Is This It by The Strokes (2001) — a VG+ original pressing is worth £70–£110. The pressing to own, and the case for № 100: Gordon Raphael in a Manhattan basement with five kids in skinny jeans. New York rock comes back for a decade because of this record.
Estimated market value of an original pressing of Is This It by The Strokes, by sleeve and media condition on the Goldmine grading scale.
The pressing to look for: 2001 UK, Rough Trade RTRADLP030 (first pressing, original cover, NYC Cops present). Catalogue number RTRADLP030.
Researched market ranges for the original pressing; condition, completeness of inserts and pressing variant all move the figure. The Lead-In values every record against live marketplace data — value your own shelf for a current, condition-matched figure.
Eleven tracks in 36 minutes. Recorded at Transporterraum studio in New York with Gordon Raphael producing, the second attempt after rejected initial sessions. The Strokes' debut LP, released by Rough Trade in July 2001 (UK) and RCA in October 2001 (US). The album that converted New York post-punk revival from underground gossip into international commercial-pop form and inaugurated the 2000s indie-rock garage-revival vocabulary every subsequent garage-rock-revival band has worked within.
Eleven tracks in 36 minutes. Recorded at Transporterraum studio in New York with Gordon Raphael producing, the second attempt after rejected initial sessions. The Strokes' debut LP, released by Rough Trade in July 2001 (UK) and RCA in October 2001 (US). The album that converted New York post-punk revival from underground gossip into international commercial-pop form and inaugurated the 2000s indie-rock garage-revival vocabulary every subsequent garage-rock-revival band has worked within.
The Strokes in mid-2000 were a five-piece New York band, Julian Casablancas (lead vocals), Nick Valensi (lead guitar), Albert Hammond Jr. (rhythm guitar), Nikolai Fraiture (bass), Fabrizio Moretti (drums), coalescing around private-school connections between Casablancas, Fraiture, and Moretti at the Lycée Français de New York and at the Dwight School. The band had been playing the Lower East Side bar circuit since 1999. RCA Records and Rough Trade Records both pursued the band through late 2000; the dual UK / US contractual arrangement was set by spring 2001.
Initial recording sessions with producer Gil Norton (Pixies' Doolittle, Foo Fighters' The Colour and the Shape) were attempted in late 2000 and rejected. Casablancas and the band wanted a deliberately-rougher production aesthetic than Norton's commercial-pop polish. Gordon Raphael, a New York producer with substantial underground catalogue, was contracted for the second-attempt sessions at his Transporterraum studio on East 4th Street.
Sessions ran approximately 4 weeks across late 2000 and early 2001. Raphael's production methodology was deliberately stripped-down: live-tracking with minimal overdubbing, deliberately-rough mixing, deliberate preservation of room ambience and amp noise. The 11-track album was completed in spring 2001.
The sound is a room rather than a desk. Initial sessions with Gil Norton, who had made Doolittle and The Colour and the Shape, were rejected: Casablancas wanted something rougher than that polish. Recording moved to Gordon Raphael's basement studio, Transporterraum, on East 4th Street, where Raphael tracked the band live and kept what a cleaner engineer would have removed, room ambience, amp noise, a vocal deliberately distorted at the microphone. The lo-fi result reads as a budget constraint and was not one. It was chosen, and the rejected sessions that preceded it made the process longer than the finished record sounds.
Two things happened to the album between markets. Colin Lane's pixelated lower-torso photograph was the UK cover and was replaced for the US under RCA's editorial control, replaced by contractual decision rather than prohibited, which is the distinction the word banned loses. After the September 11 attacks RCA removed 'New York City Cops' from the US tracklist on the grounds that its line about New York City cops would read as insensitive; 'When It Started' took its place. First-state UK pressings carrying the original sleeve and the original eleven tracks are what a collector is looking for. 'Last Nite' descends, by Casablancas's own admission, from Tom Petty's 'American Girl' — the resemblance is real, freely conceded, and not a legal matter.
Rough Trade released the album in the UK on July 30, 2001, the original UK pressing carried the famously-pixelated 'butt' cover photograph (Colin Lane's image of a woman's lower torso in a translucent shower curtain). The US release was delayed and the cover image was replaced for the US edition with a different photograph (the band's signed contract had given RCA editorial control over the US cover). The 'New York City Cops' track was also removed from the US release after the September 11, 2001 attacks; the replacement track was 'When It Started.' The two-edition US-UK release became a Strokes-collector reference point.
Critical reception was extraordinary and unanimous. The UK release drew immediate Mercury Prize attention; the US release converted underground-press attention into commercial-pop sales. The album reached UK #2 (held off #1 by Kylie Minogue's Fever) and US #33; lifetime sales have exceeded two million units worldwide.
Is This It belongs at #98 because it is the album that converted New York post-punk revival from underground gossip into international commercial-pop form and inaugurated the 2000s indie-rock garage-revival vocabulary every subsequent garage-rock-revival band has worked within. Every subsequent Arctic Monkeys, Kings of Leon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, the Killers commercial-pop indie-rock LP runs on the proof Is This It delivered. The Rolling Stone 2020 #115 ranking confirms the canonical-text status.
Original 2001 UK/European pressing, Rough Trade RTRADELP030 (note the 'E', not 'RTRADLP030'), with Colin Lane's original gloved-hip cover and the original eleven-track running order that includes 'New York City Cops'. The US edition swapped the cover and replaced 'New York City Cops' with 'When It Started', so the Rough Trade vinyl is the version collectors want. Confirm the RTRADELP030 catalogue number and the presence of 'New York City Cops' to verify a first press.
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