The Strokes- Room On Fire is really really great

This was a pleasant surprise coming across this thread!

I have a big soft spot for this album. This is one of the few albums where I can perfectly remember buying and listening to it. I bought it at a mall after finishing one of my college classes for the day. I sat on my bed in my room with my headphones on. I remember being thankful that they had including the lyrics, which came in this big fold up booklet. It had the long photo of the band standing on a rooftop with the blue hued city behind them as night was about to fall. It was getting dark and outside my window the sky was matching the photo of the band in the book. I remember feeling excited to hear new songs by them, the only song off the album that I heard was 12:51, a catchy but ultimately flat song. I was sitting on my bed with a grin on my face because the songs were immediately catchy (which always was the bands strong suit) and they sounded so Strokes like, with the scratchy guitars of Automatic Stop, or Meet Me in The Bathroom. I had read that Under Control was a new direction for them, with it's motown drums, and was impressed (and soon flat out in love) with the song. By the time I Can't Win ended the album, I had a big grin on my face, and then listened to the songs over and over again. You know that moment when you've heard a song, and you are starting to realize how great it is, and are able to anticipate the great moments? I wish it was possible to hold on to such a feeling, before the song you've played over and over again begins to lose its magic.

The album was well received when it came out, but there was a weird period where it was criticized as not being very good. Personally, while I think "Is This It" is an overall better album, Room On Fire is my favourite of those two. I think the band deserves to be much bigger they they are, but I think on that album they just chose the wrong singles.

It's great to see them back on tour, though, and playing the better songs off that album, in Whatever Happened, I Can't Win, and my favourite song of theirs (and of all time, period), Under Control:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApaDf_hTfXI

I tried to resist The Strokes back in the day*, but they overcame my defences pretty quickly. I've never counted them among my top favourite bands but they have been one of the most consistently entertaining and I've liked almost every song they've done (as well as much of their solo business) so Room On Fire is just fine with me.


*I believe it went something like, "Rich NYC boys playing dirty garage rock? Fuck off posers, I'll stick with The Datsuns and The White Stripes. Oh wait a minute ... they're not a dirty garage rock band, they're a garage pop band. And fuck, they're good at it."