It took me a while to get to the new Strokes album, because I dowloaded 4 tracks from the live version of If You're Feeling Sinister at the same time, and apparently I needed to listen to the (stellar, amazing) live version of "Judy and the Dream of Horses" a few dozen times before I could listen to anything else.
Is it because live recordings with good sound are inherently more compelling than polished, methodically assembled studio recordings? Maybe. Is it because I'm just closer in temperment to a melancholy Glaswegian than a disaffected New York hipster? Certainly, but overall, I no longer trust my critical faculties when it comes to Belle and Sebastian. I simply love this band too much to be objective.
On to the Strokes. They've gotten knocked as ripoff artists, which I think is unfair--what band hasn't ripped off other bands? The Shaggs, certainly, were sui generis by virtue of extreme incompetence. Otherwise...I dunno, I suppose you could argue that the Sgt. Pepper's-era Beatles were up to something completely new and not related to Buddy Holly or Carl Perkins at all, but now that time has passed and the general population has an overall lower level of THC in their bloodstream, I think we have to admit that Sgt. Pepper's was an artistic dead end that led directly to the masturbatory horror of Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and indirectly to the more self-indulgent XTC numbers.
I think the real issue is that the lead singer pissed off a lot of critics by growing up rich and then becoming a rock star. Like being good-looking and rich wasn't getting him enough chicks? He had to start a band, too? (One of my favorite Onion headlines, before they lost their mojo, was "Guy from the Strokes accused of trying to look like that guy from the Strokes.")
Having said that, I initially thought the Strokes were ripping off the Velvet Underground and the Feelies, and then, with "12:51", the Cars, (a way better Cars song than any the Cars ever recorded) and now they've finally taken that horrible effect off the vocals, and it turns out that they really want to be....U2! Casablancas bites Bono's style on nearly every track, and I have to say he does a hell of a job. I think it's a better late-period U2 record than the actual late period U2 records, which I like.
