The Strokes announced a new album coming out, and it's added a layer of excitement to this summer. As a long-time fan, I'm ecstatic that we'll soon have more material for my dopamine playlist, the first addition being the single "Going Shopping". It's equal parts old west, futuristic, twangy electric guitar. I've heard both the studio version and the live performance from Coachella, and loved both. Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond, Jr. are both incredible, the way they spar and bounce off each other. I love how Fabrizio Moretti changes up the drum line (bass drum?) in the second verse, it feels like watching horses run across a plain. Nikolai Fraiture's bass accentuates the sort of bouncy quality of the song, I only wish it were a bit more showcased in the mix, it shines more for me in the live performance.
The more I engaged with social media content about the single, the more I realized many fans were not keen on Julian Casablancas' use of autotune. To each his own, but I will say this: Julian has consistently used a variety of vocal effects because he views his voice as an instrument, something he discussed briefly in his Tiny TV interview with Anders Botter. After listening to "Going Shopping", maybe he sacrificed stylistic choices on The New Abnormal to keep his options open for Reality Awaits.
From the beginnings of the band, the effects he used have become representative of an era. Think of the gritty, grainy recording style of the title track in their debut album Is This It.
Later we have the vocoder-ed cyborg voice on "Instant Crush" that really stole the show, and more recently the last song to be released by Daft Punk, "Infinity Repeating", which was recorded around the same time frame.
Many Strokes fans relate the use of autotune more to his work with The Voidz, due to the effect being more common with productions from them. His solo album Phrazes for the Young also featured vocal effects sprinkled throughout, see below the timeless masterpiece that is "Tourist".
And I would be remiss not to mention Charli XCX and the "Mean Girls" track featuring Julian. This song alone deserves a whole other blog post, it was released a week before my birthday and it was a gift to me when two of my favorite artists collaborated.
He's always been an artist who likes to experiment and push the envelope, showing his range and making it clear he can't just be labeled and put in a box. Every detail and layer is an intentional choice, and it adds to the creative work as a whole. All this to say, I'm a Julian defender for life and I'm absolutely stoked to hear the full album on June 26.
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