TS: The Strokes vs. LCD Soundsystem

this could be TS: The Strokes vs having your entrails pulled out of your eyesockets and I would still probably vote against The Strokes

DJP speaks wisdom.

both bands have a great first album, some good songs on the second album and a terrible third album

I don't listen either of them anymore.

i don't know if anyone else would agree with you on that

just for DJP i have created a second poll

behold!

TS: The Strokes vs having your entrails pulled out of your eyesockets

lol, I thought the first LCD was mediocre, the second surprisingly good and the third almost uniformly great

lcd wipe the floor with the strokes

I liked the Strokes first album for about a fortnight, and haven't really listened to it since and LCD Soundsystem always left me indifferent. Wish I could vote *yawn*.

(maybe I should check out the 'This is Happening again)

Wish I could vote *yawn*.

you can vote "I like neither!"

LCD Soundsystem, though I still like Is This It

I don't really dislike 'Is This It' and I certainly don't dislike LCD S, I'm just not very enthused is all.

strokes easily. lcd did 45:33 and "yeah (pretentious mix)" but there's all that stuff with the guy singing.

I don't see how anyone sane can diss LCD's vocals and still be a fan of The Strokes, unless just really really dig constipated groaning

"Hard to Excrete"

xp i do! see also: van morrison

LCD by a million supermiles.

"Hard to Excrete"

this really shouldn't have made me lol, but... lol

"Is This Shit"

okay lol, don't really need to alter the song title "Meet Me in the Bathroom" -- speaks for itself

so hard, love both so hard

I wish LCD were as good as that article makes them out to be.

I mean "was", obviously

"I wish LCD were as good as that article makes them out to was."

lol, I thought the first LCD was mediocre, the second surprisingly good and the third almost uniformly great

This is exactly right, except for "uniformly."

yeah I never really liked "You Wanted a Hit" or "Somebody's Calling Me" but the rest of it is ace

I dug "Freak Out/Starry Eyes" a lot. Wish they'd used that

xxp I'll allow it

you guys know what "almost" means, right

well, I'd argue against the word "uniformly."

fairy nuff

voted neither, New York indie's been soft ever since Snoop came through and crushed the buildings

i guess i'm the only guy that thinks LCD's b-sides and non album material are best, huh?

joke biter xp

Losing My Edge <------------ obviously
Yeah <---------------------- obviously
Beat Connection
Tired
Yr City's a Sucker
Slowdive
Freak Out/Starry Eyes
Hippie Priest Bum Out
45:33 <--------------------- arguably an "album" i guess?
Bye Bye Bayou

^ all among my favorite LCD material

like, why couldn't that have been a mini-set on their farewell show setlists??

? (xpost)

i have a hot LOL waiting for me in my bed so ill EXCELSIOR this

The Strokes really fucked it up for me with their terrible 3rd album, and being appalling live. I did love them once though. I've loved nearly everything I've heard by LCD Soundsystem and they're the best live band I've ever seen. So them.

i guess i'm the only guy that thinks LCD's b-sides and non album material are best, huh?

― hey ilxor, thanks for contributing, glad you stopped by (ilxor), Tuesday, April 5, 2011 8:41 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

think most people would include the early 12s as among their best but these were on cd with the first album, which in itself was p ehh

To this day listening to "Losing My Edge" is like imagining Sarah Palin recite Paradise Lost.

"Tribulations" is a much better song, anyway.

"Beat Connection" is better than either

why the "i like both!" cop out option?

ilxor got confused with the 2008 election

that doesn't even make sense

anyway i voted the strokes, heart of hearts

"Beat Connection" is better than either

― banjee trillness (The Reverend), Tuesday, April 5, 2011 12:54 PM (6 minutes ago)

Yes, this was the song that really turned me on to LCDSS, "Losing My Edge" was too kitsch, couldn't take them seriously on that song alone.

haha sorry rev obv totally forgot about that!

why the "i like both!" cop out option?

so that ppl don't bitch @ me for not including said option. anyway, if it bothers u, just pick a fav (although looks like u picked a bad option there)

it's all good xp

the real question is who would win a bit of pugilism: james murphy or julian casablancas

i didn't say they played pretend riffs? not that there's anything wrong with pretending to riff obv. i'm all for that.

I think that's something we could get behind.

Semi-celebrity boxing?

one of em came to our house once to practice with his other band for a show, he was very nice and v cool

i didn't say they played pretend riffs? not that there's anything wrong with pretending to riff obv. i'm all for that.

Nah, I just think its hilarious to point out a band just as, if not more, gimmicky as The Strokes as the paragons of "proper" rock.

For me at least I preferred the White Stripes gimmick to the Strokes one in 2001ish. The Strokes made it seem like they were trying to out cool people, or something. While the White Stripes... well they were being ambiguous on whether they were husband/wife, brother/sister, or both. While wearing red and white all time.

Yeah, I just think its silly to claim someone like Jack White, who has so carefully manufactured his entire image (red/white, only vintage recording techniques) is somehow inherently more "pure" that the Strokes.

