The Strokes’ 20 greatest songs – ranked!
20. Meet Me in the Bathroom (2003)
The Strokes rushed their second album, Room on Fire, in the belief that their initial success would soon be over. The result frequently boasted song titles that were better than the songs – such as You Talk Way Too Much, but Meet Me in the Bathroom’s cocktail of lyrical ennui and a suitably wearier take on the sound of Is This It clicks perfectly.
19. Drag Queen (2016)
One of the more satisfying results of the group’s quest for a different musical direction, Drag Queen sounds like a homage to New Order, topped off with vocals that suddenly, and entirely unexpectedly, go into warped AutoTune overdrive even as they are delivering a despairing political message.
18. Machu Picchu (2011)
Angles, the band’s fourth album, was the Strokes’ nadir: an album that sounded as if it were made by people who really didn’t want to make an album but had been herded into the studio at gunpoint. Still, it has scattered highlights: Machu Picchu’s interweaving, slightly reggae-influenced guitars have a buoyancy noticeable by its absence elsewhere.
17. Under Cover of Darkness (2011)
The making of Angles was fraught, but Under Cover Of Darkness sounds like a genuine group effort, highlighting Albert Hammond Jr and Nick Valensi’s guitar interplay: they come up with unexpected little fills that drive the song along, while the brief solo is a lovely miniature take on Thin Lizzy’s harmonic twin guitar sound.
16. Not the Same Anymore (2020)
The curiously appealing sound of an older, smarter Strokes, wiser through bitter experience: “I didn’t know, I didn’t care … I fucked up,” sings Julian Casablancas, sounding as if he knows of what he speaks, “I couldn’t change, it’s too late”. The music fits perfectly, recasting their trademark approach to evoke melancholy.
15. Barely Legal (2001)
Casablancas later claimed Barely Legal made him “cringe”. But even if you wouldn’t use that title for a song in 2023, its depiction of a sleazy older man hitting on a teenager is grimly realistic, and lent a certain frisson by Casablancas’s model agent father’s documented penchant for teenage partners. It has super-tight guitars and an explosive chorus, too.
14. Juicebox (2005)
Chastened by the lukewarm response to their hurried second album, the Strokes clearly threw themselves into its successor: as a result, First Impressions of Earth was unwieldy. But Juicebox is a moment when its overstuffed approach works: pivoting away from a Peter Gunn-inspired bassline, its melody shoots off in unexpected directions.
13. Reptilia (2003)
In retrospect, the fact that the biggest track from the Strokes’ second album could have fitted perfectly on to their debut was a sign of trouble to come: a worrying suggestion that they might have already said all they had to say. That said, Reptilia is fantastic: urgent staccato guitars darting around a raw-throated vocal.
12. Ask Me Anything (2006)
In the middle of First Impressions of Earth, a song unlike anything the Strokes had tried before: there is nothing but a distorted Mellotron, a light dusting of strings and Casablancas’s vocal, dolefully insisting: “I’ve got nothing to say.” It sounds surprisingly like a less arch Magnetic Fields: sad but very pretty.
11. 12:51 (2003)
After Is This It, the degree of anticipation surrounding the band was, in some quarters at least, demented: the NME ran a news story when they played a solitary new song live. But their first post-Is This It single – poppier, catchier, synthier than before – suggested all would be fine. Erroneously, as it turned out.
10. The Modern Age (2001)
In 2001, the Strokes’ debut single sounded very direct and exciting: the point its tense opening minute gives way to the chorus – via Casablancas’s repeated cry of “go!” – suggested a band offering a kind of poise and cool that was in markedly short supply in the post-Britpop era.
9. Eternal Summer (2020)
On The New Abnormal, the Strokes finally did the thing most people had long given up on them doing: released a consistent album that reshaped their sound but retained their essence. Its pleasures are summed up by the lengthy Eternal Summer, layered with electronics and angsty falsetto vocals: fresh and fantastic.
8. Hard to Explain (2001)
On arrival, the Stokes understood the power of leaving audiences wanting more: short sets, no encores, a debut album that barely lasted half an hour. Hard to Explain, meanwhile, careers along, soaring vocals over metronomic drums, then – as you are anticipating a big finish – stops dead with a kind of implicit shrug.
7. Under Control (2003)
A lot of the best moments on Room on Fire were essentially an Is This It redux, but Under Control took the group into noticeably new territory: a languid, sad and rather beautiful breakup song, which allowed Casablancas, who always acknowledged his love of Frank Sinatra, to fully unleash his inner crooner.
6. All the Time (2013)
Comedown Machine was another Strokes album that, as Casablancas delicately put it, suffered “some grey areas on control and quality”: the band declined to tour or promote it. But All the Time is the exception that proves the rule. It’s just a great song: concise, sharp, powerful yet poppy.
5. The Adults Are Talking (2020)
One striking thing about The New Abnormal was how contemporary it made The Strokes sound, 22 years into their career, a point proven when its fast-paced but marvellously understated opening track went viral on TikTok, adopted by users too young to have witnessed Last Nite or Is This It first-hand.
4. You Only Live Once (2006)
The highlight of First Impressions of Earth was its opening track, which super-sized the Strokes’ choppy, trebly sound into something that could – conceivably – fill arenas. That it didn’t is no reflection on the quality of the song, which might be the best thing the band recorded in their troubled middle years.
3. New York City Cops (2001)
Not really about policemen but an ill-advised one-night stand, New York City Cops is the Strokes at their most attitude-laden and snotty: “Kill me now ’cause I let you down,” Casablancas sneers. The brief drum break is fantastic, the gripping bursts of wiry lead guitar a nod to Television.
2. Someday (2001)
Someday seemed to encapsulate the Strokes’ early insouciance: an accusation of “lacking in depth” is breezily dismissed by a narrator who apparently doesn’t “have to try so hard”. The loosely strummed guitars and a killer melody only amp up the sense that it was all appealingly effortless.
1. Last Nite (2001)
Sometimes, a band’s most famous track is unrepresentative, but sometimes it perfectly encapsulates their appeal. The latter is true of Last Nite: frantic downstrokes on trebly guitars, roaring vocal, New York brashness to spare. It’s also a more complex song than its indie-disco anthem status might suggest, the lyric – in which the narrator responds to their partner’s expression of unhappiness by turning around and walking out with a parting “I don’t care” – is completely at odds with the messy joyousness of the music, which sounds like a party in the process of getting out of hand.