After nearly six years of anticipation, The Strokes announced a June release date for their long-awaited seventh album, “Reality Awaits.” Along with this announcement came the release of “Going Shopping,” a new single likely aimed to generate momentum for their upcoming LP. Unfortunately, this single appears to be suffering from many problems that have plagued the band and its vocalist, Julian Casablancas, in recent years.
The Strokes’ previous album, “The New Abnormal,” came out in 2020 to much critical acclaim and even won the Best Rock Album award at the Grammys. After years of inactivity and the band seemingly going their separate ways to focus on solo work or other projects, many fans saw this release as the beginning of a new golden age for The Strokes.
However, over half a decade later, it would seem they fell right back into their same old patterns, putting the band on the back burner for some time. Casablancas has opted to focus more on his other band, The Voidz, releasing 10 singles and one studio album since the release of “The New Abnormal.”
The Voidz’ “Like All Before You” came out in 2024 to mostly mixed or negative reviews, along with a notable controversy in its AI-generated album cover. Fans and critics alike criticized the album’s overly autotuned vocals and sloppy production. Many deem it a massive step down in quality from earlier albums such as “Virtue” and “Tyranny,” which, while being experimental, cemented The Voidz as having a totally different sound and target audience than The Strokes.
Personally, I have been a huge fan of both The Strokes and The Voidz for some time. Upon the announcement of “Reality Awaits,” I was ecstatic, and when “Going Shopping” came out, I eagerly connected my phone to my car’s Bluetooth to see what my favorite band had to offer, but I was unfortunately very disappointed.
The song opens with an interesting enough base instrumental, which, much like the astronaut on the album cover, kind of makes the listener feel like they are floating aimlessly through space. However fun floating aimlessly through space may sound, it continues to feel aimless throughout the duration of the song, never really offering a satisfying musical high point or climax.
Upon the beginning of the first verse, it becomes clear that the obnoxious autotune that plagued the recent Voidz album has infected The Strokes and contaminated this poor, innocent song. Casablancas sings about tigers, zombies and his future wife running past him in a “little red jumpsuit” at the mall.
The lyrics may seem all over the place, but that kind of scatter-brained quality is tied together in the chorus. Despite that, some lyrics are extremely corny and almost irredeemable, even if they do fit into the grand theme of the track.
With the line “Solidarity can be difficult. When you’ve got cool stuff to lose,” I realized that all subtlety and nuance had been thrown completely out the window and that this song would be telling you exactly what it is saying.
The chorus describes Casablanca’s seemingly running away from his life, his responsibilities and things that plague him in modern society, like shops, malls, his phone and stockbrokers, only to ultimately miss them and return to them.
The concept here is actually an interesting anti-consumerism, but an addicted-to-consumerism sort of message. Though the lyrics are at times on the nose and corny, they appeal to ideas that most people today will relate to and tackle them in creative ways.
However, that does not save the song from the aforementioned horrible autotune, which makes Casablancas’ point almost impossible to decipher without actually reading the lyrics, as it is hard to understand most of what he’s saying. As I mentioned earlier, the “interesting enough” base instrumental really does not go anywhere or pay off in any sort of impactful way. Unfortunately, “interesting enough” is not satisfactory to carry a whole song. By the time the second chorus, third verse and third chorus rolled around, I found myself bored and ready to skip the song.
In recent shows, including dates in Las Vegas and San Francisco, guitarist Nick Valensi has been noticeably absent, with no explanation, which makes me wonder if he even played on this song at all. This raises one of my main concerns for this upcoming album, which is the state of the band.
With one of the group’s founding members seemingly blowing off concerts, are they really ready for yet another “triumphant” return? The quality of “Going Shopping” would suggest they are not.
In the end, this track does not sound like a Strokes song. It almost sounds like The Voidz covering a Strokes song.
Instrumentally and vocally, it lacks the soul that makes older Strokes tracks so timeless and lovable. It’s clear that the autotune on Casablancas’ vocals was his own influence, as it is found consistently in all his recent projects, no matter what band he’s in.
I worry that The Strokes have reached a point where they can phone it in, let Casablancas do whatever he wants to his voice, not even show up with the full band to their shows, and be satisfied enough to call it a day. There is real emotion behind every note, every chord, and every lyric on “The New Abnormal,” and you can tell.
Unfortunately, here, there appears to be no emotion. “Going Shopping” feels like they wrote a song, just for the sake of writing a song, and I cross my fingers that the new album does continue to suffer from this same problem.
