Is This It by The Strokes

Is This It, the Strokes' debut album, first appeared in July 2001, with RCA handling most of the world and Rough Trade the UK, and it's the sound of five guys deciding that rock and roll had got too fussy. Gordon Raphael produced it at Transporterraum in New York City over March and April 2001, and the brief was simple: keep it bare, keep the studio tricks to a minimum, and nail the songs mostly as live takes.

It works. Julian Casablancas sings through what sounds like a blown speaker about city kids and their tangled love lives, Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond, Jr. weave their guitars around each other like they're finishing each other's sentences, and Nikolai Fraiture and Fabrizio Moretti keep everything locked in a nervous, clipped strut. It's melodic and poppy under the scuzz, and it owes a big debt to vintage garage rock without ever sounding like a museum piece. "Hard to Explain", "Last Nite" and "Someday" were the singles.

After September 11, the American CD was held back a couple of weeks and "New York City Cops" was pulled in favor of a new song, "When It Started", though the US vinyl had already gone out with it. The album reached number 33 in America and number two in the UK, went platinum in several countries, and the critics fell hard for its swagger and rhythm. It's now counted among the records that reinvented guitar music for the new century, and it keeps turning up on best-of-the-decade and all-time lists.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.