The Strokes' new album, “Reality Awaits”, released last Friday after a long series of postponements, is causing discussion not only for its musical choices, including the marked use of autotune on Julian Casablancas' voice. Also fueling the debate was a controversy between the frontman of the New York band and Anthony Fantano, popular music critic and creator of the channel The Needle Drop.
The spark comes from “Lonely In The Future”, one of the songs on the album, in which Casablancas reflects on the legacy of the Strokes twenty-five years after the beginning of their career. The singer claims the band's influence on pop music in recent decades and suggests that some intuitions developed by the group later entered the language of hugely successful artists.
The Weeknd, Harry Styles and John Legend are mentioned in the text, before Casablancas ironically reduces the issue of originality with an admission: “All good, we all steal, baby”, recognizing how every musician inevitably ends up absorbing and reworking ideas from those who preceded him. Immediately afterwards, however, the target becomes Anthony Fantano, called directly into question through some particularly explicit verses:
“I heard that twenty fucking years ago, I did
Fantano, word for word, when I was a kid
Stick to the technical 'cause that's great
But you would not recognize art in any age”
The attack essentially resumes what Casablancas had already claimed a few months ago during his participation in IDLES' Joe Talbot's podcast. On that occasion the frontman he had recognized Fantano's certain competence in the technical analysis of records, but contested his ability to recognize the real artistic value of a work.
Fantano has now decided to respond with a video published on his channels. The critic first of all clarified that he has not yet listened to “Reality Awaits” in its entirety, except for the singles already released, and that his intervention is therefore neither intended to be a review of the album nor a judgment on “Lonely In The Future”. What pushed him to intervene was above all Casablancas' choice to mention him explicitly in a song. “Being mentioned directly on an album printed on vinyl, CD and distributed on streaming platforms is a completely different thing,” observes Fantano, underlining the difference compared to a simple dig uttered during an interview. The YouTuber also rejects the idea that he harbors a prejudice against the Strokes. On the contrary, he remembers having always considered them among the best bands that emerged in the 2000s and having repeatedly expressed positive opinions both on the group and on Voidz, the parallel project led by Casablancas himself.
According to Fantano, the basis of the singer's hostility could rather be his negative review of the latest Voidz album, criticized both in terms of the quality of the recordings and for the decision to use an image generated through artificial intelligence as the cover. Fantano also responds to Casablancas' more general accusation, that of not being able to recognize art when he finds it in front of him. In support of his position he cites several musicians who he appreciated and promoted when they were still far from the popularity they achieved later, including IDLES themselves and Geese. “People may disagree with my reviews,” he says, “but to say I can't recognize art is simply false.”
Despite the clash, Fantano still seems intent on not turning the affair into a personal war. In fact, the critic assures that he will continue to listen to the Strokes regardless of the judgment he ends up giving to “Reality Awaits”. And he closes the video with a joke, announcing that he also wants to buy a physical copy of the new album: “My name is printed on that record. How could I not buy it?”.
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
