Tag Archives: room on fire

#1118: The Strokes – Reptilia

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What can you say about The Strokes’ ‘Reptilia’? I don’t think it’s unfair to say it’s one of indie rock’s most iconic songs. It’s definitely one of the band’s most popular efforts, there’s no doubt in that. You got the Albert Hammond Jr’s guitar riff during the intro. You’ve got Nick Valensi’s guitar break before the choruses. You got Nikolai Fraiture slamming that B note on the bass guitar alongside Fab Moretti’s steady drum pattern. You got Hammond Jr. doing his own solo during the chorus before Valensi carries out his guitar solo during the instrumental break. And then there’s Julian Casablancas, croony as ever on the vocals with a great melody, before going all shouty at various points. It’s one that gets the crowd cheering at every live gig the band’ll do. It’s one of my personal favourite Strokes tracks too, and one of the reasons why I always go to Room on Fire when I’m looking for a Strokes album to listen through.

The track’s one that feels like it’s always been there as long as I’ve existed. But I want to say that I can remember hearing the song for the first time too. Part of the instrumental was used on a football programme that was showing on Sky One. A programme that I couldn’t even try and think of what the title was. This was a long, long time ago. It would have been around 2003, so Room on Fire would have been out for maybe only a few months at the time. I was also eight. A short, short snippet of the song was used. Then the show carried on, and that was that. I kind of forgot about the song. Not that I even knew the song in order to forget it. I didn’t even know where it came from or who it was by. But then I saw the music video for the track on MTV2 some time later, had the feeling that I’d heard this exact same music somewhere before, and the dots suddenly connected. The Strokes videos were always being shown on MTV2, so again, I couldn’t tell you when the first time I saw it was. I did probably think that ‘Reptilia’ was a strange name for the song, though.

Speaking of the music video, it’s just so good, isn’t it? One of my favourites. One of those where if it had any other style or director or just wasn’t filmed in the same way it was, the whole music/visual aspect would be thrown off. It just matches the music perfectly. You’ll see that I haven’t once noted any thoughts on the meaning of the song. That’s because, and I’ve only realised this myself, I don’t think I’ve ever wondered what this song was about. There was once a time on Wikipedia where the track was categorised as one that was ‘about suicide’. That was a while ago too, I’m not sure that page exists on there anymore. If I did think about what the meaning was, it wouldn’t be that. Everything in the song sounds fantastic, though. Was surprised to find, after doing the research on Strokes when figuring them out initially, that this track was released as the second single from Room on Fire, with ’12:51′ being the first. Between those two, I know ‘Reptilia’ would make me more excited for a new album that was on the horizon. Seems that Fab Moretti felt the same way. Shout out to ’12:51′ though, that song’s smooth.

#567: The Strokes – I Can’t Win

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I am in that small group of people who prefer The Strokes’ sophomore album Room on Fire to their widely-loved debut Is This It. The latter gathers all the acclaim from fans and critics alike because it arrived at a time when the mainstream was dominated by boy bands and nu-metal, and ushered in a new wave of indie/garage-rock bands in the early 2000s. Also, it has the tunes to back it up. The title track? Great. ‘Hard to Explain’? Awesome. ‘Take It or Leave It’? Very nice, indeed.

However, it’s rough-around-the-edges style of production has always been something that’s stopped me from liking it as much as I probably could. On Room on Fire every track sounds slicker, more precise and tighter in execution; if Is This It had that sound I would probably like it a lot more. But what can you do? Also I just like more songs on Room than on their debut which would sway my stance on the matter.

And so the album closes with today’s song, ‘I Can’t Win’, a two and a half minute package of catchy guitar riffs, a steady rhythm section and signature crooning by Julian Casablancas. Very much like the rest of the songs on the album, his vocals are low in the mix allowing an emphasis on the instrumentation provided by the other four members. The song addresses the feeling when someone with low motivation attempts to try something out but often gives up or is told that they’re not good enough. Something relatable for many a person. I’ve also thought that it’s a sneaky self-conscious commentary by Casablancas on fans and critics who wouldn’t accept the music they were doing, and in that respect he couldn’t win.

“Yeah, I wait for something
Cool it, we won’t take that shit
Good try, we don’t like it
Hold on, yes, I’ll be right back”

The Strokes wouldn’t be back for two and a bit years. Then ‘Juicebox’ came around. That’s for another day.

My iPod #325: The Strokes – The End Has No End

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“The End Has No End” is a track by The Strokes that can be found on the band’s album “Room on Fire“, their second album released in 2003.

Although it was released as the final single from that album and The Strokes had been around for about two/three years by that time, this was actually the first Strokes song I ever heard. I distinctly remember watching its video on MTV2, right around the time that it had probably been released or something.

The song’s music video features appearances from hot ladies Mila Kunis and Eva Mendes, though surprisingly they didn’t do anything much for me as much as Julian Casablancas’ voice did. That sounds very wrong, I know. But his general lower register singing voice as well as the repetitive melody of the chorus got stuck in my head for a while. That was until I forgot it some time later. It was until I was lying in my bed looking outside one of the windows of my house when “The Ennnnd Has Noooooooo Ennnnnnd” silently started playing in my head, and I just carried on singing it over and over again.

I like this track a lot. It’s probably one of my favourite Strokes songs just because it was the first one I heard by them. Was very lucky to be watching MTV2 all those years ago.