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At the end, after his inevitable untimely death, all anyone will care about will be the stately grandeur of the opening (and closing) music coupled with the star’s eternal blank stare: unknowable, unfathomable, and ultimately tragic. We’ll have to wait for the movie; fortunately the soundtrack is already here.
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Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas steps out with his debut solo album, Phrazes for the Young, and dynamically weaves '80s techno-pop with psychedelic punk, while also reinventing his usual monochromatic croon.
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Recorded under the radar with producer Jason Lader and Bright Eyes collaborator Mike Mogis, it’s a strange little album, just eight songs long but deceptively dense with ideas.
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The effect is more Tokyo neon than Lower East Side leather. Surprisingly, the sonic leap forward intensifies Casablancas' greatest gift--melody.
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Ultimately, Phrazes For The Young testifies that the qualities that made Julian Casablancas so noteworthy in 2001 remain in place, just a little more difficult to predict.
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With a new Strokes album looking less likely by the day, I’m thankful for this--turns out Casablancas solo is just as good.
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Phrazes for the Young blusters its way through eight songs full of killer hooks and choruses, and then? Well, it’s gone, as fun and fleeting as a carnival ride that’s just a memory a few hours later.
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Overall, Phrazes For The Young is a successful departure from The Strokes' straightforward brawn, but it's not as different as it's been billed.
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It may not have the sugar rush immediacy of the Strokes, and at times it's downright indulgent, but Phrazes for the Young shows that Casablancas has more than enough ideas for several albums on his own and with his band--and perhaps most importantly, he sounds more enthused about making music on it than he has since "Is This It."
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MojoJulian Casablancas emerges with this engagingly odd collection of songs. [Nov 2009, p.92]
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The album adheres to a less-is-best philosophy, and the songs sound effortless. It’s simple, straightforward and immediate, just like the first Strokes album.
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It is overarchingly ambitious for a solo debut, and despite Casablancas’ pre-release claims that this was going to be some classico-synth detour straight out the asshole of Tattooine, the album rarely, rarely stumbles into po-mo theatrics.
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Burdened with the responsibility of assuring the future of rock at the beginning of this decade, Casablancas now looks like he could have a decent future of his own.
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Phrazes represents a creative departure for Casablancas and another milestone for his band--marking a point where they've produced more quality albums by themselves than as a group.
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Strokes frontman ditches leather jacket, reinvents self as DIY Gary Numan.
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In the end, deliberately(?) tinny tracks such as 'Glass' sound like sketches in search of a full band. Hopefully, said band will soon oblige.
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Whenever Casablancas strains for seriousness, the album loses focus....When he concentrates on making pop music, however, Phrazes for the Young is a blast.
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A few songs have the old leather-jacket kick, but things get weirder as he explores alienation from a Lower East Side he once ruled.
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Q Magazine'Ludow St' is lyrically smart, musically ambitious, more than any other track on Phrazes, it makes you wonder, if not regret, why the Strokes themselves never pushed the boat out this far. For that reason alone, it was worth Casablancas making this intriguing if imperfect record. [Nov 2009, p.98]
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The irony is that Phrazes for the Young is so smoothed over--nearly all of Casablancas' trademark vocal roughness is airbrushed into oblivion--it instantly sounds like a plexiglass-covered museum piece.
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With the Strokes, Casablancas exploits the tension between his behind-the-beat, just-woke-up vocals and the band’s hurtling rhythms. On Phrazes, the slower-moving tempos match the unhurried pace of his distinctive croon, and the melodies and arrangements aren’t strong enough to make up for the loss in urgency.
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If it were anyone else, this record would be fine. Solid. Entertaining. But it's not anyone else--Julian Casablancas, lead singer of The Strokes. As such, you look for more and expect to tune in to find Julian doing the same.
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It's not all awful, and it's certainly not Gene Simmons doing "When You Wish Upon A Star," but it sure ain't the Strokes, either.
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There are moments which hint at Casablancas’ underlying skill as a writer on Phrazes, but there’s such a ruinous deployment of disparate ideas that they never form a cogent whole.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 80 out of 88
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Mixed: 3 out of 88
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Negative: 5 out of 88
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Feb 26, 2018
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Nov 28, 2017
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Oct 30, 2014