Supply chain freshman Mason Smith said he thought the post “could be something” but that he “never takes anything too seriously” on April Fool’s, while chemistry sophomore Jack Hudson-Nelson thought the post was entirely a prank. 

Confirmation came for Smith, Hudson-Nelson and fans around the world on Monday morning when The Strokes announced the June 27 arrival of the album via Instagram. Before anyone could process the news, fans on the internet revealed they had been sent cassette tapes from the band in the mail of a new song Going Shopping. By Tuesday morning, The Strokes had released the song as the album’s lead single and performed it live for their San Francisco crowd that night. 

Having got ahold of videos of the live performance before hearing the studio recorded version, journalism sophomore Jayda Groth had higher expectations for song than what was met, noting that she was “disappointed” by it. 

“The overwhelming use of auto tune– [the studio version] kind of fell flat,” Groth said. “The live had more of the emotion that The Strokes bring. It [became] more than the band, you have a crowd [who] loves them, they don't know the words, they didn't know this was happening, but seeing them dancing along anyway, trying to find that beat. The guitar, the production, the lyrics– watching it live, you're not thinking about those, you're just thinking about the moment. I think it just encapsulates a much bigger, more memorable feeling.” 

Despite first encountering the song Reptilia on Guitar Hero, a live performance in 2022 was Smith’s proper introduction to the band. While waiting to see rock band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Truist Park in Atlanta, Georgia, Smith saw The Strokes come out and open with “pretty much their entire first album.” 

“They were just absolutely jamming, and there was nobody, like, really in the venue yet,” Smith said. “I was just sitting there and (Strokes frontman) Julian Casablancas was just screaming into the mic, and the lead [guitar] and the rhythm guitar just worked together so well, and I always love the way that the drone sound of their song. It really kept my interest and I just was, like, ‘I gotta listen to these guys.’”

Relating this “early 2000s garage rock” sound to what was already one of his favorite bands, The White Stripes, Smith decided to keep listening to this opening act. He received a copy of the band’s debut album “Is This It” from his father and even went on to perform Reptillia on guitar for public audiences multiple times through his guitar lesson program. 

Noting shifts within the band’s history, Smith called their debut album “Is This It” a “garage rock” album, then said the band was “kind of indie rock for three albums,” and finally noted that “The New Abnormal” of 2020 was “psychedelic rock.”

“They've outgrown indie rock, but they've also defined indie rock in a way,” Smith said. “They don't really have, like, a specific genre, they kind of just make what they want, which is cool.”

For Smith, the new project marks another stylistic change for the group, in both sound and artwork. Noting that the lyrics on the single are less personal than what is normal for the band and that the artwork was less abstract than normal. 

Matching the futuristic sound of the single, the artwork for Going Shopping, features a cherry as a planet while the album cover is more simple and features a cowboy riding a horse in front of a mountain. 

“All the instruments sound great, but the vocals are kind of weird [on the single],” Smith said. “He says he wants to be, like, ‘a seven foot zombie,’ which just kind of threw me off and the pretty heavy autotune. Kind of an interesting direction, but I don't think the whole album will be like that. The art for this album kind of just a picture, which it's new, which maybe just means that they're gonna, change their style, which would make sense based on what the single sounds like.” 

While long gaps between projects might often indicate style changes, they can also bring about a finer product. 

“I like their production and instrumentals, especially in their later albums, they kind of take more time to produce them,” Hudson-Nelson said. “You can kind of see the jump in quality in the read book. I think when bands in general [take gaps], they usually go for a style change and they just want to do something different.”

Throughout their more than 20 year career, the NYC group became a staple. Professor in the history department Michael Stamm called them “firmly within the canon of Anglo American rock and roll.”

“They've always been really good at borrowing from popular genres and making it their own,” Stamm said. “They were influenced by a really strong strain of 1960s and 1970s classic rock, and they kind of filtered that through punk rock, and updated it and made it their own end.”

Within this musical “canon,” the band gains the role of influencing future fans and artists, just as they were influenced. 

“There's always a new generation of people who are rediscovering rock and roll,” Stamm said. “There’s always people discovering it and kind of doing the same thing The Strokes did with the artists that came the generation before them, they borrow from it what they think is interesting, and they do the best they can to kind of make it their own.”

Groth credits their sound to a combination of instrumentals like The White Stripes, stating “you can clearly hear the guitar, you can clearly hear the drums” and lyricism like Thom Yorke “it’s this weird sharpness compared with this weird muffle.”

“They took that heavy, saturation, those mumbled lyrics and sound and like just layered and layered instruments together,” Groth said. “They took that and kind of combined it with a sense of just classic rock. It's just really catching and endearing. That classic rock sound, but combined with this shoegaze sense of endurement, it's, flowy, but almost like mountains– it's sharp, but it's continuing.”