Blogaday #4: Alone We Stand, Together We Fall Apart

Tweet

Julian went to rehab at 14. Life ain't easy for the son of a business-mogul and a model livin' in NYC

God, I'm tired today. Blogaday #4 very nearly didn't happen. Just now I layed down and rested my eyelids for about 6 seconds and thought "Ahh. No one reads that damn blog anyway," but then I instantly felt more guilty than I ever have before. Think Phil Spector multiplied by the power of O.J Simpson. That guilty.

The Strokes then. Still got a massive fanbase in this country which largely rides on the back of an album they made nine years ago and the fact that they are all really good looking blokes and/or quite cool. Okay, maybe not the bassist but the point still stands. 'Is This It' still completely stands up for me as it happens. It's a strange one because if you dissected it and added up all the influences in there, you'd probably think it would sound a bit dated by now. A bit contrived even. Yet, it really doesn't. To me, it still sounds timeless in a completely untraditional way. 'Hard to Explain' knocks the majority of singles from the past decade into a hat. It is the perfect 'indie' song. As urgent as it is detached, it really is a marvel.

I'm talking about The Strokes because I just read a funny little 'article' on NME.com. As always with this website (see Korn story from a couple of posts back), their stories really aren't anything at all. This one is simply a short offhand quote Julian Casablancas (how is that name not fictional?!) gave to XFM padded out a bit. Yo NME, you can't pad a padder. Every post I've ever made has about two valid sentences and a whole load of padding. My posts are pixels and html code dressed in American football gear.

The quote:

"It’s [the new album] been a labour!," he said. "It's all good. I was going to make a joke and say it was a labour of necessity, but no, it’s going to be fantastic."

I love this. It's almost passive-aggressive. There have been rumours abound for ages that The Strokes simply hate each others New York condo dwelling guts. It's no secret and this quote reflects it perfectly. By saying "...I was going to make a joke," yet then still going on to make the joke is the kind of thing I do all the time. It usually manifests itself in a "I could say something mean here. I mean, I could. If I was being horrible right now I could say that .." sort of way.

Keep it up Casablancas. I'm sure the album is going to be, well, I was going to make a joke there and say it's an album too far, but no, it's going to be fantastic.

Title taken from this beauty below: