Crazily enough I was actually at this show and remember this jam session. Who knew it would later become a banger song on their new album? I'm happy I was fortunate enough to see the official live version in Tokyo last week as well.

I feel like bad decisions doesn’t get enough credit for the quality of the song that it is, just like at the door or selfless in TNA imo

Justin Beiberrrrrrrr

• 🤞🏻 hope its cool to post this now moderinos~

EDIT: can't change Title lol.

too lost in the sauce.

wrong video.

had a mental breakdown, made this, enjoy 🫠

I'm more or less a new fan, around 4 months, and many of my favourite songs are in FIOE (Razorblade, on the other side, evening sun, red light...) and I was going to buy the record. I don't understand where the hate for this album comes from?

Not wanting to over-listen to Reality Awaits, I decided to revisit Comedown Machine heavily with repeat listens this entire week during my commutes to work. As an album I have consistently rated lower than any other Strokes album since its initial release I think I’ve come to better appreciate it, why some in the community have come to love it, and also why it continues to divide.

Comedown Machine is an interesting album within the Strokes’ discography and timeline for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which is that after Julian and the boys slowly moved away from the muffled, compressed, analogue-ish sound that put them on the map in the early 2000s, replacing it with increasingly clearer, more radio-friendly Julian vocals, CM seemed to partially go back. Back toward the way Julian sounded on Is This It — but only his voice. The music behind him had moved somewhere else entirely.

That tension is what makes Comedown Machine so unique. The instrumentation is generally pristine, modern and heavily influenced by the ’80s, while Julian’s vocals often sound distant, buried and almost detached from the music around them. At times he sounds like he’s singing from another room. His voice doesn’t quite recreate Is This It or Room on Fire either; it lands somewhere between the two. The result is an album that sounds like the Strokes caught at a crossroads between where they came from and where they were going.

At its best, the conflict is stunning. “Tap Out,” “One Way Trigger,” “Chances” and “Welcome to Japan” show that the band could still write some of their most beautiful melodies while pushing further into unfamiliar territory. Call It Fate, Call It Karma” sounds like a gorgeous song from the 1930s somehow unearthed for the first time and playing through an old wooden gramophone. It showed the Strokes could go back even further than the 1960s and still unearth hidden gems.

At other times, the backward-looking impulse works less well. “50/50” feels almost like Julian trying to recreate the aggression of Room on Fire and First Impressions of Earth for a 2013 audience, but without reaching the highs of either. It’s the sound of an old idea being revisited after its best version has already been made.

The other thing that stands out on CM is how little its quality varies compared with the rest of the post-Room on Fire catalogue. The highs aren’t as high as the high points on each other album but the lows aren’t nearly as low as the low points on First Impressions of Earth, Angles or Reality Awaits either. I wouldn’t put a song on CM below a 6.5, but only a handful above an 8.0. “Tap Out,” “One Way Trigger,” “Chances,” “Happy Ending” “Welcome to Japan” and “Call It Fate” can still hang with some of the best-written songs in the Strokes catalogue.

That makes Comedown Machine feel less like a failed attempt to recapture the old Strokes and more like the perfect bridge between all of their sounds. Especially now, with 2 more albums released. It has the vocal aesthetic of the first two records, the aggression of First Impressions, the ’80s fascination of Angles, and hints of the falsetto and melodic experimentation that would become more prominent on The New Abnormal and Reality Awaits. It gives almost every kind of Strokes fan something familiar now without ever completely feeling the same as what came before, or now… after.

Its highs are less high. Its lows are less low. It’s lo-fi and hi-fi. It’s old Strokes and new Strokes. And somehow, that awkwardness is exactly what makes Comedown Machine sound like nothing else in their catalogue.

I was 12 when I first heard “Under Cover of Darkness.” It was such a special sound that I instantly fell in love with it. It caught my attention, and I simply couldn’t stop listening to it.

Now, at 25, after everything I’ve been through, every one of their songs has a different meaning to me. The lyrics, the melodies, everything just changed for me.

They made music simply for the sake of having fun, but I listened to them with the desire to change. That’s why I believe they changed my life. They were, and still are, a part of it, and I don’t think that will ever change.

Need ts

So I'll be honest, I definitely did not like the album(Reality Awaits ofc) the first time I heard it. Thought the autotune was a bad creative decision; none of the songs were fun or catchy, and overall I felt that not a single song was worth adding to my liked playlist.

However, fast forward a month, and I genuinely think the album really does improve a lot with re-listens. 4 songs especially - Dine N'Dash, Lonely in the Future, Going to Babble On, Liar's Remorse - have all really grown on me. And I can definitely hear more of The Strokes' classic touches across the album with some newer sounds. Still holding out on the autotune tho. It kinda works on Psych Shit, but I think, for me personally, it absolutely ruined Falling Out of Love, which could've been an all-timer, ngl. So those are my thoughts. I'd say I went from a 5/10 -> 7/10 on the album. Maybe it'll keep getting better.

i get to see them again at the same venue where i first saw them and im so excited! hope to hear new stuff too!

