Casablancas Says Strokes Are Divided Over Progress of Fourth LP

The Strokes have reportedly run into a "disagreement" while working on new tracks for their fourth album, the follow-up to 2006's First Impressions of Earth. Frontman Julian Casablancas gave a progress report to the U.K.'s Sun (via the Quietus), in which he admitted the paper there's a lack of consensus between the bandmembers as to whether "the songs are ready."

"I'm somewhere in the middle," Casablancas said of the Strokes' creative rift. "The problem is getting us together. We're scattered everywhere, and apart from when we're rehearsing we don't see each other. We're not like people who go to the movies together. It's weird with the band, a band is actually a great way to ruin a friendship."

Thankfully for Strokes fans, the hiatus after First Impressions has led to a surge of Strokes side and solo projects, and as Rolling Stone previously reported, Casablancas will release his debut solo album Phrazes for the Young on November 3rd. While the standard release of Phrazes drops next Tuesday, Pitchfork reports that a box set edition of the album will drop December 18th. Why wait? Well, for $89 you'll receive the album on both CD and vinyl, a DVD of Casablancas performing the songs acoustic, an additional CD of demos and B-sides, posters, a 48-page book with Julian's signature and much more ephemera.

Related Stories:
• The Strokes' Julian Casablancas Performs Solo Set in Tokyo
• Strokes' Casablancas Announces Solo LP: In the Smoking Section
• Cover Story: The Strokes - Elegantly Wasted

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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