The Strokes are a band from New York, led by
singer Julian Casablancas and guitarist Albert Hammond,
that became a sensation in Britain with
the single Hard To Explain/ New York City Cops, the EP
The Modern Age (Rough Trade, 2000), and the album
Is This It (RCA, 2001).
While a few songs of the album try to rock out
(The Modern Age, which is
a photocopy of Velvet Underground and
Modern Lovers, Barely Legal,
Hard To Explain, the blues-rock rigmarole New York City Cops),
the majority
dwells comfortably in a genre of pop balladry that borrows riffs and rhythms
from the classics while relying on very basic melodies:
Is This It, that apes the atonal lo-fi pop of the 1980s;
the bouncy and spirited Someday;
the ska with progression a` la Cheap Trick of Last Nite.
Nick Valensi's and Albert Hammond's predictable guitar workouts and a
formidable rhythm section (bassist Nikolai Fraiture and drummer Fabrizio Moretti) provide the ideal balance between dejavu and fashionable.
Despite the hype that surrounded its release,
Room On Fire (Rough Trade, 2003) was only a timid, derivative
collection of average-sounding songs.
The effervescent Between Love and Hate and 12.51
picked up where their singles left off, and
You Talk Way Too Much continued the Strokes' obsession for redeeming
the Velvet Underground.
Embarrassing ventures into genres such as reggae (Automatic Stop),
funk (What Ever Happened), ska (Automatic Stop),
soul (Under Control), attest to the bands' limited skills, despite
Nick Valensi's guitar showcase in Reptilia.
The End Has No End, which "boldly" crosses Michael Jackson's Billie Jean and Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O Mine, says it all.
This is mostly generic rock'n'roll (Meet Me In The Bathroom,
The Way It Is, I Can't Win).
There is virtually no musical depth in this album.
This is as challenging as Britney Spears.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Luca Battistini)
Gli Strokes sono una band di New York guidata dal cantante Julian
Casablancas e dal chitarrista Albert Hammond, diventati una
sensazione in Gran Bretagna con il singolo Hard To Explain/ New
York City Cops e l'album
Is This It (RCA, 2001).
Mentre poche canzoni (The Modern Age) puntano al rock, la
maggior parte
indugia comodamente in un pop che prende in prestito riff e ritmiche
da Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground e Television
(Is This It, Last Nite, Someday, Hard To
Explain).
(Translation by/ Tradotto da Massimiliano Monteverdi)
Nonostante l’incredibile hype che ha accompagnato la sua pubblicazione, Room On Fire (Rough Trade, 2003) è una pallida e derivativa raccolta di canzoni al massimo modeste. L’effervescente Between Love and Hate e 12.51 riprendono il filo del discorso iniziato con i singoli dell’album precedente, mentre You Talk Way Too Much è il trionfo dell’idea fissa del gruppo, proteso alla redenzione dei Velvet Underground dai loro eccessi. Imbarazzanti escursioni in generi disparati come il reggae (Automatic Stop), il funk (What Ever Happened), lo ska (Automatic Stop), il soul (Under Control) danno prova delle limitate capacità del gruppo,
nonostante lo show personale di
Nick Valensi su Reptilia.
The End Has No End, che azzarda l’ibridazione di Billie Jean con Sweet Child O Mine, si commenta da sola. Canzoni come Meet Me In The Bathroom, The Way It Is, e I Can't Win sono solo rock'n'roll senza alcuna personalità. Tutto ciò può rivaleggiare solo con lo spessore esistenziale e l’audacia artistica di Britney Spears
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There are few moments on
First Impressions of Earth (RCA, 2006) that recall the past:
Juicebox and You Only Live Once being the best ones.
But Electricityscape, Heart In A Cage and the naked
ballad Ask Me Anything
add arena-rock or MOR touches that are reminiscent of U2 and other
moronic-pop acts. The second half of the album is haphazard at best,
relying too much on mediocre lyrics.
The band, for whom originality was never an asset, has lost quite a bit
of its verve. Less filler (this album is almost twice longer than their debut)
might have justified the effort to smooth out
and calm down the music, but so much filler makes one think that maybe
writing/singing filler is precisely what the Strokes' second phase is going to
be about.
Julian Casablancas debuted solo with Phrazes For The Young (RCA, 2009),
a collection of eight songs that embraced melody and electronics.
