This feature was originally published in October 2013 and was updated in honor of Julian Casablancas’ birthday in 2022. Now, we’ve expanded and reworked the list in celebration of The Strokes’ latest album, Reality Awaits.

All it takes is one strummed note on the electric guitar and you know it’s The Strokes. The New York quintet — vocalist Julian Casablancas, guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr., bassist Nikolai Fraiture, and drummer Fabrizio Moretti — have a sound so beloved and recognizable that it inspired an entire genre of imitators. For so many years of rock history, the ideal of starting a band with your friends, carving out a sound inspired by your favorite artists, and capturing lightning in a bottle was strictly the stuff of legend. The Strokes did it.

The ingredients of a great Strokes tune have varied slightly, but the bones are always there. It’s interplay between a rhythm guitar and a lead, usually with either Valensi and Hammond Jr. offering steady strums of distorted chords and the other chiming in with a satisfying riff. It’s often a steady-but-heady rhythm behind the kit from Moretti, who locks in with Fraiture but regularly stretches motorik precision to its limits. And, of course, it’s the chameleonic Casablancas on the mic, howling and crooning, often with a filter on his vocals and anchoring every soaring melodic hook with a raw, effortless swagger.

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Though they’ve been around for over 25 years now, The Strokes have never lost their sense of cool, even with a changing zeitgeist. The principles of their incredible debut album Is This It have reverberated through every era of indie rock that followed: the mid-2000s “indie landfill” wave, the rise of alt-rock heavyweights like Arctic Monkeys, the scrappy SoCal garage sounds of The Growlers, and right on through to indie’s current vanguard, led by Fontaines D.C. and Wet Leg.

With Reality Awaits, the band’s seventh album, arriving on Friday, July 24th, it’s particularly tough to whittle down The Strokes’ catalogue to their 15 best songs — especially when Is This It remains a stone-cold classic and, predictably, dominates this list. But each album, Reality Awaits included, has its fair share of gems (an honorable mention to “Welcome to Japan” from Comedown Machine, the only Strokes album not represented in this piece. Consider it #16). We’ve opted to include some beloved fan-favorites and a few deep cuts along the way, though it’s hard not to return to classics like “Someday” and “You Only Live Once” time and time again.

Read on for our list of The Strokes’ 15 best songs, along with a playlist. And if you’re looking to catch The Strokes live, they’ve got a few tour dates lined up through 2026. Get tickets here.

— Paolo Ragusa
Live Music Editor