The White Stripes: Candy Coated Blues Beats

The White Stripes were one of the bands that were caught up in the hype of the 2000s. However, unlike most of these bands, they were actually pretty decent. Before their breakthrough album, White Blood Cells, they already had two cracking albums. All it took for them to be propelled to success was Michel Gondry's lego video for the ridiculously catchy "Fell In Love With a Girl" and the sheer timing of it all: the magical year of 2001.

I got into The White Stripes through White Blood Cells. I'm not even going to lie and will flat out say that their third album was terrific. Sure the novelty of a two person band - a girl who couldn't play drums very well and a pasty white guy pretending he was black - and the fluffy story of a brother and sister (they were actually a divorced couple) bursting eardrums together was nice but to actually sit down and listen to this album, you could tell that Jack White had some soul in him. This was the first album that was cover-free (De Stijl, the other great White Stripes album, had covers by Son House and Blind Willie McTell) and showed that White had some chops and tunes in him.

Sold on White Blood Cells, I went out and got De Stijl. Again, another awesome album that had only come out the year before. It was a lot more raucous than their Big Album, but it was more of a punch to the face. It's still an album I highly regard to this day: it was an album of the band finding themselves, finding their bluesy niche, which made White Blood Cells possible.

Knowing that this band's second and third albums were already on my good list, I was of course excited for their fourth album, Elephant. It marked the band's major label debut and an album to prove themselves after the hype machine. Honestly, I feel like they did a good enough job but it was definitely a feeling of having to prove they're still good now that they have a major label backing them up. It's also the only album that made me stop listening to The White Stripes.

Perhaps that was the start of my "this band only had a few good albums" mindset. Mind you, I do not think this of every band, but I feel - at least in the 2000s - many bands only had a few good albums in them and might've stretched out their creativity too long. 2007's Icky Thump had a couple of good tunes but overall it was just not good. I file The White Stripes in the same category as The Strokes: bands that, at the time, had a lot of potential but are now seen as novelties.

I still listen to the shit out of De Stijl and White Blood Cells. Back in high school, I knew how to play White Blood Cells in it's entirety. I used to sit down and just play that album and probably piss off my neighbors.

Besides, this song will always and forever fucking rule:

How The Strokes Proved Themselves to be a Flash in the Pan

It's hard to believe that nearly 10 years ago (seriously, 10 years ago?) The Strokes put out their phenomenal album, Is This It. This album actually came out first in the UK, since the Brits eat up anything remotely cool and exhaust the shit out of it (bonus points if the band is from New York City), and the UK album cover was far more provocative (the photographer's girlfriend's bare ass cupped by a latex gloved hand). The UK version of this album also had a song entitled "New York City Cops", which bashed the NYPD, but was promptly removed in favor for "When It Started" thanks to the 9/11 attacks.

It was The Strokes' first album, which during the 2000s meant that this was most likely their best album. The Strokes changed everything . Music at the time desperately needed to be changed: the most popular bands of the year were Nickelback, Korn, and Limp Bizkit. Along came a group of five disheveled, greasy, pimply, most likely hadn't showered in days, and poorly dressed rich kids who had immigrated to the LES. Much like Nirvana back in the early 90s, when "Last Nite" invaded the MTV airwaves with its 70's quality production, we all knew this band was different.

Back in 2001, The Strokes changed everything for me. I had heard "The Modern Age" before and thought it was pretty cool. My friend Muriel and I both asked if the other had heard of this new band. We felt like they were our little thing for a while. "Last Nite" came out and it seemed like overnight The Strokes got huge. Kids at our high school started dressing just like their favorite Stroke, girls thought they were sexy (and yours truly was no different; my teenage heart belonged to Julian Casablancas), and they were just fucking cool.

Then of course there were loads of singles, lots of club tours, and The Strokes got bigger. They helped usher in a new style of music: a throwback to garage rock by bands whose names stated with "The". Thanks to The Strokes, already established bands like The White Stripes got recognition while a lot of others hopped on the bandwagon (The Pattern? The Vines?). The band put out their sophomore effort, Room on Fire in 2003, and fell to the sophomore slump. Their third and most recent album, First Impressions of Earth, was a complete disappointment and only had one good song ("You Only Live Once").

The band has taken an indefinite hiatus to pursue other projects: Julian Casablancas released a lackluster solo album in 2009, Albert Hammond Jr. released a couple of mediocre solo efforts, Fabrizo Moretti had Little Joy (again the theme here is mediocre), Nick Valensi had children, and who knows what happened to Nikolai Fraiture. There had been talks of the band getting back together to record soon.

With The Strokes' heyday way past us, it's made me realize how much The Strokes have shaped pop culture as of right now. Prior to the band coming out, no one dressed grungy and ironically. Now it's the norm and what you'd find in places like Wet Seal. Bands have taken a very minimal sound and young kids are getting into lesser mainstream acts. I'm sure with the new dawn of a new decade, we'll get something else and it'll make what we grew up with seem dated but until then, we have The Strokes to thank for that.


Yesterday I nearly had a panic attack realizing this when I was in the shower. Listening to Is This It brings a lot of odd memories for me: times when I was careless, when what mattered most to me was what show I could go to that weekend and how I was going to get there, when music was probably even more important than it is to me now. Realizing that this album, most likely the album of the 2000s, came out almost 10 years ago is like the first sign of my aging. I'm feeling the first pangs of nostalgia and it most certainly won't be the last time I long for my youth.