The Strokes albums ranked: From worst to best

The Strokes are the kind of band that exists in another realm. One who, without evening meaning to, had a game-changing cultural impact, and whose 2001 debut Is This It triggered a movement worthy of an oral history and documentary, Meet Me in the Bathroom, titled after one of their own tracks. But the New York City-based five-piece have rarely gauged any interest in fitting their square pegs into the appropriate holes. Instead, they opted for taking a long, drawn-out drag on a cigarette, rarely paying fan service or doing the thing you’d most expect. the Strokes’ story is one that has capitalized on the mythos they stumbled into by simply barely batting an eyelid.

Needing no real introduction, the five-piece — Julian Casablancas, Fabrizio Moretti, Albert Hammond Jr., Nikolai Fraiture, and Nick Valensi — are as stylistically and aesthetically close to the embodiment of cool as you can get without soaking yourself in dry ice. Fabricating their sound around Nick and Albert’s interplaying jangly, ‘80s reaching guitar sound, and Nikolai’s bass lines darting and dancing around Fab’s studious drums, it felt as familiar as it did frighteningly fresh. Of course, charismatically sloppy frontman Julian Casablancas, whose drawl often lay low, hidden behind vocal distortion, brought the persona and the Strokes’ tales to life. Together, the moment they stepped out of the barroom and into the daylight, music would never quite be the same again.

Read more: Every Dashboard Confessional album ranked

The Strokes albums ranked

RCA Records

6. Angles (2011)

After a six-year break, the Strokes’ return came fittingly a decade after their debut, and it certainly felt as if 10 years had passed. While they’ve hardly been known for their focused sound, Angles is the first entry in their catalog that properly experimented with their formula. Inevitably leading to a mixture of successes and misfires, opener “Machu Picchu” into “Under Cover of Darkness” brought an energy that never quite gets capitalized on, though the latter still holds a slight bite. Things just didn’t feel the same, forced even. Kicking off the Stroke’s questionable sojourn through the second decade of the new millennium they helped musically christen, it inevitably failed to hold imaginations, but it did at least mean a new generation was able to witness their effortless chic live on its ensuing tours. 

RCA Records

5. Comedown Machine (2013)

Comedown Machine is the most divisive of the Strokes’ albums. While some laud its approach, others find it weak, and it’s in this spirit that the second half of the Strokes story lives. Impossible to pinpoint a single or moment of striking clarity, once again NYC’s coolest sons fail to launch — at least when compared to their foundational offerings. A mere two years after 2011’s Angles, the ideas continue down their experimental pathway, again to a mixed degree. That’s not to say there are no redeeming moments. “50/50” is another jutting, fast-paced jam, and opener “Tap Out” breathes life into proceedings nicely. It also resembled a more cohesive attempt at bringing the Strokes sound into a new world, which felt fuller and more rounded at times.

RCA Records

4. Room On Fire (2003)

In all fairness to the Strokes, it can't have been easy following up a debut album so immediately lauded and era-defining. Room on Fire does little to play around with the formula they stumbled out into the world with, but instead opts for fine-tuning it. Decidedly cobbled together between sips of beers, and mugging ever-so effortlessly cooly into the world’s cameras — while it did birth two of their most loved tracks, including the ferocious “Reptilia” — Room On Fire’s place in the Strokes canon was always going to be difficult to be as strong as its predecessor, and Julian and co. understood the assignment. Room on Fire fits nicely as a sequel to Is This It, reminding us just how and why they captured our hearts in the first place without loosening the chokehold they had on culture.

RCA Records

3. First Impressions of Earth (2005)

This is where The Strokes found their sheen. While the lo-fi sounds still buzzed in their inimitable echo chamber — and with the sound of an army of sound-alikes hot on their heels — First Impressions of Earth features some of the Strokes’ most biting riffs and sentiments. Perhaps their strongest opener in the form of “You Only Live Once,” the front-loaded album cuts and bruises, and dare we say it, even delves into the emo (“Oh, the razorblade/That’s what I call love” — anyone?). It was a step forward out of the murky boho alleys they inhabited on their debut and into the more cocksure spotlight ready to take on the world once more with the flurry-of-fists that is “Juicebox.” It would also mark the end of their inaugural decade, bookending a trilogy of albums that proved them to be one of indie’s most endearing and enduring guitar bands.

Cult Records

2. The New Abnormal (2020)

Stretching their chops after their second break — this time seven years — The New Abnormal features some of the Strokes’ finest work in over a decade. Still effortlessly cool, from the Billy Idol-pulling “Bad Decisions” to the new wave homage melody of “Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus," it felt like the Rick Rubin-produced entry was a culmination of each of the Strokes’ influences taking shape, including their own solo works — and it paid dividends. The most unified they’ve sounded in an age, the nine tracks are succinct enough to embrace the Strokes of the future without diluting their past. This second-half success story is enough to remind us that the Strokes will always be one of the most intriguing and surprising bands born out of the new millennium.

RCA Records/Rough Trade

1. Is This It (2001)

A lo-fi, lackadaisical ode to a simpler time, Is This It was a cultural lightning flash captured in a bottle. The tumultuous new millennium and the unhinged, uncaring outlook offered up, this sizzling strike was inimitable and birthed one of the last real cultural movements triggered by a bunch of guitars and a stonking bit of attitude. Released just prior to 9/11, the Strokes’ embodiment of the atomic shift from ‘90s hopefulness to ‘00s nihilism is where their ragtag indie jams thrive, and where they caught the world’s imagination. They’re neither happy nor sad. They’re just sheer attitude; at being sold lies, at boredom, and deciding it’s time for no thinking, just vibes. An evergreen sentiment if ever there were one.