I’ve never been big on The Strokes. Now, that might sound like a surprise given that I’ve been playing the band in my sets, literally, since the Is This It era, but part of being a DJ is playing music that works in the room even if it’s not your favorite. I never really hated the band either. (If I did, I wouldn’t play them at all.) It’s just one of those things, where I guess I like some songs, but the hype kind of annoyed me and there were other bands coming out at the time that I preferred. It’s not a big deal. You don’t have to love everything that’s been deemed important or popular. Pre-social media, people understood that.
Anyhow, there was this moment a few months ago when it hit me that The Strokes were cool af. Or, at least, Julian Casablancas is. It was when the band played Coachella and bits and pieces of the set turned up on my Instagram feed as a clip loop. That performance of “Oblivius,” with the images on the screen pointing to the U.S.’ history of messing around with other people’s countries, bringing us up to present-day Iran and followed by the destruction of Gaza’s last university, hit me hard. That was a bold move for a Coachella set, especially after what happened to Kneecap in the aftermath of last year’s festival.
But, more than the content itself, I think it resonated with me that this message was coming from a band in my own age group. Corporate news and demographically-driven timelines would have us believe that protest and political speech is a folly of youth. The middle aged have more sensible concerns, like gas prices or how we’re going to afford both groceries and tweakments. Of course, that’s not entirely true, but it’s also not entirely false.
That brings us to “Going Shopping,” the lead single off The Strokes’ new album, Reality Awaits, wherein Casablancas sings, “The worse reality gets, the less you wanna hear about it/Solidarity can be difficult/When you got cool stuff to lose.” I love this song’s sneak attack. It’s poppy and comes with a video that stars Walter Goggins and references a Paul Simon video from the 1980s, a virtual guarantee to get shares amongst certain audiences. “Going Shopping” is now enough of a hit to land on the playlist at my local gym. But, at the same time, the lyrics are mostly indecipherable to casual listeners, so the truth missile will just fly by undetected by most. It’s a good indication of how the album rolls as a whole.
Reality Awaits has been out long enough now for people to have hot takes on it, most of which are split. It’s an album that people seem to love or hate, but, either way, think is “weird.” I’m in the love it camp, but also don’t think the album is particularly weird. It should be normal that an album, especially one from a band that has been around for 25 years, isn’t so straightforward. There’s a lot to pull out of these songs and the lyrics are mostly open to interpretation, although it seems like a good chunk of it is about getting older in a mess of a world.
“Psycho Shit,” is an elegant opener that drops listeners into a zone that’s dark af, setting the tone for Reality Awaits. “Dine N’ Dash,” which is actually my favorite on the album, harks back to classic Strokes material albeit it made for a world that is somehow bleaker than the early 2000s were. It’s funny to me when people get all nostalgic for the ‘00s because the whole decade sucked. It just didn’t suck as much as the 2020s do. I think Reality Awaits is an album that gets that differentiation. On the whole, the album sounds like it’s intentionally messing with people’s expectations of what The Strokes should be. You’ll have a song that almost sounds like it could be on the band’s first two albums, but then you hear the vocoder and are thrown off. That’s what I really like about the album. Reality Awaits is genuine, good-spirited trolling that forces you to spend time with the album and maybe decode the messages in it.
Reality Awaits by The Strokes is out now.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Follow on Instagram or sign up for the weekly, Beatique newsletter for updates on new stories and gigs.
Listen to the August 2026 edition of Beatique with music from Arctic Monkeys, Divine Comedy, Boy Harsher, horsegiirL, Turnstile and more.
More: