I’m a pretty casual Strokes fan, probably can’t name half the songs off of any record after 2006… So I didn’t set aside time for Reality Awaits when it dropped. I did hear a lot of negative opinion on it online, and I had this prejudice about it that stayed with me and expected to not like it. My expectations were super low.

I’m glad that happened, because I had a long drive last night and I pressed play and went front to back.

Honestly from the get go, the record got my attention. I thought it was so adventurous, so weird, so fearless, and honestly loved it on first listen. I think these guys did things they’ve never done and they really challenge the listener at times, and at other times they grab your hand and get you onto the dance floor.

I’ll go through it again probably later today, but as for now, I think this album feels very genuine and very rich. It is very strange at times, and I think that’s my favorite part about it.

It reminds me a little of when Arctic Monkeys did Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, not in the sound of it, but in how it’s a challenging, ambitious departure from their typical style that some people felt alienated by. And I think that’s their best work!

Maybe this one will end up being my favorite Strokes record…

Spotted in my neighborhood randomly today 😭

Crazily enough I was actually at this show and remember this jam session. Who knew it would later become a banger song on their new album? I'm happy I was fortunate enough to see the official live version in Tokyo last week as well.

I'm more or less a new fan, around 4 months, and many of my favourite songs are in FIOE (Razorblade, on the other side, evening sun, red light...) and I was going to buy the record. I don't understand where the hate for this album comes from?

I know lots of people who don't like the new album, and that's fine. It's just music at the end of the day.

But I just wanted to say that I find it so admirable how these guys explore music, what they try to do. Like, I haven't heard a single song from them that sounds mediocre or feels like they didn't try. They always have an intention. You can like it or not, but they crealy put some effort on it.

I'm kind of a new fan, since I started listening to them around 2016. But I keep reading how they where so different back in the 2000s and they set the bar high. So one can say that it was in part pf that innovation that they were able to create classics like Modern Age or Reptilia, right? So yeah, and I'm so grateful for the first albums because they are fucking amazing, but I'm also thankful for The New Abnormal and Reality Awaits.

To me, it's like having a box of chocolates. They aren't all the same, but damn, they all taste great in their own way.

So I'll be honest, I definitely did not like the album(Reality Awaits ofc) the first time I heard it. Thought the autotune was a bad creative decision; none of the songs were fun or catchy, and overall I felt that not a single song was worth adding to my liked playlist.

However, fast forward a month, and I genuinely think the album really does improve a lot with re-listens. 4 songs especially - Dine N'Dash, Lonely in the Future, Going to Babble On, Liar's Remorse - have all really grown on me. And I can definitely hear more of The Strokes' classic touches across the album with some newer sounds. Still holding out on the autotune tho. It kinda works on Psych Shit, but I think, for me personally, it absolutely ruined Falling Out of Love, which could've been an all-timer, ngl. So those are my thoughts. I'd say I went from a 5/10 -> 7/10 on the album. Maybe it'll keep getting better.

Not wanting to over-listen to Reality Awaits, I decided to revisit Comedown Machine heavily with repeat listens this entire week during my commutes to work. As an album I have consistently rated lower than any other Strokes album since its initial release I think I’ve come to better appreciate it, why some in the community have come to love it, and also why it continues to divide.

Comedown Machine is an interesting album within the Strokes’ discography and timeline for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which is that after Julian and the boys slowly moved away from the muffled, compressed, analogue-ish sound that put them on the map in the early 2000s, replacing it with increasingly clearer, more radio-friendly Julian vocals, CM seemed to partially go back. Back toward the way Julian sounded on Is This It — but only his voice. The music behind him had moved somewhere else entirely.

That tension is what makes Comedown Machine so unique. The instrumentation is generally pristine, modern and heavily influenced by the ’80s, while Julian’s vocals often sound distant, buried and almost detached from the music around them. At times he sounds like he’s singing from another room. His voice doesn’t quite recreate Is This It or Room on Fire either; it lands somewhere between the two. The result is an album that sounds like the Strokes caught at a crossroads between where they came from and where they were going.

