“Going Shopping” With The Strokes
Via The Strokes Website
After six years of no new music, The Strokes have announced their upcoming album, Reality Awaits, coming out this summer. The band has hinted at new music for some time now, and when they confirmed on Monday that new music was on the way, they did not hesitate to give the fans something to latch on to. Following the exciting news, they released the first single of the album titled “Going Shopping.”
Right off the bat, there’s no question that this is a song made by the iconic New York City band. They have a sound that is hard to replicate and easy to identify. The Strokes are known for their complementary guitars (thank you Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi), distorted voice effects, and poignant lyrics. This single is no exception.
The song itself has a sound reminiscent of the 80’s, with funky guitar tones, and a bass line that forces you to move with it. It begins softly, allowing the listener to become accustomed to this new era for the band before introducing the chorus, which I can’t help but dance to.
The vocals on the track are processed with obvious autotune effects, a signature of Julian Casablancas’, seen in much of his music with both The Strokes and The Voidz, his other band.
Personally, when I first listened to the song, it was hard not to draw similarities to the track “Eternal Summer” from their previous record, The New Abnormal. To me, both carry the same feelings of summer through their bright, upbeat sounds, but also seem to serve as forms of commentary on the state of the world at the moment.
“Eternal Summer” does so by highlighting climate change and global warming, through lyrics like, Summer is coming, won't go away/ Summer is coming and it's here to stay. Other lines that underscore this idea are: This is the eleventh hour, and They got the remedy, But they won’t let it happen. The band continues this political/social commentary in their newest track with lines that cleverly weave in topics such as society’s avoidance or ignoring of issues, the collapse of the stock market, and being pawns in a political game.
Casablancas, who is known to speak out on controversial topics or public issues, sings the lyrics, the worse reality gets, the less you wanna hear about it, bringing in his view of modern day culture into the song. There are cases like this scattered throughout: lines regarding stockbrokers flying out of windows, not listening to people who society deems “too old”, and even Casablancas explicitly talking about being a political puppet. Though the song has a cheerful sound to it, the lyrics juxtapose it perfectly in true Casablancas fashion.
This song was the perfect introduction into this new age of The Strokes, giving the audience a glimpse into where the band is sonically, as well as signaling what this new album’s place in the greater societal conversation will be.