Article Response: You Have Three Minutes To Amaze Me

Thank you Nitsuh.

man. great piece of writing. comparing the ethos of the Strokes to Rick Springfield is a feat unto itself.

I say they're a boy band, Nitsuh says they're a pop band, between us I think we have them pegged. ;-)

Bizarrely enough, I just saw this random clip on NBC of the Barenaked Ladies performing with that Sale/Pelletier skating team -- don't ask -- and as enforced and studious as their idea of fun was in covering "You Really Got Me" and all...I found it more fun than anything the Strokes have yet done, or at least it actually got my attention more. That might have had something to do with the Rush drumhead, though.

The article made some great points in the second paragraph. So good, that I didn't read the whole thing.

Nitsuh writes about pop music not being profound philosophy. That was really all I needed to know. If I want insight into the world, I can read a book or listen to pop music. (I know that sounds sarcastic, but it's not meant to. "We learned more from a 10 inch record than we ever learned in school" - to paraphrase Springsteen... ) Why spend time reading a book (read: "a long article") about pop? I'll get more value out of listening to it (or looking at it.)

I thought it was great. Could have been 1/10th the length. ..anyone care to summarize what the rest of it said?

Clever thing about writing and pop music - the one uses the eyes, the other the ears, so you can even do both.

The initial market response to the Strokes hasn't been a new wave of spangly surprising pop-rock of course but a series of straightforward rock bands doing well. The all-night Tesco's last night had albums by the Cooper Temple Clause, the Hives, and BRMC all in stock - unthinkable a year ago. I think it's a shame because I don't hear much in those bands - I hear music that reminds me of being 16 but I don't hear music that makes me want to be 16 RIGHT NOW. I feel empathy and I want to feel envy, if you see what I mean.

The glaring exception to this is the underground success of "A Stroke Of Genius" - where does it fit in with what Nitsuh's saying about the Strokes' potential, I wonder?

so you can even do both.

Right now, I'm listening to John Cale and reading the New York Times. Who has time for pop?

John Cale IS pop, asshole.

Oh, and while I'm being cranky, I made many of these points already (and more succinctly no less) last July.

clearly, Strokes = Bay City Rollers

Like I said! ;-) Seven paragraphs down or so.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Strokes are conservative: I can buy that. But why aren't they massively popular, instead of just pretty popular? Most of the people I know are quite conservative when it comes to music, and yet if one of my coworkers, for example, bought a Strokes record (or a Rick Springfield record for that matter), I'd be shocked.

Most of the article (after which I remain very impressed by Nitsuh's writing, regardless of what he's saying) focuses on context (via appropriate associations with RS and the Romantics, inappropriate associations with the VU, etc.), so I wonder why Nitsuh didn't bring up the fact that if you aren't of a certain mindset (or maybe more accurately, age), you're probably not going to like the Strokes, regardless of how conservative you or they are.

Personally, I hated the Romantics, and for not being aware that I didn't have to listen to the radio all the time when I was 9. I have a choice now, and the Strokes don't make my cut because they simply don't play stuff I want to hear (whether that means I'm not conservative enough, or too conservative, I don't know -- I always considered my self fairly well-balanced). However, three cheers for any article which sticks it to folks proclaiming [u]anyone[/u] is the future of rock -- if you like them that much, why not pull them back to the present?

"the only concrete resemblance anyone very[sp?] points to is the fact that the intro to “Last Nite” sort of coincidentally sounds like the intro to a song by Tom Petty." - Also, I'm wondering if people have noted that the drums on "Hard to Explain" = Toni Basil's "Mickey", and that the guitars on "Is This It" = The Pixies "Where is My Mind"?

Much seems to be made, again and again, around here, of a dichotomy between 'rock' and 'pop', and the idea that the shifting of perceptions from one mode to the other is highly significant. I don't feel much in this dichotomy myself: it's all pop anyway, where I come from.

brilliant article. dug the musical references, if the strokes have brought us anything, they've helped us kill bad 70s protopunk references.

Ned: so you did (but I thought of it while reading Nitsuh's piece) Will get to the rest of them if I can stomach all the strokage.

BTW, the Bay City Rollers are GREAT

if the strokes have brought us anything, they've helped us kill bad 70s protopunk references.

Is this sarcasm or crazy talk? Or am I just dumb?

hey. i haven't posted to freaky trigger for at least a year (got lost, thought it was still at that .com address, confused, too much beer, etc.) anyway, hello.

i thought i'd contribute this graham coxon quote i found (from a dotmusic interview):

"I love The Strokes. I was thanking somewhere for them this morning. They might save pop music. That's pop music to me. I'm old, so it's not really my bag, but they bring tears to my eyes, because I've needed them for so long. A new groove. Anything is possible with The Strokes, that's the beauty of it."

Has anyone yet pointed out that the riff from "Alone, Together" is swiped from Husker Du's "Pink Turns To Blue"?

nitsuh >> yr long sentences truly amaze me >

Amazing note: I just went and saw OKGO, who I decided to shamelessly big up at the end of the article, and they opened their show with a cover of "Jessie's Girl."

i hate that song.