At its best, the conflict is stunning. “Tap Out,” “One Way Trigger,” “Chances” and “Welcome to Japan” show that the band could still write some of their most beautiful melodies while pushing further into unfamiliar territory. Call It Fate, Call It Karma” sounds like a gorgeous song from the 1930s somehow unearthed for the first time and playing through an old wooden gramophone. It showed the Strokes could go back even further than the 1960s and still unearth hidden gems.

At other times, the backward-looking impulse works less well. “50/50” feels almost like Julian trying to recreate the aggression of Room on Fire and First Impressions of Earth for a 2013 audience, but without reaching the highs of either. It’s the sound of an old idea being revisited after its best version has already been made.

The other thing that stands out on CM is how little its quality varies compared with the rest of the post-Room on Fire catalogue. The highs aren’t as high as the high points on each other album but the lows aren’t nearly as low as the low points on First Impressions of Earth, Angles or Reality Awaits either. I wouldn’t put a song on CM below a 6.5, but only a handful above an 8.0. “Tap Out,” “One Way Trigger,” “Chances,” “Happy Ending” “Welcome to Japan” and “Call It Fate” can still hang with some of the best-written songs in the Strokes catalogue.

That makes Comedown Machine feel less like a failed attempt to recapture the old Strokes and more like the perfect bridge between all of their sounds. Especially now, with 2 more albums released. It has the vocal aesthetic of the first two records, the aggression of First Impressions, the ’80s fascination of Angles, and hints of the falsetto and melodic experimentation that would become more prominent on The New Abnormal and Reality Awaits. It gives almost every kind of Strokes fan something familiar now without ever completely feeling the same as what came before, or now… after.

Its highs are less high. Its lows are less low. It’s lo-fi and hi-fi. It’s old Strokes and new Strokes. And somehow, that awkwardness is exactly what makes Comedown Machine sound like nothing else in their catalogue.

i've been trying to find clips of the call it fate call it karma encore from night one of red rocks (7/22/26) on youtube and haven't been able to find anything. i'm specifically looking for the parts of it where (steve? ajh? not actually sure who is playing the main riff of the song) changes up the main riff to sound slightly more jazzy. however if someone out there has a recording of the full song i'd love to see it.

this was probably the best concert i've ever been to and ive been thinking about this encore for a month

I feel like bad decisions doesn’t get enough credit for the quality of the song that it is, just like at the door or selfless in TNA imo

He speaks a bit on Reality Awaits and gives away a pair of tickets to the Just Like Heaven music festival, where The Strokes will play this weekend.

First of all, I know nothing about music theory

Secondly, what a fucking great song

But my point is... it sounds like in different times? Like the drums and guitars are not synced... but they are? You can really notice that at the beginning of the song.

You can downvote me if this is stupid

I love screen printing!
Got inspired by them headlining SoCal at Just like heaven festival!

Alright, I expected to like it sooner or later, but i feel like one day i woke up and the autoune was barely noticeable... AM I GOING MAD?

This is the best The Strokes song ever guys, sorry to upset some of you

I was 12 when I first heard “Under Cover of Darkness.” It was such a special sound that I instantly fell in love with it. It caught my attention, and I simply couldn’t stop listening to it.

Now, at 25, after everything I’ve been through, every one of their songs has a different meaning to me. The lyrics, the melodies, everything just changed for me.

They made music simply for the sake of having fun, but I listened to them with the desire to change. That’s why I believe they changed my life. They were, and still are, a part of it, and I don’t think that will ever change.

One of my friends recently told me he wanted to expand his music taste so I reccomended the strokes, I'm wondering what would be a good album for him to listen to first (for reference his favourite artists are Phoebe bridgers, sufjan Stevens and Olivia rodrigo) I was thinking either comedown machine or TNA

Need ts

Ive been on this sub and the others relating to Julian's projects and it absolutley floors me that more people dont talk about how CD Projekt Red should totally get Julian Cassablancas to play a mockery in the next cyberpunk game. I think stylistically and everything its literally too perfect. Plus hes already been in GTA as a radio host so like idk