Is This It The Strokes Page

On July 30, 2001, five guys from New York City walked into a recording studio with a producer named Gordon Raphael. They walked out with a 36-minute earthquake.

Is This It is the antidote. It asks: Do you really need more than 36 minutes to say something true? Is This It The Strokes

The title isn’t cynical. It’s clarifying. When you strip away the gloss, the auto-tune, the concept, and the marketing— Is the raw, messy, beautiful sound of five friends playing in a room enough? On July 30, 2001, five guys from New

We live in an era of "maximalism." Podcasts are three hours long. Movies are three hours long. Albums have 20 tracks. Everything is a "universe." It asks: Do you really need more than

The genius of the album is its . Raphael didn’t mic the drums to sound like thunder; he mic them to sound like cardboard boxes being kicked down a hallway. The bass on “Is This It” (the track) throbs like a subway train passing through a tunnel. Nothing is clean. Everything is slightly out of tune.

But to answer the title: Yes, Julian. This is it. And it’s still pretty damn good. "Hard to Explain" (loud), "Someday" (quiet, on a Sunday morning), "Trying Your Luck" (when you’re feeling pathetic).

The Strokes answered with a resounding . The Legacy: It Was, In Fact, It Did The Strokes change music? For a brief window in 2001-2003, every band signed to a label had to own a leather jacket and a broken amp. The "The" bands arrived: The Killers, The Bravery, The Libertines.