Fwiw, I like both bands, probably the Stripes slightly more than the Strokes.

the gories vs stereolab

air liquide vs green velvet

Yeah, I just think its silly to claim someone like Jack White, who has so carefully manufactured his entire image (red/white, only vintage recording techniques) is somehow inherently more "pure" that the Strokes.

i could care less if they are "manufactured" (i like plenty of stuff that could fall under that heading), it's more that their music is not very good

fwiw i brought up the white stripes as if to say "here is band that also released a lo-fi rock album in 2001 that hit the mainstream charts, but was a lot more exciting than the strokes' album"

not "here is a band that is less manufactured than the strokes"

ilxor, I know you sometimes feel like ilx revolves around you, but I was actually referring to Crackle Box's comments.

yeah yeah, thanks for the new DN

np

thank you for including the all important "I like neither!" let this be a shining example for future poll makers everywhere

There's a whole lot of talk about The-Strokes-as-people here; really what makes Is This Is + Room On Fire + Sound Of Silver so lovely is the production, which is untouchable on all three records and other LCD cuts.

I've been trying very hard not to talk about The Strokes as people because I don't really know anything about them; I just know that I didn't like most of the songs I heard off of their first album and I really REALLY didn't like the way Julian sang about 95% of the time.

I dunno, if you're going to look in Julian Casablancas' eyes and say "bracing jolt" it'll make anyone snigger
But I def was shocked when I first heard "Last Nite" on my hairdressers' CD changer in 2002 (in between Rooty, Vespertine, The Blueprint, Pinback)

But yeah, it was the precision/repetitiousness of the playing, the lack of low end, the brevity.

really what makes Is This Is + Room On Fire...so lovely is the production,

Are The Strokes sending out some wonderful frequency that everyone else loves but I can't hear? I think they sounded like crap then as much as they do now. A few pretty good songs on the first two albums, but they sound awful!

I get what Owen's saying; going back to, say, "Last Night", the clarity/isolation of the instruments and how they're balanced in the mix is pretty impressive; my problem is that I am not a fan of what said instruments are doing.

also how many semicolons can I stick in one sentence

I remember saying at the time that Julian should have ditched the band and just made synth-pop. Still think that, really! It might have been a slightly different model for people than the Postal Service at least.

have you been reading 19th century novels today?

xp

the clarity/isolation of the instruments and how they're balanced in the mix is pretty impressive

It just sounds like a parched dry mix to me, and the drums were (and still do) sound like they're compressed within an inch of their life.

were=did

(lazy self-edit)

I remember saying at the time that Julian should have ditched the band and just made synth-pop. Still think that, really!

didn't he do a solo album that was something along "electronic" lines?

(genuine Q. as i've never heard it)

It was kind of synthy, but not enough imo.

He sang well on that forgettable solo album, which had a couple of his best songs since 2003.

xp @ Johnny re: "it sounds awful" + compressed. Yes. I know it sounds "awful", as in, everything is tape-compressed to tininess, everything is hard panned. But serious, compare that to, what, Mercury Rev? "The Soft Bulletin"? To a person who thinks "The Soft Bulletin" is the worst sounding thing in history, and inescapable, too, "Is This It" was manna c.a. 2001

And damn

I kind of feel obligated to point out that the only people listening to all of those things at once were posting here or friends of people posting here

― fat fat fat fat Usher (DJP), Thursday, April 7, 2011 11:43 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

This is only accurate with the inclusion of Cannibal Ox

I meant literally "at once", as in the hypothetical person had 10 CD players going simultaneously

Hehehe

xp I'm no big fan of Dave Fridmann either. The model of straightforward recording is that of Don Zientara and most of the stuff released on Dischord. He doesn't go as "live"-sounding as Albini, but still gives everything an unfussy mix and crystal clear identity.

Trying to imagine Is This It recorded the same way as Red Medicine right now, and loving what I'm imagining.

Guys, guess we pushed ilxor over the edge by talking about the Strokes too much.

has no bearing on quality but the stripes did have a much more "organic" growth out of underground rock, a couple indie albums that did well and touring, etc, before they became a "buzz band"

the first person that told me about them was my friend kenny who was all into bands like JSBX and 68 Comeback and Oblivions and shit like that.

Pretty sure the White Stripes didn't really have their mainstream breakthrough until 2002 when the album got re-released on a major and "Fell in Love With a Girl" took off, by which time the Strokes were fairly well established.

i mean they were on sympathy for the record industry ferchrssakes

yeah m@tt otm

I'm not placing to much into how they obtained success or not. Either way though, the Strokes music just bores me.

yeah i just think it's interesting how ppl perceive that they kinda blew up at the same time in the same way but the white stripes p much came up in the trad 90s indie rock way

That is true. They were just kind of lumped in there with the rest of the "the" bands that became popular then.

All the critics who had hailed the Strokes as saviors of real rock n roll or whatever in 2001...had they not heard Weezer's the Green Album?

Anyway, I did give them a chance on the basis of the "New York City Cops" controversy. I had never been to NYC but I'd interacted with tons of other cops and I was really anxious to hear a song that would explore that social/cultural/political nexus perhaps a la 1980s hardcore lyrics but with an old timey rock n roll beat? I think the song turned out to be about a girl or something. It was disappointing.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

it took LCD Soundsystem five years to release their three albums, it took the Strokes ten years for their three albums.

LCD wins! plus Sound of Silver is the best album out of all of these, though i might have played Is This It a bit more.

The Strokes have 4 albums and the span of time between their 1st and 3rd albums is actually about a year less than between LCD Soundsystem's 1st and 3rd albums. Also that's a completely irrelevant criteria for making any kind of value judgement.

it's four, i forgot about that third one i guess (and don't count 45:33). they just seemed to be the ones who took time off. LCD didn't really have too much time between albums.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.