The Strokes, in view of Lou Reed

I never really managed to get into the Velvet Underground. I've listened to some of their songs, which felt kind of hum-dum, like something that I could appreciate but not really really dig. Not something that was a daily listener for any time of the day, like some songs and bands can be. Just something that should be played once in a while, on a lark, maybe at the right time of the day, maybe as a joke with others, kind of like how much should be.

A big reason I never got into the Velvet Underground is that the Strokes were out when I tried to start listening to them, and the Strokes were just more fun. Yeah, they are to some degree derivative, but the songs are catchier, the lyrics plumb the depths of the human condition with equal snark and irony, and they really have an energy to them, a musicianship which is impressive in a clockwork manner than the laid-back Velvet don't have.

Because the Strokes are a marriage of the East Coast and the West Coast. They do have the East Coast cynicism that Julian Casablancas so expresses in his lyrics, which were ironic at first but now are kind of who he is. But they have the West Coast sunniness of the Beach Boys, in the guitar work of Albert Hammond Jr., whose father was, of course, Albert Hammond Sr.

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