The 500 - #199 - Is This It - The Strokes

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #199

Album Title: Is This it

Artist: The Strokes

Genre: Indie Rock, Garage Rock Revival, Post-Punk Revival

Recorded: Transporterraum Studios, New York City, U.S.A.

Released: July, 2001

My age at release: 36

How familiar was I with it before this week: Somewhat

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #114, moving up 85 spots

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Last Night

Pictured above is the album cover for the debut record Is This It from American rock band The Strokes – a photograph of a nude woman’s hip and buttocks, with her leather-gloved hand provocatively positioned. The original snapshot was taken by professional photographer Colin Lane on a Polaroid Big Shot camera. He took it spontaneously as his then-girlfriend (who still remains unnamed) stepped out of the shower and slipped on a black Chanel-quilted lambskin in their shared apartment.

A Chanel glove similar to the one used in the photoshoot.

As Lane tells the story:

“Shooting on a Big Shot isn’t easy; you can only shoot from a specific distance, and it’s really designed for head-and-shoulders portraits. But when she put the glove on and slid forward, I knew it was the perfect shot – simple, straightforward, graphic and just so sexy.”

A ‘70s advert for the Polaroid Big Shot

The album cover, which is included in the coffee table book The Greatest Album Covers of All Time, was only available to international audiences. In the United States, the release was delayed until October, 2001, and a different cover was chosen – a psychedelic photograph of subatomic particle tracks in a bubble chamber (below).

Initially, I assumed the “black glove cover” was deemed too racy for American retailers – particularly in the Bible Belt. However, I was wrong. Strokes’ manager Ryan Gentles was contacted by lead singer Julian Casblancas immediately before the release of the record in Japan and Europe to say: “I found something even cooler than that ass picture.” The call was too late because the album was already being printed. However, there was time to change the cover for the later U.S. release date.

The history of the album cover legend is complicated by a passage in The Strokes’ 2003 biography by Martin Roach in which the band allegedly admitted that ‘the fear of objections from America's conservative retail industry and right-wing lobby was also a reason for the artwork's alteration.”

Regardless of the cover, The Strokes exploded on the music scene in the early 2000s. Formed in New York City in 1997, the group helped kickstart the post-punk and garage band revival of the new millennium, alongside The White Stripes, The Hives, Jet, The Killers and Franz Ferdinand.

Singer Casablancas, guitarist Nick Valensi and drummer Fabrizio Moretti began playing together as teenagers while attending the prestigious Dwight School, a private preparatory college on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They added bassist Nikolai Fraiture and Albert Hammond Jr., both childhood friends of Casablancas.

The Strokes  (l-r) Valensi, Casablancas, Moretti, Hammond Jr., Fraiture

Like some popular bands and artists, including some I have written about in this blog series (Gram Parsons, Vampire Weekend, Lars Ulrich from Metallica and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane), The Strokes are from wealthy families. For example, Casablancas' father, John, was the founder of Elite Model Management and worth nearly $100 million when he died in 2013. He was credited with developing the concept of the “supermodel” in popular culture, a phenomenon from the ’80s in which fashion models transitioned into celebrities in mainstream media – Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Claudia Schiffer, to name a few.

‘80s Supermodel Cindy Crawford in a Pepsi commercial.

John Casablancas was also a documented racist and serial sexual harasser who married a 17-year-old when he was 50. He avoided criminal charges in 2003 when a case of sexual abuse was dropped by the Los Angeles Superior County Court because he was not a California resident. He, along with David Copperfield and Donald Trump, judged the Elite Model Look annual competition. The prize: $150,000 and a chance to secure a modeling contract. It was criticized by journalists from The Guardian newspaper, as “a chance for the trio to proposition these young and vulnerable girls.”

Donald Trump posing with contestants, as featured in a 2020 expose from The Guardian.

I suppose there is an element of disdain on my part for highlighting the band’s affluent background. Taking a chance in the music business was not a financial risk to The Strokes. Had their ambitions been dashed, the quintet would still have had money, social status and financial opportunities to cushion their failure.

There is a part of me, and no doubt others from middle class and working class homes, who admire a band that struggles to make it from humble beginnings to superstardom. We can identify with their determination to achieve their dreams – the artists who saved to buy their instruments, lived in a van or couch-surfed, criss-crossing their country playing gigs that barely covered the costs. Artists on The 500, including Dolly Parton, Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Cash, are good examples.

In a research paper published in 2019, Danish economist Karol Jan Borowiecki analyzed the historical development of creative activity in the United States from 1850 - 2015. Among his conclusions was that “every $10,000 in total family income makes a person around 2 percent more likely to pursue a creative occupation — meaning that someone who comes from a family worth $1 million is ten times more likely to become an artist than someone whose family is worth $100,000.” (See source here)

 Karol Jan Borowiecki

However, there is another side to this argument. As the baseball analogy goes, The Strokes “hit a homerun after starting on third base”. However, that discounts the fact that they worked hard to make it to home plate. According to many sources, the band practised and performed tirelessly in the late-’90s and their seemingly meteoric rise to rock stardom was fueled by their dedication and hustle.

Furthermore, they knew how to write damn catchy tunes and picked the perfect time to relaunch the garage rock sound of the ‘70s. Much like the infamous black glove cover, they took a bang-on shot and made a record good enough to land at #199 on The 500.