Iconic // Is This It by The Strokes / by Jack Gobbe

As the name suggests, this series aims to shed light on timeless pieces of culture. The feature is broad in nature, and will span music, film, style, photography and many other facets of the cultural zeitgeist.

For the inaugural feature of this series, I decided upon spotlighting one of the highly formative albums in my life: The Strokes’ debut record Is This It (2001). Heralded as the spark for the revival of alternative rock in the early 21st century, The Strokes find their roots in the revolutionary sounds from The Velvet Underground and Television. Discovering this album in my early teens was as cliché as it could’ve been, however it proved to be formative nonetheless.

Here was a group that exuded total confidence and a disregard for the norm. Personal favourites Someday and Hard to Explain came to be the soundtrack to my early adolescent years. Nevertheless, the album remains a part of my life years on, and will continue to do so until my ability to hear withers.