i bought the album"is this it" after reading the great reviews it was getting about a year after it came out and i must admit, i agreed with the critics, i thought it was a wonderful album, the best thing i had heard in years and wasn't it great to hear a band make a short (33 mins) sharp album instead of all these albums that come out now on cd that are over a hour long and are full of sub standard songs.....so what do y'all think of them?

i was counting down their fifteen minutes after their first album came out. unless they pull a radiohead and come out with an amazing album that absolutely nobody would expect from them, i'd say they're fodder for the "where are they now?" file.

I really got into the Strokes first album. I have the second album. I like it. It's fun. But almost a carbon copy of the first. Unless they change their tune a bit, i won't be following them much longer...

overrated. way overrated.

totaly overated

I really like the Strokes. The first CD was excellent, but I didn't think the 2nd was near as good. I'd like to see them in concert. The Vines are also a really good band, atleast on CD. I saw them play on MTV & they were really awful. But "Highly Evolved" is an awesome CD.

Frantz Ferdinand has already killed them

oh you heathens!!!

they're wonderful and that's what you get for reading/believing the hype in the first place! if you just take them for what they are(a great, energetic band), and of course see them live even when casablancas is shitfacedrunk, many a believer has been born at their shows. the last one of theirs i went to, in march, a lot of those people came to see the opening act but left goin' "damn they're awesome!"
say what you will about their recordings- they get it done live! they're as tight a band as anyone out there right now and albie hammond is a showman if ever there was one.

for the record: they're (strokes)really nice guys when you meet them they were worn thin that night before the show but they were never less than polite and RAWKED once they hit the stage. also, i do love franz ferdinand-they have a great sense of humor to go with that cool music, imo.

I think they're a very fine band. True, they painted themselves into a corner stylistically the minute their first album was released, but so what? It was a great style. The Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, white t-shirts and leather jackets - these things will always be cool, and that's what made the Strokes refreshing. They were unabashed New York hipsters. I'm sure it's true that they are going to gently fade into obscurity, but it was fun while it lasted. Is This It and Room On Fire are perfectly decent albums by any reasonable standard.

flipwilson said:

exactly. decent albums. they are not this long sought after remedy to the problems of rock and roll, lol! you can go see bands like the strokes in every major city...they were just lucky enough to have someone with the casablancas connection. its not the strokes' fault that every magazine dubbed them the saviours of rock n' roll. over rated? sure. that doesn't mean they suck though. after i read my post above i thought "oh, i just made it sound like a i think they suck". i don't at all. i just think they're not all that is made of them.

Another sissy rock band.

SassyBritches said:

Sure, I'll completely agree with that - I'm probably just repeating what I said earlier, but I think they're a great garage rock band, and there will always be room in my life for that kind of music. They're far from being revolutionary, but there's still a lot of fun to be found in good, primal three-chord rock.

I will add that I personally found it refreshing to see a band like the Strokes get some attention. There was certainly a lot of hype involved, but I'd sooner see that attention going to bands like the strokes rather than dreary nu-metal bands or whatever else was trendy at the time...

i never understood the gripe about the second record sounding like the first. i have them both cds and listen to them back to back sometimes, and while you can certainly tell it's the same band, 'rof' is much more mature and dense sounding than 'iti'. 'rof' has a lot more 80's references, imo. and is more diverse. 'iti' sounds trapped in a clammy basement.

anyway 'for you' and 'prince' only sound 2 or 3 steps apart too. the same with 'dry' and 'rid of me' by pj harvey. what's the problem with a natural progression of a band's or artist's sound? to me it means that they're being honest and not contrived.

Overrated. I see cats like them in NY all the time. They just happened to be the "chosen ones" to get famous for their style. But it ain't funky enough to me.