For some reason, there is an inverse relationship between New York City's fortunes and the quality of the new music coming out of its rock scene.
The last time that local New York rock acts were really relevant, so the theory goes, was in the middle and late 1970s. As the South Bronx burned, striking garbage men let the city fester in its own filth and City Hall scrambled to fix a spiraling fiscal crisis, downtown clubs such as CBGB's and Max's Kansas City played host to punk and new wave acts such as Blondie, the Ramones and Talking Heads. This loud and fast music, played in sweaty dive bars, influenced music worldwide.
Since the end of that era, the New York City club scene, which produced such genre-defining artists as Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground, hasn't produced many acts of a caliber similar to their predecessors. Most recently, as the city underwent an economic boom fueled by the stock market and the Internet, rock and roll has turned into a headless beast; its home turf the garages and basements of suburban Anytowns across the country.
The latest chapter in the story of New York's contribution to rock is still being written, but the rough draft looks something like this: the combination of the stock market downturn and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 led New York City once again down the road of instability, fleeing capital and municipal budget shortfalls. From the ashes of "Silicon Alley" and pipe dreams of Dow 36,000 rises a new band - a bunch of raggedy rich kids calling themselves The Strokes. An improved and updated version of that seminal New York band, the Velvet Underground, the Strokes have come to save rock from the angry quasi-rappers and whiny, self-important depressed pseudo-goths who had taken over the airwaves.
As Flava Flav, another New Yorker, would say, "don't believe the hype."
Signed first in the U.K. and subsequently hyped by the British music press as the next big thing and the savior of rock, The Strokes have spent most of the year playing gigs across the pond. It was only this month that their debut full-length album, Is This It, was released in America.
Lead singer Julian Casablancas, drummer Fab Moretti, guitarists Al Hammond, Jr., Nick Valensi and bassist Nikolai Fraiture were very recently uptown prep-schoolers who founded the band in 1998. They wear vintage clothing and don't comb their hair, which means that they look exactly what the rest of the world thinks New York rockers should look like.
As for the album, that too is exactly what it ought to sound like. The drums are relentless, the guitars are driving and the vocals sound like they were recorded off of an intercom. In fact, Is This It sounds like what Velvet Underground would have if they had more of a pop sensibility, or like The Ramones if they slowed down a tad and made their lyrics more traditional (i.e. about youth, alienation and young love).
Don't get me wrong, I love The Strokes' music. They may sound a lot like other bands from their part of the world, but that doesn't mean that they don't rock. "Last Nite" is a great straight-on rock song that has the party classic potential of "Louie Louie" and the intensity of "Rockaway Beach." Frankly, all the songs on Is This It are fast, loud and fun straight-on rock tunes. In fact, the biggest disappointment on Is This It is the fact that "NYC Cops," which is on foreign versions of the CD, was removed from the U.S. release out of sensitivity to police victims of the terrorist attack. Light years away from NWA's "Fuck da Police," the worst (and only) thing that the song says about New York's Finest is that "they ain't too smart." Avoiding such a minor insult by removing an otherwise very fun song is a gross perversion of a good impulse.
With or without "NYC Cops," Is This It is good for jumping around your room, driving dangerously fast or just getting wasted. The Strokes are probably not the next Velvet Underground, but for a bunch of 20-year-olds, they've made a good start toward restoring New York City to the status of a world rock capital.
