10 Rock Albums That Are Way Too Bloated

The entire rock scene seemed to be reinvigorated once the Strokes hit the scene in the early '00s. As much as they might have been cribbing a lot of their notes from the old school rock and roll of the '70s, it was great to hear rock songs on the charts that weren't just post grunge schlock and nu metal bands strutting their stuff on MTV. Though The Strokes were ready for the big time at the start, their transition into the stadiums of the world was a bit of an awkward phase.

Working without their signature producer for the first time, First Impressions of Earth is the most mixed bag that the band have ever made, being just under an hour and sounding like the band is trying to pull themselves in 8 different directions. While the idea of the Strokes entering the same league as the Foo Fighters definitely sounds interesting, the street level appeal of their debut is still here and the production does not go well at all, with Julian Casablancas's vocals sounding distorted in all the wrong ways.

Although songs like You Only Live Once and Juicebox set the scene up decently, you have to really do some digging to find the great moments on here. For every great experiment like Vision of Division or Ask Me Anything, there are songs that just feel too boring to take seriously or embarrassing to listen to. The Strokes should do whatever the hell they want, but there's a good chance that this album is the reason why fans just compare every new album to the glory days.