that acquiring and listening to music back then was a completely different experience than it is today, and I'm not going to wax poetic about the pre-Napster/iPod/Grooveshark era or anything like that, I just think it's worth noting that when The Strokes first album dropped I was carrying my Discman and wallet of CD's to and from high school every day. In the months leading up to "Is This It?"'s release I had been listening to mix CD's my friends had made that featured early versions of Last Nite, Hard To Explain, and The Modern Age. We are all pretty amped up for the album when it finally came out. I can still vividly remember getting a ride from my dad to Tower Records to pick up my copy and coming home to listen to it on what was probably a less than warm October night.

A couple years later "Room On Fire" came out. If my memory serves me correct this was still before albums would regularly "leak" and people would get their hands on them ahead of time. I do recall MTV putting the album up to stream on their website a week or so before it's released. I managed to stay strong at the time and listen to only about ten seconds of "Between Love and Hate" before deciding to hold out until getting my hands on a physical copy. When it eventually did come out I once again procured a ride (this time from my college roommate) on the day of release.

By the time "First Impressions of Earth" leaked in December 2005 (it would be released for real the next month) we were in the midst of a sea change when it came to music. People with white ear buds hanging from their heads were a common sighting and some of us who were Internet savvy (or had Internet savvy friends) were sometimes getting to listen to albums days/weeks/months before their physical release. FiOE is one of the first albums I can remember listening to the leak of (it's also the last album I can remember planning on buying even after I had downloaded it, never did end up picking it up though). It actually leaked in a fashion similar to "Angles", with songs trickling out one by one until the full album eventually showed up.

I'm not really sure if there is actually a point being made here or not. I could be onto something with this silly "throwback" notion but it's likely I that I care so much about this album because The Strokes have made several awesome songs that I listen to constantly and I want them to continue to do so. What I can safely say is this: for me, as The Strokes musical career progressed, so did the way that I (and everyone else) anticipate, acquire, and listen to music. When they started out we were still dragging ourselves to the nearest Tower Records, Barnes & Noble, local record store, etc. to get the music. I'm pretty sure that when I learned "Angles" had leaked I wasn't wearing any pants, and if I were wearing them they were sweatpants. I queued up the download, went to take a shower, and fifteen minutes later the new album was on my computer waiting to be judged, which I will do in a post tomorrow because this has gone on way longer than I anticipated.

Makeshift Conspiracy Theory #1

If you're like me and you follow Chik-Fil-A on multiple social media platforms you were probably aware that this past Friday (3/4) was Free FryDay at participating Chik-Fil-A's.

(Quick confession re: my stupidity - I did not make the Friday/FryDay connection until I read a Chik-Fil-A tweet out loud to my roommate and actually said the word "FryDay". In my defense, my roommate also didn't realize it was a homonym until I said it to him.)

Chik-Fil-A made no secret that the FryDay campaign was to introduce people to Heinz's new "Dip and Squeeze" ketchup packets which not only promised to dispense three times as much ketchup as a regular Heinz ketchup packet, but also allow the user to dip or squeeze the ketchup contained within. But I'm not writing this to question the promises Heinz is making with this new ketchup vehicle, I'm more curious about the motivations for bringing this ketchup capsule into the picture.

One of my favorite things about Chik-Fil-A (despite it being by far the best "fast food" franchise that exists on the face of the Earth) was how they allowed you to take as many ketchup packets as you liked. The last time I had went to Chik-Fil-A before this afternoon was the first time I had been introduced to the new "Dip and Squeeze" packets.

The new packets (pictured above), like their name indicates, can be used to dip fries in or squeezed to pour out the ketchup ala the old packets. Now I have no problem with these new packets, what concerns me is how the Chik-Fil-A I frequent no longer has the tray of ketchup packets that allowed people to take as many as they wanted. Now patrons are forced to ask for ketchup as if it were mayonnaise or one of the various delicious sauces Chik-Fil-A offers. To me, this is just a needless nuisance in the ordering process.

You may be wondering where the conspiracy theory is in all of this so here goes: I propose that Chik-Fil-A (or perhaps Heinz since this is their ketchup innovation) came to the conclusion that an unacceptable amount of ketchup was going to waste by leaving out hundreds of packets for the taking. I'm thinking they used the introduction of the "dip and squeeze" packets as an opportunity to remove the tray of old school packets and that "Free FryDay" was a way to distract the masses from this change by offering a free order of fries for a few hours. Now maybe this is only the case at my local Chik-Fil-A and I am completely overreacting, but I fear this is not the case. No longer will I be able to take entirely too much ketchup and debate whether or not it's worth putting the extra packets at the end of my meal back where they came from (my reasoning being they may think somebody putting packets back in the tray is shady), but at least it'll be much easier to dip my fries from here on out I suppose.