I’m sure everybody out there has heard the new Strokes songs that have been floating around out there. (If you haven’t, you can check out “You Only Live Once” over there at Stereogum and “Juicebox” is up on the official Strokes site.) I thought that the emergence of these tracks might be a good reason to finally start this here blog, which has been ready and waiting for me for months, while I figured out what to actually do with it.

I like the new songs. I think they’re fantastic. I am, obviously, a big Strokes fan. I don’t understand why so many people out there have been criticizing “Juicebox”. Well, I actually do understand: people don’t like it because it doesn’t sound like it could’ve been on Is This It. And they do like “You Only Live Once” because it does sound like Is This It, or at least close to it. People seem to have this reaction to new albums (or songs) if they don’t sound just like the one that made them originally fall in love with a band. In a way, it’s a great compliment to the band.

I like it when bands try out something new. I like when they put their guts into it and don’t just take the easy way out. Besides, The Strokes aren’t exactly changing drastically – they still sound like themselves, do they not? It infuriates me that The Strokes have been basically apologizing for their last album in interviews. What is the problem with Room On Fire? Everybody loved it when it first came out. I guess the music on the CD physically changed about two months after its release.

Even the ‘music press’ hates it now. Which brings us to the very first entry (in what I hope will become a recurring feature here at 100b) of How The Music Press Is Crap. Room On Fire became a joke pretty much overnight, though I never did catch on to why. The NME regularly uses it as an example of a disappointing second album. Even Rolling Stone (a publication that lives in fear of actually forming an opinion, lest they should offend anyone, anywhere) has implied that it was a big letdown. Oh, but wait – what’s that? Rolling Stone’s Revised and Updated Album Guide? And they say what about Room On Fire?

From the sounds on Room On Fire, the Strokes have encountered a girl or two in their recent adventures, so it’s a wonder they found time to come up with another album, let alone one this great. … Guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond, Jr. devise perfect new-wave handclap hooks in “12:51″ and “The End Has No End”, the rhythm section raves in “Reptilia,” and Julian proves he can do Marvin Gaye [in "Automatic Stop"] … (pg. 78 8)

If you read the whole thing, it’s not all adoring, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a pretty positive description of an album. And NME’s original review was positively glowing. Oh, and before you ask: yes, I do understand that sometimes an album seems great but after a while, you realize it’s not quite as good as you thought. Maybe it turns out to be a little corny in ways you hadn’t noticed at first. Maybe you go a few days without listening to it and you’ve already forgotten it. Whatever the reason, sometimes you get wrapped up in an exciting new release only to find that, when the dust settles, the excitement wasn’t really justified.

But I don’t think that’s the case with anything The Strokes have done (so far, at least, and I’m including the two new tracks). I guess people just want them to keep recording Is This It over and over. That is, until it’s time to start complaining that The Strokes don’t ever progress.