The Strokes, the band that is always in fashion

BarcelonaOn November 13, 2003, Rolling Stone magazine published its issue number 935. On the cover, The Strokes, who were releasing their second album, Room on fire. Music journalist Neil Strauss was in charge of the main interview with Julian Casablancas, the visible, and beautiful, face of the New York band. It had only been a year and a half since the group had exploded. They were the advanced heirs of the local scene of the seventies, concentrated in the legendary concert venue CBGB, in the East Village, and of bands like Television. The Strokes were the best reality of the new wave: they had released a majestic album, Is this it, and were the center of all eyes. Everything was going well. Or so it seemed, because Strauss, who years later published the full interview with the singer in the book Todos te quieren cuando estás muerto (Contra, 2012), found himself in front of someone decadent, exhausted, erratic, and visibly affected by alcohol consumption. The journalist described the meeting as "The worst interview of all time".

Things were not going as well as they might have seemed: it was not known that the Strokes were a band in decomposition, a point they have dangerously approached several times in the last quarter of a century. But they recovered, they have always recovered, and with the perspective of time it has been shown that possibly one of their greatest virtues has been, precisely, that of surviving, continuing, and persisting. Even in the worst moments.

However, there must be something more, because in October 2026, almost a quarter of a century later, they are still standing, headlining major festivals and with a trajectory that, while not immaculate, has consolidated them as one of the greatest rock bands of all time. In this case, as happens with so many groups of their stature, the songs speak for themselves. And not only that: their almost innate ability to know which trends to embrace and where the band had to go every time they entered the studio has also been key. Succeeding, also failing, but always aiming with precision. That is why, today, they still connect so well with young people and it makes this question pertinent: are The Strokes the most intergenerational rock band, and perhaps the greatest, of the 21st century? Let's talk about it.

A dazzling start

On July 30, 2001, the world discovered The Strokes, formed by Julian Casablancas, Nikolai Fraiture, Albert Hammond, Jr., Fabrizio Moretti, and Nick Valensi. It is the release date of their debut album, a record that immediately rose as the great savior of rock. It was not a genuine mission: it seems that rock has to be saved from time to time. The fact is that the specialized press latched onto this record as the great hope for good taste against such unstimulating trends as nu metal, which dominated the charts at the time. Is this it is a record that passes in a flash, a thirty-minute commotion of melodies as catchy as a tick. An elegant record, yet one that is gritty, energetic, and at the same time, languid. But above all, it is an unquestionable catalog of songs: Someday, Hard to explain, New York City Cops and, above all, Last Nite, a memorable and generational anthem, one of those songs that survive everything and everyone. All in all, it was a mixture of Velvet Underground, Television, Blondie, the Ramones... all the essence of New York was in that record.

The press elevated them to superstar status in the blink of an eye. Before the United States, they triumphed in England: NME rated Is this it with a resounding 10 out of 10, and defined it as "one of the best rock calls to arms ever." In The Guardian they were even more precise with their prediction: "They look like rock stars, talk like rock stars and act like rock stars.” And yes, they were exactly that: rock stars on a planetary scale. Their aesthetic helped: young people between 20 and 23 years old redefining the rock fashion of the moment and recovering the spirit of the downtown of the glorious years of Manhattan.

But before we continue: where had these guys come from? To put it bluntly, they were literally five posh kids from New York with airs. This business of being ragtag and losers, like in the seventies, was a thing of the past. They were all from good families, coming from high-society backgrounds, children of people with mountains of cash: heirs to art dealers, businessmen, or even a composer of super-hits for people like Whitney Houston or Julio Iglesias.

After spending eighteen months on a world tour, passing through North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia, and performing more than 150 concerts, they were completely burned out: “We were shattered. When the tour finally ended, we didn't even want to see each other,” explained Hammond Jr.. But, alas, the industry wheel waits for no one: at a moment when rock was playing on the radio again, with them and other luminaries like The White Stripes, The Hives, or The Libertines, it was necessary to take advantage of the momentum. The record label, RCA, forced the machine, and from there to the release, just two years later, of their second LP, rushed and with all the pressure in the world.

