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"Juicebox" from The Strokes' "First Impressions of Earth"

In the interest of full disclosure, I am 35 years old and way past the point where a current rock band should mean anything to me anymore. Additionally, the only new albums I bought with my own money last year were the LCD Soundsystem disc, Beck’s Guero, and the Wilco live record. (However, I did buy the No New York re-issue, which immediately made me feel cooler and smarter than any other new disc that I could have purchased would have made me feel). This is all just preamble to the point that I need to make now. Despite all that I have just said, The Strokes mean something to me.

When the group’s first album came out, I was desperately in need of a new band to really dig and The Strokes fit the bill: they looked cool, they sounded great, and they referenced (directly or indirectly) all the older bands I was rediscovering at the time. Much has been made of the brevity of The Strokes’ first two albums, but the band’s debut, Is This It, is one of those records, like Nigga Please or With The Beatles, that is exactly as long as it should be: 35 minutes, all killer, no filler. The subsequent Room On Fire expanded the sound of the debut in small but effective ways: the reggae lilt of “Automatic Stop” and “Between Love and Hate,” the faux keytar of “12:51” and especially the towering Smokey Robinson re-write “Under Control.” However, that disc was about two songs too long and, being as it also clocked in at a little over half an hour, pretty slight.

Which brings us to the present and the unfortunately titled First Impressions of Earth. Although over the last two years I was desperately hoping for The Strokes to produce a stunning third album in line with such classics as London Calling or OK Computer, my hopes for the record were considerably diminished by consistently poor blog reviews of the leaked album and the underwhelming “Juicebox” single (no more a real single in any respect than “Reptilia” was from Room On Fire). The lyrics quoted out of context sounded ridiculous and bitchy, and the continuing game of “Spot the Reference” (Television, the Pogues, Blondie, the Cramps?, Barry Manilow?!) just gave me a huge headache. But the funny part is, when you actually sit down and listen to the whole album, it doesn’t really matter that “You Only Live Once” kinda sounds like Television or that the chorus of “Razorblade” sounds a lot like “Mandy” by Barry Manilow, any more than it did that the Oasis song “Shakermaker” sounded a lot like “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.” “Shakermaker” was a great song, about a thousand times better than that goddamned Coke jingle, and I’d listen to “Razorblade” about 50 times in a row before I’d eat a scorching hot slice of pizza off Barry Manilow’s face. And yes, “You Only Live Once” does sound kinda like a Television song, but it sounds like a great Television song played in a huge arena, and that counts for a lot. Besides, Television hasn’t recorded a great song in more than 25 years, so screw it. (The only instances where this really matters is in a situation like George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord,” which does not sound better than the song it was lifted from, “He’s So Fine” by the Chiffons; but then Harrison’s “What is Life?” from that same album is a better song than both of ’em and it sounded great in that Scorcese movie, so all is forgiven.)

The choice of “Juicebox” as a single really points up the biggest problem with FIOE, as well as indirectly displaying its greatest strengths. Since the song “12:51” was released as a single off of Room on Fire, The Strokes camp has made uniformly bad decisions about single releases. “Juicebox” is no exception. Although it is, in fact, a nasty little rocker, “Juicebox” only makes sense sandwiched between “You Only Live Once” and “Heart in a Cage”—the same role “Reptilia” filled on Room On Fire. This is why they call them “album tracks.” Thing is, though, FIOE is nothing but album tracks—this is the reason why the initial response to individually leaked songs was so poor, and why there will be no hit single from this record. These songs don’t make sense by themselves, downloaded and added to your “playlist”—this is a big chunk of 1971 by way of 2020, and it needs to be processed as such. And yes, it’s true, there is a lull on FIOE that begins a little over halfway through the disc, but I had to listen to Side 3 of Exile on Main Street about a million times before its subtle beauty began to reveal itself to me. Now, I’m not saying that FIOE is Exile, or even There’s a Riot Goin’ On. In fact, a week from now I may have decided that it’s Be Here Now, but it is without question a rock album in the truest sense and deserves to be listened to that way. Whether or not it is a great rock album is a decision that every listener is just going to have to make for themselves.