Angles For The Young: My Version Of The Strokes’ 4th Album

If you’re like me and grew up with the first two Strokes albums but weren’t so crazy about the last two, then you’re gonna want to try this out. I made this a long time ago, but decided that it’s worth sharing recently, after listening to it quite a bit.

But firstly…

First Impressions Of Earth, when it came out, was kind of disappointing album – but it was a Strokes album. Why the hell would they keep “On The Other Side” on there when the album was already considerably longer than the last two? I really don’t know. But hey, it also had a lot of great songs, like “You Only Live Once” and “Razorblade”. Those were seriously, seriously killer songs.

And now: Angles. Angles is the worst of all The Strokes‘ albums. True, it also has some good songs, especially “Under Cover Of Darkness” which is a stone-cold classic that ranks with their best stuff, but the rest of the album: it’s just not The Strokes. I’m sorry guys, but The Strokes is Julian Casablancas and a kick-ass band of musicians behind him. I know all you other Strokes got egos now cuz you released some solo albums of your own and some people wrote some nice things about them (unless you’re Nikolai Fraiture, in which case nobody wrote anything nice about your album), but you really shouldn’t have tried to make The Strokes a group writing project. That’s exactly how you fucked it up and made Angles totally devoid of the Casablancas-ian character that made you guys stars in the first place. Sometimes you gotta suck shit up and face the facts.

On the other hand, there’s Phrazes For The Young, Casablancas’ solo album. This album reflected the best and worst traits of Casablancas, his genius and his apathy or laziness. When this album is great, man is it great. Songs like “11th Dimension” and “Out Of The Blue” honestly make one wonder if Casablancas really needs The Strokes at all. And then there are songs like “Ludlow Street” which are borderline insulting to listen to, and even more so considering that there were better songs like “30 Minute Boyfriend” left off the album.

I read somewhere that Casablancas originally brought some of the songs off Phrazes For The Young to The Strokes as potential tracks for their next album, but the band rejected them. Let’s pretend that in some alternate dimension the rest of the band didn’t let their egos get snorted up their noses and they actually accepted Casablancas’ songs and used them instead of the shit they pooped out.

I present to you the results of the alternate past I have created…

Angles For The Young! True, it’s more of a Frankenstein than a masterpiece, but at least it’s a Casablancas-ian Frankenstein, and thus much more interesting to listen to than either of the half-abortions we ultimately received.

1. Under Cover Of Darkness

2. Two Kinds Of Happiness

3. River Of Brakelights

4. 11th Dimension

5. Left & Right In The Dark

6. 30 Minute Boyfriend

7. Metabolism

8. Glass

9. Out Of The Blue

Now, in order to not get sued or whatever, I’m not compiling this for you – you probably already have both albums in your iTunes if you’re reading this. Change the album title on all the songs listed above to “Angles For The Young” and just reorder the tracks and press play.

Tags: angles, angles for the young, julian casablancas, phrazes for the young, the strokes