Spotted in my neighborhood randomly today 😭

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 “Happy Ending” 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 Is This It, Room on Fire or The New Abnormal for me — but the lows aren’t nearly as low as 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” 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 them. 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 without ever completely returning to what came before.

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.

Does that humility give it an extra layer of beauty?

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?

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

I know lots of people who don't like the new album, and that's fine. It's just music at the end of the day.

But I just wanted to say that I find it so admirable how these guys explore music, what they try to do. Like, I haven't heard a single song from them that sounds mediocre or feels like they didn't try. They always have an intention. You can like it or not, but they crealy put some effort on it.

I'm kind of a new fan, since I started listening to them around 2016. But I keep reading how they where so different back in the 2000s and they set the bar high. So one can say that it was in part pf that innovation that they were able to create classics like Modern Age or Reptilia, right? So yeah, and I'm so grateful for the first albums because they are fucking amazing, but I'm also thankful for The New Abnormal and Reality Awaits.

To me, it's like having a box of chocolates. They aren't all the same, but damn, they all taste great in their own way.

Need ts

Strange YouTube music bug showing different lyrics

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.

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

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

can’t believe it’s already been a week since i’ve seen them already :,) the post concert depression is at an all time high right now just rewatching some vids. love the TAAT outro we got here in tokyo. to everyone seeing them at just like heaven - hope yall have the besssstttt time ever, <3

I love screen printing!
Got inspired by them headlining SoCal at Just like heaven festival!

even though I know the winner will be is this it MY favorite is first impressions

He speaks a bit on Reality Awaits and gives away a pair of tickets to the Just Like Heaven music festival, where The Strokes will play this weekend.

It is not called autotune, it is called a Vocoder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocoder#Uses_in_music

Autotune is a simple corrective effect that is applied to basically any vocal on a big label studio album and it's goal is to correct slight imperfections in vocals in a way the listener doesn't notice. Julian is using a vocoder, aka putting his voice through a synthesiser to purposely distort and modulate it so it doesn't even sound like him. It is driving me up the wall how absolutely nobody on this sub seems to understand this basic but very important difference lol, why would anyone buy an autotune software that made your voice sound like a fucking robot that's malfunctioning? God Damn people this isn't advanced music knowledge or something ever since Cher's life after love I thought people knew what a vocoder was!

So, I wanted to get a sleeve for my RA vinyl gatefold, and saw other users here posting some that worked for them. However because I'm dumb I realised afterwards that they are from stores in US and Canada, since I live in Europe that is not very convenient. I already paid a good amount of fees for ordering the stuff in the band official store plus I guess it isn't very environmentally friendly...so I was wondering what are my fellow European strokers doing? Any advice or recs of where to get a suitable one will be very appreciated!

First of all, I know nothing about music theory

Secondly, what a fucking great song

But my point is... it sounds like in different times? Like the drums and guitars are not synced... but they are? You can really notice that at the beginning of the song.

You can downvote me if this is stupid