Is This It: The Never-Ending Rise and Fall of the Strokes (and Rock 'n' Roll)

Steven Hyden

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Book cover for Is This It: The Never-Ending Rise and Fall of the Strokes (and Rock 'n' Roll)
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Book cover for Is This It: The Never-Ending Rise and Fall of the Strokes (and Rock 'n' Roll)
Image for variant 9780306836619

Is This It: The Never-Ending Rise and Fall of the Strokes (and Rock 'n' Roll)

Is This It: The Never-Ending Rise and Fall of the Strokes (and Rock 'n' Roll)

Steven Hyden

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Description
From an acclaimed music critic and author, an in-depth analysis of the rise and fall of rock n' roll through the lens of one of the best albums of the 21st century--The Strokes' Is This It.

In 2001, The Strokes broke into the indie alt-rock scene with their debut album Is This It, a work that was supposed to "save" rock music from the evils of nü-metal and teen pop.

It did not.

Despite the album's countless accolades and acclaim from critics and fans alike, it failed to break into the mainstream like Nevermind did a decade before, and the band never reached as wide an audience as they'd hoped. But then why is it that no other rock band from the 21st century has captured the mystique of The Strokes? And how did a band defined by their repeated failure gain such a transcendent and enduring allure?

In Is This It: The Never Ending Rise And Fall Of The Strokes (And Rock 'n' Roll), music critic and author Steven Hyden provides keen insight into The Strokes' tumultuous longevity by turning a socio-cultural and critical lens on their entire career, as well as the careers of their contemporaries: The Killers (more successful but less cool), Kings Of Leon (the southern Strokes), The White Stripes (their friendly rival), The National (the tortoise to The Strokes's hare), and more. Hyden uses The Strokes' classic album Is This It as a vehicle for examining rock's radically changing role in pop culture over the last twenty-five years, and explores how while rock music may rise and fall, it--much like The Strokes--will never die.

About the Author

Steven Hyden is the author of seven books, including There Was Nothing You Could Do, Long Road, This Isn't Happening, and the best-selling Twilight Of The Gods. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Billboard, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and The Ringer. He also writes Evil Speakers, one of the top-selling weekly newsletters on Substack. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two children.

Critical Reviews

"Steven Hyden is a critic of bracing honesty, intelligence, wit, and charm, probably the closest modern successor to the great Lester Bangs. Indeed, Is This It isn't just a cultural history of the Strokes, but a love letter from a fan who bought the ticket, took the ride, and wonders what it all meant -- and what it might still mean -- for a true believer in the promise of rock 'n roll."

---- Joe Hagan, author of Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine

"Every band is a kind of proposition, and the Strokes are a particularly knotty one. Strong opinions and vexing contradictions come whizzing in from all sides. Steven Hyden, ever humble but always game, steps bravely into the crossfire, and emerges with an incisive, expansive, genial, playful, and heartfelt consideration of their curious career--and its broader implications, as the passing decades and inevitable upheavals change the way we think about rock bands, pop music, and the culture at large, from one generation to the next."

---- Nick Paumgarten, New Yorker staff writer and author of The Intangibles

"Steven Hyden is one of rock 'n' roll's deepest, sharpest, brightest, and coolest thinkers, with a passionate superfan's encyclopedic zeal but a humble Midwestern everyman's clear-eyed and hard-fought wisdom. His undying love for the Strokes is infectious, but he's both an ebullient rock-star mythologist and a shrewd realist: He'll make you believe this band truly matters, but he also deftly drills down on how much they ultimately matter, and to exactly whom, and to what end. The Strokes might not have 'saved rock, ' but enough warm and funny and passionate books like this might just save rock criticism."

---- Rob Harvilla, author and host of 60 Songs That Explain the '90s

"This is music criticism at its most engrossing. In his expert retelling of the Strokes' story, Steven Hyden not only finds deep comedy and sorrow, but explains the most profound shifts in the culture of music fandom that accompanied the decline of rock in the early 21st century."

---- W. David Marx, author of Blank Space: A Cultural History of the 21st Century

". . . an intrepid, music-genre vivisection that nevertheless reinforces the truism that any work of art criticusm is as much about the critis as about the subjet. A graceful eulogy for rock bands, centered on rock's last best hope."

---- Kirkus Reviews

"[A] wry, heartbroken homage. . . . an insightful, entertaining meditation on rock 'n' roll might-have-beens."

---- Publishers Weekly

Publishing Information

Publisher: Da Capo
Pub date: 2026-09-08
Length: 288 pages

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