It’s been ten years since The Strokes released the raw, genre-defining album “Is This It”, which has since been named the Best Album of the Decade by NME, among other titles and accolades. Holy shit! Ten years? It still sounds hip today, which cannot be said for a lot of other popular releases from 2001.
Stereogum brings us this compilation of covers in tribute to the album, each track covered once by an artist from a different perspective. They’ve released similar compilations, like a tribute to Radiohead‘s “Ok Computer” and another to Bjork‘s “Post”. It’s all quality stuff, featuring some really cool indie acts covering their influences.
Some of the tracks are really incredible re-imaginations of The Strokes original songs. For what is probably the catchiest example on the entire compilation, The Morning Benders give “Last Nite” a slowed-down-disco treatment, complete with a retro beat and bass line. The song’s melodies get a major buff-up from what sounds like a vocoder, but could be pitch-correction software (I’m not experienced enough to know). Either way, this cover is primed to blow up on your local MP3 aggregator.
Another standout is Owen Pallett‘s cover of “Hard To Explain”, a richly layered landscape portrait of what was originally something like a Polaroid photo. The strings are intense, accompanied only by a piano and Pallett’s voice. In the online liner notes, he refers to a Regina Spektor quote comparing The Strokes to classical composer Mozart. (Whaaat?)
The song that I heard first from this compilation was tweeted by Heems, or Himanshu Suri, the Indian-American third of Brooklyn’s stoner-rap trio Das Racist. His cover is a rhyming rant about multiple instances of NYC police brutality, rapped over a beat that samples “New York City Cops”. It’s sometimes unintelligible, but a fitting cover of the song that was yanked from “Is This It” after 9/11 to show support for NYC’s finest.
Other tracks that will remain in heavy rotation on my iTunes for the next couple of weeks: Deradoorian’s dub-reggae cover of “Trying Your Luck”, Peter Bjorn & John‘s true-to-the-original cover of “Is This It”, and Real Estate’s chill/surf/folk take on “Barely Legal”.
Download the compilation and read the artist-submitted liner notes at Stereogum.
Peter Bjorn & John – “Is This It”
Chelsea Wolfe – “The Modern Age”
Frankie Rose – “Soma”
Real Estate – “Barely Legal”
Wise Blood – “Someday”
Austra – “Alone, Together”
The Morning Benders – “Last Night”
Owen Pallett – “Hard To Explain”
Heems – “New York City Cops”
Deradoorian – “Trying Your Luck”
Computer Magic – “Take It Or Leave It”
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