The Best Strokes Covers Of All Time, From Julia Jacklin To Azealia Banks
Arctic Monkeys covering 'Take It Or Leave It' is perhaps the most fun a band has ever had.
We’re coming up on two full decades since The Strokes released their hype-in-a-bottle debut in mid-2001, and Is This It still feels like a visceral embodiment of its precise time and place: new-millennium New York City, on the cusp of both 9/11 and the internet as newly ascendant tastemaker. And no matter where (or when) you were when you first heard it, no doubt it transports you back there with an alarming degree of sensory detail.
But for all of that specificity, from the band’s self-aware standing in the lineage of style-forward New York bands to their neatly timed role in (briefly) making rock cool again, Strokes songs have proven surprisingly malleable in the hands of others.
While the internet habitually refracts things into a dizzying array of interpretations — giving us The Strokes as trad jazz, chiptune, electro-pop, and classical — there’s an added incentive to covering The Strokes. It’s partly about attempting to inhabit (or at least approximate) the band’s dauntingly tight interplay, and partly about transposing those nocturnal city snapshots that Julian Casablancas christened with slouching nonchalance.
No wonder the band’s six albums from the past 20 years (including last year’s resurgent The New Abnormal) represent such an enduring well of source material. And it’s not just teen YouTubers brandishing their Strokes covers: Paramore did ‘Someday’ live in Copenhagen before frontwoman Hayley William tried her hand at ‘Automatic Stop’ in iso, while Andy Hull from Manchester Orchestra has paid home-recorded acoustic tribute to scene-setting Is This It opener ‘What Ever Happened’.
In fact, everyone from Adele to Billie Eilish has tackled The Strokes at one time or another. Ahead of that first album’s 20th anniversary later this year, here are the 10 best (and most varied) Strokes reworks out there.
#10. Azealia Banks — ‘Barely Legal’ (2013)
Beyond the novelty of the native New Yorker singing rather than rapping — and playing it mostly straight throughout — this version applies a clubby makeover to yet another Is This It favourite.
Despite oozing a pop-ready bubbliness that’s unusual for Banks and the band alike, it’s actually quite faithful to the original, with Banks acquitting herself well around the lyrics’ afterhours survey of misbegotten lust and strewn romantic wreckage.
It’s not the first time The Strokes have wandered their way into hip-hop: Rhymefest’s 2006 track ‘Devil’s Pie’ samples a decent portion of ‘Someday’ at the start, before chopping it for the backing of the entire track.
#9. Owen Pallett — ‘Hard to Explain’ (2011)
Maybe the single most transformative entry here, famed string arranger Owen Pallett (who’s worked with everyone from Arcade Fire to Taylor Swift) turns the noisy, pulsing original into a serene ballad cascading with strings, piano and his delicate, quivering vocals.
Recorded for an indie-centric tribute compilation that Stereogum curated for the first album’s 10th anniversary, this shows just how pliable Strokes songs are — and how much a current of melancholy runs through even the most bratty and anthemic examples. Transposed to the stately realm of chamber ensembles, the chaotic subject matter becomes unexpectedly moving.
#8. A.G. Cook — ‘The End Has No End’ (2020)
PC Music founder and repeat Charli XCX collaborator A.G. Cook included this cover on his long-time-coming solo album 7G, on which he also covers Sia, Smashing Pumpkins, Blur, and Taylor Swift.
Leaning into the Room on Fire original’s neon-licked ’80s flirtations, Cook crafts an overdriven bedroom ballad that runs thick with harsh digital effects (especially vocally) but preserves some humanity via a wan synth line. At times it reads more like a remix than a cover, but it’s a welcome reminder that there are more Strokes albums to pull from, interpretation-wise, than the first one.
#7. HAIM — ‘I’ll Try Anything Once’ (2017)
Something of a deep cut for a few reasons, this live performance for BBC Radio 1’s Piano Sessions with Huw Stephens hones in on an early demo for the song that would become ‘You Only Live Once’, the opening track of 2006’s First Impressions of Earth.
The demo features Casablancas crooning over Nick Valensi’s electric piano, luxuriating in an unpolished sadness that’s no longer so evident in the finished album version.
The Haim sisters head right back to that initial vulnerability, with lead singer Danielle exposing the heartfelt turns of phrase hiding beneath the Strokes leader’s swaggering front. When all three siblings eventually snap their fingers along to the sparse piano backing, it’s like the flickering click track of a late-night demo that doubles as a diary entry.
