I just had that feeling when you go track down the artwork for an album you got from a burned CD. "It's a great gesture," you think to yourself as you shake your head when you notice that the names of these new tracks are nowhere to be found. The reason I would go through such a hassle? I wanted to hear the Strokes at the highest possible original quality. It's the kind of ritual that seems silly if you had to re-download the tracks and paid more to get them as a finished version. But above all we must remember, it's the Strokes.
Room on Fire contains some of the biggest Strokes hits aside from their first album consensus-perfection Is This It, released on Sept. 11, 2001 (and taking it's own place in musical history that day.) Not that I would have noticed, being in the 5th grade. I wasn't exactly concerned with indie and garage rock fading into obscurity at the preference of modern techno and electronic acts such as the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers in its place. But it did "save" garage rock or at least remind the public it existed. Fast forward to the release of Room on Fire. We see a band faced with the impossible task of trying to have a second bolt of lightning strike upon them. However, this denim-clad crew decided they were still up to the challenge, and just decided to have a great time and make the most fun record they could while doing it. (Think if the new Kings of Leon album came after Only By The Night but was truly their second album. Actually, that still doesn't make it any better.)
The result is some of their loosest riffs and most beautiful melodies that evoke smoky images of Brooklyn rooms on risque nights. The dichotomy of their love-hate relationships coupled with the struggle for an identity as a young adult creeps into each lyric. The blaring melancholy in the voice of Julian Casablancas as "The Way It Is" plays and peers back to the age of the blues and soul singers exorcising their demons on stage. They even made it onto Rolling Stone, but not with a typical photo putting one member in the spotlight but being considered a legitimate band rather than a gimmick. To be a band like that means to endure to the point of becoming literary or art history in years to follow; to jump off the mouths of well-to-do trendsters and self-promoted intellectuals.