But, surprise, Room on Fire continued to sound fresh, modern, and undeniable: they had avoided the typical second-album slump after a successful debut and had added new instant classics, such as 12:51, What ever happened or, of course, Reptilia. With this song, Joan Delgado, drummer for Cala Vento, discovered them when he was only thirteen years old. “At that time, these types of bands didn't reach a boy from Torroella de Montgrí, but suddenly they popped up for me on YouTube and a new world opened up,” he explains. Since then, he has followed them religiously.

The initial magic trident was completed by First Impressions of Earth, in 2006, a work that perhaps lowered the level of the first two by a couple of steps, but still showed a band in shape and capable of manufacturing undeniable hits. With one, You Only Live Once, they went viral before that concept even existed, and they reached a generation that had not yet discovered them and that took the message and the acronym of this song (YOLO) as a mantra of pop existentialism.

But the goose that laid the golden eggs said enough. Up to here. They were one of the three or four biggest bands in the world, but they could not be squeezed with such intensity. The environment was unsustainable, with a backpack accumulating weight since 2001. Furthermore, one must add the tensions over creative control and substance abuse, all of which were triggers that led them to take an indefinite hiatus. They had lived too fast, too much on the edge. After six years, the magic had ended, at least for the moment. Then their side projects began, some of which have left continuity and good records, such as The Voidz, the chaotic, dystopian, and messy project by Julian Casablancas, or the pop albums by Albert Hammond Jr., always good and reliable.

Death and resurrection

Let's jump forward in time to May 29, 2015. The years, and the hard life, have taken their toll on Julian Casablancas. He maintains his charisma intact, but the time he has been a pop star, with everything that implies, added to his behavioral issues, weigh him down. He is performing with The Voidz, at the esplanade of the Forum of Cultures in Barcelona. It is dusk and a totally wild version of Vision of Division, from the Strokes' second album, is playing. It even seems that Casablancas is struggling to stay on his feet. From the audience, someone is recording with their mobile phone and captures the totally stunned face of his bandmate, Albert Hammond Jr., in the face of the Dantesque spectacle.

It might seem like the image of a band in destruction. But no. After a six-year hiatus, the New Yorkers returned to make a couple of albums together. The band's second phase featured Angles and Comedown Machine, two scattered, messy, and to a certain extent exotic albums. With some moments of brilliance (Under Cover Of Darkness, Machu Picchu, All The Time) but irregular and, in general, unsuccessful.

And at this point, the big question is: why do they remain important beyond nostalgia? Because of their inseparable commitment to giving their sound another twist every time. The Strokes could have made the same album their whole lives, but they have preferred their artistic ambition to outweigh the monetary one. And even so, not only have they maintained their popularity, being headliners at Coachella or Primavera Sound, two of the most prestigious festivals in the world, but they have connected like no other band of their generation –for example, the Arctic Monkeys– with the young audience.

Throughout 25 years they have been erratic at times, but they have always kept three very important factors in the world of pop very high: the aura, so fashionable today, the restless will for constant change, and the innate ability to make infectious melodies. And the best example was The new abnormal, the 2020 album after another long hiatus. They had the pretension of continuing to make mass-appeal music, without refusing to evolve with the techniques of the moment and knowing how to view the context with perspective. "Managing to make their best album after so many years is not within reach of practically anyone, and it has happened to The Strokes," explains Joan Delgado, from Cala Vento. For him, The New Abnormal "even surpassed their first albums," and what is certain is that it managed to please a whole new generation: "Young people no longer care aboutReptilia or Last nite, but they do care about The Adults are talking. They have managed to reconnect," asserts the drummer regarding one of the album's hits. No one from their batch can say that: not Arctic Monkeys, not Muse, not The Killers... no major mass-appeal band of this style has managed to maintain a connection with the new generations like they have, moving away from what had worked for them and embracing new recording techniques in the genre, from the synthesizer to autotune.

Now they return to Barcelona to present Reality Awaits, an album that just came out this summer and that pushes the bet to sound different to the extreme. For the moment, it has not been particularly well-received, but with these people you never know: the majority of their albums did not make an impact at first and ended up being classics.