#6. The Detroit Cobras — ‘Last Nite’ (2003)
Maybe the coolest covers band on the planet, The Detroit Cobras specialise in badass garage-rock versions of vintage soul and blues numbers, with singer’s Rachel Nagy prowling, scenery-chewing presence elevating that premise beyond mere kitsch.
For their contribution to a 25th anniversary compilation for their UK label Rough Trade — on which various Rough Trade acts liberally covered their labelmates — the revolving-cast ensemble tore into the still fairly fresh ‘Last Nite’. Nagy’s voice is more restrained than usual against rolling drums and a great grainy solo, all steeped in throwback rockabilly verve.
There’s even a fun little lyric change (“The Cobras, they don’t understand”) and the whole thing clocks in at 40 seconds shorter than the original. No less than Adele has covered the same song, but this version changes it up just enough, without losing a drop of The Strokes’ scuffed appeal.
#5. Rostam — ‘Under Control’ (2020)
Invited by Stereogum to cover an aughts-era song in iso, former Vampire Weekend member/producer Rostam Batmanglij turned this already romantic slow-burn (which quietly revels in classic Stax soul) into an introspective R&B ballad dotted with piano, finger snaps and subtly spacious effects.
Singing in the car while driving around at night, he taps into the yawning loneliness that many of us have experienced in the past year, tethered to the world at large by music more than ever. And of course, the fact that Batmanglij did a long stint in a New York band saddled with crushing levels of hype makes him an ideal candidate for reworking The Strokes.
#4. Punch Brothers — ‘Reptilia’ (2015)
One of the hungriest, most propulsive entries from a band who have all but trademarked those qualities, 2003’s ‘Reptilia’ remains one of The Strokes’ best-loved songs.
An undisguised showcase for every component in the band — from vocals to rhythm section — it’s actually a fairly obvious candidate for a bluegrass remake. Led by Chris Thile (formerly of covers-friendly trio Nickel Creek), Punch Brothers ably adapt the evergreen anthem to banjo, fiddle, mandolin, upright bass and acoustic guitar, playing off each other in that road-tested bluegrass way while still charging ahead in much the same frenzied manner of the original. In other words: a real barnburner.
#3. Billie Eilish — ‘Call Me Back’ (2018)
Honestly, the original even sounds like a cover: a softly chiming lullaby, 2011’s ‘Call Me Back’ is a delightfully low-key rebuttal to anyone who says that all Strokes songs sound alike. Even the more tangible interplay towards the end doesn’t unfold quite as expected, making this an imminently repeatable outlier in the band’s canon.
Its ultra-intimate vibe also makes it perfect for Billie Eilish to slip into with her under-the-blankets murmur, quietly courting every nuance of the skeletal arrangement while her brother Finneas O’Connell accompanies her on acoustic guitar and vocal harmonies. Recorded for The Tonight Show’s Cover Room series, this is a sweet counterpoint to The Strokes’ famously layered attack.
#2. Arctic Monkeys — ‘Take It Or Leave It’ (2007)
Alex Turner has always credited The Strokes as an inciting incident for his own band, even opening Arctic Monkeys’ 2018 album Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino with the line “I just wanted to be one of The Strokes/Now look at the mess you made me make.”
If the influence wasn’t obvious in the band’s mouthy yet tightly coiled early albums, they made sure to send it home with a choice selections of live covers over the years — including an early stab at ‘Reptilia’ and a more recent take on ‘Is This It’ that bleeds with sleazy lizard cool.
But this one is possibly the most fun: performing on French television just before releasing their second album, Arctic Monkeys evoke early Kinks as much as their New York heroes, buzzing with frantic energy and packing a searing guitar solo from Turner.
#1. Julia Jacklin — ‘Someday’ (2017)
Retuning the original’s itchy energy to play more like a lingering Patsy Cline tearjerker, Julia Jacklin’s Like a Version rendition of ‘Someday’ is still one to beat.
Other Strokes covers have gone the lonesome route, like Royal City’s rustic overhaul of ‘Is This It’ and Oh Mercy’s own pining take on ‘Someday’, with the added benefit of making Casablancas’s slurred lyrics more intelligible. But Jacklin’s exquisitely achy voice salts the song with raw life experience, turning a wide-open line like “I’m working so I don’t have to try so hard/Tables they turn sometimes” into a cathartic act of surrender.
Doug Wallen is a freelance writer and editor, and former editor of Mess + Noise. He is on Twitter.
Photo Credit: Julian Casablancas by Jim Bennett/FilmMagic, Alex Turner by Mikki Gomez/Music Junkee