Hard to Explain

When Julian Casablancas sat down to compose Hard to Explain, he did so with a fairly basic tool: his drum machine. That initial idea, born in the intimacy of his studio, evolved into the first track of Is This It, the debut album by The Strokes. The song, with its raw energy and a structure that invites immersion, was recorded between March and April 2001 at Transporterraum studio in New York, under the production of Gordon Raphael. The band’s goal was to capture a direct sound, free of studio artifices, something they had already explored in their 2001 EP, The Modern Age. Much of the recording relied on live takes, seeking the authenticity that would define their approach.

The music video for Hard to Explain reflects this pursuit of the peculiar. Instead of focusing on the band, it opted for a montage of archival footage, sometimes disconcerting, that seemed to align with the idea of something hard to grasp. Directed by Roman Coppola and Johannes Gamble, with uncredited involvement from Julian Casablancas, the video weaves together clips from series like Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider, scenes from films such as Brainstorm and WarGames, NASA footage of the Atlantis shuttle, and even 1981 video game sequences like Turbo. It also included shots of the Saturn V engine and an image of particles in a bubble chamber, which curiously ended up being the cover of the album Is This It in the United States. The song, written entirely by Julian Casablancas, was officially released on June 25, 2001, and though it did not receive widespread television airplay due to its unconventional video, it became a cornerstone of the music of that era.