Week 33: The Strokes - Is This It (2001)

I shudder to think how true audiophiles feel about lo-fi music. To the music consumer who struggles to make sure every note comes through just as recorded, lo-fidelity genres like garage rock, a genre that distorts itself as much as possible from recording to mastering to get its sound, must feel like a cruel joke. All of those lost sub-tones, microvariations, and studio noises are like a slap in the face to every $600 dollar pair of headphones and thousand-dollar-plus studio systems in the world.

Being a low-grade audiophile (my headphones are in the relatively cheap $200-400 range) myself, I’ve had my share of issues with lo-fi music for years. Even if it is a deliberate choice these days to release a mass market album that sounds like something recorded in the 40s, it still grates at me that some musicians choose to sacrifice whole aspects of their songs in pursuit of some form of “authentic sound”. The fact that this music often sounds grittier than what was made in that era is all the more irritating.

Even in standard pop, which is generally crafted to be as hi-fidelity as possible, the issues involved in the Loudness War make it more unlistenable than even the most enthusiastic of the garage rock revivalists. Between the mass compression created by increasing the volume of the music and the pervasive, much-hated effects of Auto-Tune, modern-day plastic pop comes through just as lossy as most lo-fi music. The only difference is that artists of the latter type are limiting the noises found in their music for a deliberate reason. Even if that reason is flawed, misguided, or plain old infuriating (as it so often is), it’s at least being done for reasons other than grabbing people’s attention.

What both garage rock revivalists and pop producers are aiming for, I think, is some degree of dehumanization, albeit through very different methodologies. Both genres are focused, by and large, on amping up large numbers of people in the most direct way possible. The way to do that isn’t with clever lyrics or ornate instrumentation, but through punch-in-the-gut levels of noise, layered together into a cohesive whole. The songwriting can be as brilliant as it wants, so long as it doesn’t call attention to itself with the kinds of post-modern quirks found in alternative and art music. Everything must be presented in a way that contributes to the greater whole, the exact opposite of the look-at-me solos found in most rock and metal songs.

As bizarre as it may seem, lo-fidelity music’s ultimate aim is aesthetic appeal; the simple fact that musicians in the genre are reaching for an ideal sound (which, in most cases, is the mangled noise of Robert Johnson) ensures that, even if it is the polar opposite of pop’s ideally ‘perfect’ sound. Generally, both processes even end up achieving remarkably similar effects: both genres are marked by distorted vocals (lo-fi through distortion and pop through Auto-Tuning), a de-emphasis on instrumental solos, and a general lack of flashy fills from the rhythm section. Both genres even tend to use volume dynamics for flashy effect, further narrowing the gap. Even if the specific type is different, garage rock and other lo-fi genres are as bound by their attempt to achieve a specific kind of sound and appeal to a specific audience as pop music is.

While The Black Keys and Jack White’s various bands mix this obligation with rock’n’roll swagger, The Strokes are far purer in their garage-revival methods, stripping away even the punk-style passion that most classic artists in the genre exhibited. In spite of its transistor radio sound, Is This It is closer to the proto-alternative asceticism of Television than the free-wheeling lo-fi of “96 Tears”. Though simpler in composition and virtuosity than Television’s self-titled debut, The Strokes are still a bit more academic than most garage rock I can think of, which was generally so upbeat that it ended up being a major part of the surf rock scene.

Even though there are some songs on the album that are most upbeat (the two major singles, “Last Nite” and “Someday” come to mind), the general mood of Is This It is closer to that of the mellow title track. Described by the band as their attempt at a ballad, “Is This It” is more deadpan than sad, with the singer, Julian Casablancas, sounding like he’s barely in the room. It’s not quite a sneer, and it’s not quite sarcastic; Casablancas’ detachment is more pronounced than either of those words suggests.

It’s that very detachment that grips most of the album, recalling Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights. Though Interpol’s album is a bit more lush and produced, both albums are fundamentally similar in that they share not only a deadpan mood but also a goal of portraying the bands’ shared home and origin: New York City. They also share a curious tendency of sounding detached and isolated in spite of any emotions the singers let peek through.

In the case of The Strokes, that sound of ghostly detachment has, in my opinion, a rather obvious cause: the album’s lo-fidelity. Casablancas’ voice sounds like its being played through a cheap radio set, and often sounds even more distorted than the instruments. The effect is similar to what happens to an R&B singer once they’ve been filtered through Auto-Tune: emotions fade and the singer seems to be standing too far away to hear very clearly.

That being said, the specifics are different. Is This It is a far cry from the heavily layered sound of contemporary R&B, adopting a sound I liken to superflat art. Aside from the comparatively pronounced bass, most of the songs on Is This It sound like they were mixed down to a 2-track tape, no doubt a result of the aforementioned cheap, lo-fi recording style used on the album. Even the tracks with relatively pronounced production, such as the two lead singles I mentioned before, seem compressed. That compressed sound is another similarity between this album and the lion’s share of contemporary pop, though whether this was completely deliberate or a symptom of the general Loudness War in modern music is a bit difficult to say.

Where Is This It differs from plastic, Auto-Tuned pop is that its sound and style were deliberate choices on the part of the band, rather than one made by its producers. Because of this, the album still feels and sounds human, albeit a somewhat 2-dimensional one. Instead of having trends and techniques hoisted upon it by a bottom-line motivated gang of engineers and technicians, Is This It has a sound that seems self-determined. What I read into it is entirely secondary to the fact that the album sounds like a couple of guys having a good time. That we’re apparently listening to that party through a wall or two dampens the effect, but it doesn’t erase it.