Hard to Explain


"Hard to Explain" is a song by American rock band the Strokes. It was released as the lead single from their debut studio album, Is This It, June 25, 2001. It peaked at number 10 in Ireland and number 16 in the United Kingdom.

Reception

The single was voted number 3 on the NME Top 100 songs of the decade. In October 2011, NME placed it at number 36 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years". Rolling Stone placed the song at number 59 on its list "100 Best Songs of the 2000s."

Music video

The music video for this song was rarely broadcast on television because it did not contain enough shots of the band members, but was instead a montage of random stock footage shots of things that could be considered "hard to explain". It was directed by the team of Roman Coppola and Johannes Gamble. Footage of The Strokes playing "Take It or Leave It" from MTV2's Two Dollar Bill concert is used in the video. Amongst stock footage, the video contains clips from Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider, a clip from the film Brainstorm, a commercial for the 1970 Dodge Charger 500, a clip from the film WarGames, NASA footage of the Space Shuttle Atlantis in orbit, gameplay of the 1981 Sega arcade game Turbo, the rocket engine firing of the Saturn V and image of particle tracks in a bubble chamber. Some of the stock footage was taken from the film Koyaanisqatsi, which was presented by Francis Ford Coppola.

Track listing

Weekly charts