Maps of Music

Room on Fire (2003)

Where the lyrics of Room on Fire take you, and where it was really made.

The album's title comes from a lyric in "Reptilia", and the band first hired Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, then fired him and went back to their original producer.

Key places

Recorded at TMF Studios in Manhattan (2003)

Recording site TMF Studios — Gordon Raphael chose TMF Studios on 12th Street in Manhattan for the album sessions. He had earlier produced Regina Spektor's Soviet Kitsch in the same studio. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Room on Fire: second studio album by the American rock band the Strokes
• Released 20 October 2003 in the UK and 28 October 2003 in the US, on RCA Records
• Title taken from a lyric in the song "Reptilia"
• Three singles: "12:51", "Reptilia", "The End Has No End"
• Peaked at number four on the US Billboard 200 and number two on the UK Albums Chart
• Described as indie rock, garage rock revival and new wave

Background

• Recorded right after the tour for the debut album Is This It
• Hired Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, then fired him when the band judged the work together unsatisfactory
• Sessions with Godrich were scrapped
• Returned to original producer Gordon Raphael, who had worked on Is This It
• Sound of the album is said to be more powerful after the Is This It tour, according to Raphael

Recording

• Only three months of studio time were left to record the album
• Guitarist Nick Valensi said the album would have turned out much better with a couple more weeks
• Raphael chose TMF Studios on 12th Street in Manhattan
• Damon Albarn visited the studio to hear the songs and suggested backing vocals; after two hours of trying he judged the songs perfect without them

Cover

• Cover is taken from Peter Phillips' 1961 oil painting War/Game

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org · pt.wikipedia.org

Artist

Formation

• The Strokes are an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1998.
• Lead vocalist and primary songwriter Julian Casablancas, guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr., bassist Nikolai Fraiture, and drummer Fabrizio Moretti made up the lineup, which has remained unchanged since formation.
• Casablancas, Valensi and Moretti began playing together as teenagers at Dwight School in Manhattan and formed an informal band in 1997.
• Fraiture, a childhood friend of Casablancas, joined later, and Hammond Jr. was the last member to join, at the end of 1998.
• Their first show as the Strokes was on September 14, 1999, at The Spiral.
• The Modern Age EP (2001), recorded with producer Gordon Raphael, sparked a bidding war among record labels and they eventually signed with RCA Records.

Members

• Julian Casablancas: lead vocals, keyboards, drums in studio.
• Nick Valensi: guitar, backing vocals, keyboards.
• Fabrizio Moretti: drums, percussion, keyboards.
• Nikolai Fraiture: bass, keyboards.
• Albert Hammond Jr.: guitar, backing vocals, keyboards.

Career

• Debut album Is This It (2001) received widespread critical acclaim and has appeared on numerous greatest-albums lists.
• Later albums include Room on Fire (2003), First Impressions of Earth (2005), Angles (2011), Comedown Machine (2013), and The New Abnormal (2020), which was produced by Rick Rubin and won Best Rock Album at the 63rd Grammy Awards.
• Seventh album Reality Awaits was released on July 24, 2026.
• The band's sound is described as indie rock, garage rock revival and post-punk revival, and later incorporated new wave and synth-pop.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Generally positive reviews on release
• Metacritic score of 77 out of 100 based on 31 reviews
• Reviewers generally found the album too similar to Is This It
• Pitchfork, Rob Mitchum: 8 out of 10, said the band had almost given birth to an identical twin
• Rolling Stone: positive, said the band resisted the temptation to change a sound that did not need fixing
• BBC Music, Dan Tallis: favorable, called it Is This It part two
• The Observer, Ben Thompson: five stars
• Spin, Greg Milner: 8 out of 10
• The Austin Chronicle, Raoul Hernandez: 2 out of 5
• Playlouder, Iain Moffat: one star, criticized Julian Casablancas's vocals

Reappraisal

• Pitchfork included the album in its 2021 list of scores it would change, raising its score from 8.0 to 9.2
• Lane Brown of Pitchfork praised it as a different, better album than its predecessor

Records

• US Billboard 200: number four
• UK Albums Chart: number two
• RIAA Gold certification in December 2003
• Platinum certification in June 2021 for selling over one million units
• Sold 597,000 units by October 2006, according to the lead
• UK: platinum, more than 300,000 copies sold
• NME: number 360 on its 500 greatest albums of all time list (2013)
• BBC: included in its 2018 list of acclaimed albums nobody listens to any more

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Title taken from a lyric in "Reptilia"
• Two concerts at Alexandra Palace in London in December 2003 were recorded by the BBC for a planned live album, but the release was cancelled because the recording quality was judged unsatisfactory
• The band appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on every Thursday in November 2003 to perform tracks from the album
• On 21 May 2004 the band played "The End Has No End" on the Late Show with David Letterman on CBS
• Spin ran five different covers for one issue, each showing a portrait of one band member

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

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