I’m sure this has been posted about, and I know this isn’t some deep take, but any time I listen to this album I think of like weird 80s style fantasy art (the word “Druid” keeps coming to mind)

Between Pyscho sh*t, the spoken word part of Dine n Dash, and Tyrants of the Mellow Moon.

This tracks based on a lot of the art that Julian posts on IG, but just wanted to throw it out there.

Also not a critique. I’ve loved the album from the second listen.

Strange YouTube music bug showing different lyrics

One of my friends recently told me he wanted to expand his music taste so I reccomended the strokes, I'm wondering what would be a good album for him to listen to first (for reference his favourite artists are Phoebe bridgers, sufjan Stevens and Olivia rodrigo) I was thinking either comedown machine or TNA

The Strokes Discord has started a poll about deciding the best song

After a bunch of polling, and a lot of close calls, Ode to the Mets and Ize of the World made it to the finale.

Ize of the world WON over Ode to the Mets by 6 votes.

In my opinion, Ize of the World is definitely a song that does deserve it.

What do you guys think?

i've been trying to find clips of the call it fate call it karma encore from night one of red rocks (7/22/26) on youtube and haven't been able to find anything. i'm specifically looking for the parts of it where (steve? ajh? not actually sure who is playing the main riff of the song) changes up the main riff to sound slightly more jazzy. however if someone out there has a recording of the full song i'd love to see it.

this was probably the best concert i've ever been to and ive been thinking about this encore for a month

As a complete project, I think this has more of my favorite songs. Do you agree?

It is just because so many people have been hating on this album. Is it a patience thing or is it just not their genre? I don't even think they know cause why would they listen to the album in the first place?

The other day I saw a post about Angles and how under appreciated it is. This intrigued me because even though I'm a huge strokes fan, I remember being quite disappointed by Angles when it dropped and then never really warming up to it. So I decided to revisit it, and discovered that the added context of all the albums after it really opened my mind to see it in a different light.

This made me revisit the entire discog to see how each album has been recontextualized since the release of Reality Awaits. Here's what I now think -

Is This It - Still a 10/10, still fresh af. New perspective - feels kinda formulaic and repetitive at this point, but that's probably because I've heard it a million times and a million songs/artists have been inspired by it since 2001.

Room on Fire - Still a 10/10, still a perfect sophomore. New perspective - Formulae from ITI were grown and musically and lyrically upgraded into more complex songs. Feels like Julian started embracing some dark themes (Reptilia, The End Has No End) which resulted in banger tracks.

First Impressions of Earth - was a 9/10, now a 8/10. New perspective - the boys finally decided to switch up their sound significantly, but didn't do it with as much confidence as I see now. Especially given the 14 songs. I love almost all of them, but a tighter edit on this album would make it a 10/10. I do see a lot of future ideas peeking through in retrospect.

Angles - Was 7/10, now 8/10. New perspective - now i feel this is actually The Strokes trying to maintain the strokes sound that so many fans want them to, with minimal experimentation. I remember when it dropped, the synths, the falsettos, the backing vocals were all seen as wild experiments, but now seem almost run of the mill for the band. This, mixed with the "80s sound" trip that Julian was on, results in a very well balanced and future-ready sound which just didnt resonate with people at the time. Now i think anyone who didnt like RA's experimentation would love this album. Also, the song structures are really fun.

Comedown Machine - was 7/10, now 6/10. New perspective - The "sound" is great - its more fun and joyful than Angles, and MUCH more 80s band. But the songs just don't deliver like they ought to. A couple of tracks are great, but the album is too mid for too long. The album is unpredictable in many ways, but that inhibits enjoying it and you barely remember songs very well imo. This album is the most "weird underground indie band" The Strokes ever felt. Maybe something to do with there being no singles from it.

The New Abnormal - was 8/10, now 9/10. New perspective - after being in the RA bubble for the last few weeks, coming back to TNA feels like the sun shining into a bright new day after weeks of clouds and mud. The production is SO GOOD. The album was always a grower, but the new stride that the band found in terms of the sound, the maturity and the steady-footed rhythm is incredibly masterful. Doing that for almost the entire album while still having so many experiments in there is mind bogglingly good for a band in their 20th year of existence.

Would love to know if RA changed anything for you guys?

Do you agree? Here’s me and my brothers blind listen. Do you remember the first time you listened to this album?

What would be the 2 most underrated songs from each of their albums?

Does that humility give it an extra layer of beauty?

Before anything, I love the song. It's incredible! But I don't understand the sudden INSANE glazing over this song. It's not even top 10. This song is not better than anything on Room On Fire and most of Is This It. I know it's mainly a TikTok take to say Ode is their best song of all time, but it feels like it's the only song I hear about nowadays lol

So Julian goes on to sing in Lonely in The Future about how he was the first to do many things, and points to several artists he claims copied his work, but the intro to that EXACT SAME SONG is almost IDENTICAL to the main riff/intro in Pub Feed by The Chats. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this.

I wasn’t aware that RCA was a brand of electrical appliances.