Is This It arrived at the tail end of 2001 sounding like it had been recorded in a basement on equipment held together with gaffer tape and optimism. That was, of course, entirely the point. Gordon Raphael's production strips everything back to the absolute essentials — two interlocking guitars, a driving bass, drums that hit like someone kicking a cardboard box, and Julian Casablancas singing through what sounds like a telephone from 1974. The result is one of the most perfectly realised aesthetic statements in rock history.
The genius of The Strokes' debut is in its economy. Not a single note is wasted. Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi play guitars like two halves of the same brain, their parts meshing with the precision of a Swiss watch. Listen to the way their lines weave around each other on "Someday" — one playing a clean, chiming arpeggio while the other adds a slightly overdriven countermelody — and you hear a band that has rehearsed these songs until they could play them in their sleep and still make them sound effortless.
Casablancas's melodies are deceptively simple. "Last Nite" borrows its chord progression from Tom Petty with cheerful impunity, but the vocal melody he drapes over it is so sharp, so instantly memorable, that the song becomes entirely its own thing. "Hard to Explain" packs more melodic ideas into three minutes than most bands manage in an entire career, the verse melody tumbling downward while the chorus lifts skyward in a way that creates an almost gravitational pull.
Nikolai Fraiture's bass work is the unsung hero of the record. On "Is This It," his descending bass line carries the entire song, providing the harmonic movement while the guitars hover on a single chord. Fab Moretti's drumming is similarly restrained — simple, driving patterns that never draw attention to themselves but provide exactly the right foundation for every song.
The album clocks in at just over thirty-six minutes, and every second counts. There is no filler, no self-indulgence, no moment where the band loses focus. Is This It is a masterclass in the art of making rock music that sounds both timeless and immediate, and it has not aged a single day.