Except for Out of the Blue, that works as a feeble link with the Strokes,
the other seven complex songs rely on
mildly futuristic soundscapes paced by drum-machines
in a broad range of styles and methods, notably
River of Brakelights,
Ludlow St,
11th Dimension,
Tourist.
The Strokes made a truly collective album, not driven by Casablanca's
lyrics and melodies but first composed by the band and then turned into
songs by the frontman, with Angles (2011). The album is split
between familiar Strokes catchy ditties like Gratisfaction (reminiscent of Thin Lizzy's The Boys Are Back in Town), Under Cover of Darkness (that sounds like a lost singalong of British pub-rock of the late 1970s) and Taken For a Fool (that could have been an Elvis Costello hit); and "experiments" that mostly fail miserably like
the synth-pop of Games,
the U2-fied reggae of Machu Picchu,
the tedious ballad Life is Simple in the Moonlight,
and
Two Kinds of Happiness (with staccato electronic keyboards a` la Cars' You Might Think I'm Crazy).
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Christian Dalenz)
Ci sono alcuni pezzi
di First Impressions of Earth (RCA,
2006) che richiamano il passato: Juicebox
e You Only Live Once sono i migliori.
Ma Electricityscape, Heart in a Cage e la spoglia ballata Ask Me Anything aggiungono tocchi di
arena rock e MOR che ricordano gli U2 e altri stupidi momenti pop. La seconda
metà dell'album è al massimo fatta a casaccio e fa affidamento su testi
mediocri. La band, che non ha mai avuto l'originalità come patrimonio, ha perso
parecchio della sua verve. Meno riempitivi (quest'album è lungo quasi il doppio
di quello di debutto) potrebbero aver giustificato lo sforzo di attenuare e
calmare la musica, ma così tanti riempitivi fanno pensare che forse testi e
canto ripetitivi è esattamente ciò di cui sarà fatta la seconda fase degli
Strokes.
Julian Casablancas ha
debuttato da solista con Phrazes For The Young (RCA, 2009), una collezione di otto
canzoni che abbracciano melodia e suoni elettronici. Eccetto Out of the Blue, che fa da collegamento
sottile con gli Strokes, le altre sette complesse canzoni si affidano a
paesaggi sonori dolcemente futuristici al passo di drum-machine in un'ampia
gamma di stili e metodi, in particolare River of Brakelights,Ludlow St, 11th Dimension, Tourist.
Gli Strokes
fecero un album davvero collettivo, guidato non dai testi e dalla musica di
Casablancas ma composti prima dalla band e poi trasformati in canzoni dal
frontman, con Angles (RCA, 2011).
L'album è diviso tra familiari e orecchiabili canzonette alla Strokes come Gratisfaction (che ricorda The Boys Are Back In Town dei Thin
Lizzy), Under Cover of Darkness (che suona come un perduto "singalong"
del pub-rock britannico dei tardi '70) e Taken
for a Fool (che sarebbe potuta essere una hit di Elvis Costello); e
"esperimenti" che per la maggior parte falliscono miseramente come il
synth-pop di Games, il reggae
ispirato agli U2 di Macchu Picchu, la
tediosa ballata Life is Simple in the
Moonlight, e Two Kind of Happiness
(con tastiere elettroniche in staccato nello stile di You Might Think I'm Crazy dei Cars).
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Julian Casablancas and the Voidz:
Tyranny (Cult, 2014)
The 11-minute Human Sadness sounds like it was recorded by a group of
kindergarten children studio armed with a sampling device: just about
everything happens. Except that Casablanca keeps singing on the underveloped
mush, trying to provide a structure and a meaning, and his operatic excesses
sound particularly funny, occasionally bordering on
Queen-ish parody.
It is particularly a bad idea when he tries to be too melodic, like the guitar
refrain of Johan Von Bronx, which truly sounds like a musichall skit.
In cases of extreme zaniness, the sloppiness becomes an asset: the
seven-minute Father Electricity actually benefits from the way the
orgiastic Caribbean polyrhythms are completely wasted against a pathetic litany
and a mournful organ.
Within such a collage of dislocated genres, a regular Strokes-ian rocker like
Business Dog or
Where No Eagles Fly sounds like a mistake.
"Eccentric" does not even come close.
For the record, some of the songs are anti-war and anti-capitalist propaganda.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da xxx)
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