The Strokes’ new single Going Shopping

Martin Gray ponders on whether the just-released new single by The Strokes, Going Shopping, is the sound of the band returning re-energised and reconfigured or merely the sound of the band trying to keep up with the ever-changing times.

Incredibly, this year marks the 25th anniversary of The Strokes‘ debut album Is This It crashing into the nation’s pop consciousness like a breath of (much hyped) fresh air. I remember the week it entered the charts all too well in early September 2001. It was the August bank holiday week previously and no less than SIX key releases were issued that same day all vying for that coveted no.1 slot.

The Strokes just missed out on that pole position, entering at no.2, having been beaten to the top spot by, of all people, the fearsome demonic nine-headed hydra that was Slipknot, with their second full length Iowa. Just below The Strokes at no.3 was vacuous boyband Five (or 5ive) with their album Kingsize. New Order also had their first album in eight years out the very same week – Get Ready – but their record company London’s attempts to have them score an emphatic comeback sadly backfired as it was beaten into fourth highest new entry spot on the album chart, limping in at a disappointing no.6 (it soon dropped out the top 75 altogether after barely a month).  Elsewhere, Björk‘s newest gossamer pop opus Vespertine charted at no.8 whilst Mercury Rev‘s latest album All Is Dream (an album where Jonathan Donohue’s falsetto vocals veered dangerously close to Orville The Duck territory in places) stalled just outside the top ten at no.11 – their highest UK album chart placing to date.

If the debut album by The Strokes garnered all the critical plaudits above all of the other five entrants, it was probably down to nothing more than a case of the latest coolest kids on the block. They seemingly could do no wrong – appearing too perfectly formed and with that insouciant cool Noo Yawker attitude and suss it was hard to resist really, even if the songs were eventually all too familiar through the legions of imitators they spawned (I went through a phase where I could not bear to hear Last Nite played by anybody ever again for as long as I lived – it was virtually their very own Wonderwall… these things happen in cycles remember!).

Two albums and four years later, it was as if the band had just relinquished their status as critical darlings, such was the fickle nature of the beast. Anyway, various solo projects also beckoned, among them one of my desert island discs: Albert Hammond Jr.’s exquisite and utterly charming debut Yours To Keep from 2006 was on constant rotation for a good many months after I picked it up. I still love it to this day actually.

So, a humungous fast forward almost twenty long years then to the present….and the question begs: are The Strokes still relevant? And the answer is: does it matter? With their upcoming – seventh – album Reality Awaits due to be released in June 2026, the first preview of this new offering was the recently-dropped single with its rather prosaic (and in my view Pet Shop Boys-esque) title Going Shopping.

My first earful of it on the radio brought a rather bemused and (I have to honestly admit) repulsed reaction chiefly down to one thing that has been extensively deployed throughout – that thing being use of auto-tune on Julian Casablancas‘ vocals. First reflexive question I asked myself was… ‘why?‘ And then I asked it again even louder this time: ‘WHY?’ It just sounded awkward, so unnecessary, so gratuitous and so…wrong. Not to mention out of place and inappropriate.

Maybe they were trying to exhibit conscious nods to Casablancas’ other primary project The Voidz which dabbled with a variety of genres by way of more experimental approaches and indeed touched upon electronic sounds with processed vocals and suchlike. But even so, despite the single’s breezy and unmistakably uptempo arrangement, the auto-tune just makes me think of all of the dodgy artists who have utilised that very same gimmick on just about everything that was released in the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s. Even now I find it jarring to listen to.

Granted, all the band’s other elements are present and correct – the economical but measured drums, the subtle keyboard washes, the melodic hum of the bass, the two contrasting guitar lines (chiming and liquid from the right channel, fuzzier and spikier from the left channel), etc…. but I can’t help but be constantly distracted by the contrived vocal treatments.

Incredibly, The High Llamas were another band who were unlikely – and surprising – adopters of auto-tune. Their 2014 album Hey Panda featured extensive use of this and also many of the tracks were a radical departure from the familiar High Llamas template of old (influenced by Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks, Steely Dan, Brazilian lounge, Stereolab-esque) instead opting for soulful R&B and even hip hop influenced sounds. It was a startling reinvention for sure and thus maybe we shouldn’t decry bands for at least taking risks rather than stick with a winning formula.

Maybe given time I might become less antagonistic in my normal reaction towards the sound of auto-tune used within the confines of a rock band’s music. Indeed, one of my favourite albums in recent years – Guitar Music from relatively new Liverpool-based art-glitch-post-punk-electro-hyperpop rockers Courting – openly embraces auto-tune and wields it like a weapon of intent, creating starkly arresting soundscapes through music that virtually assaults your senses, smashes the floorboards from beneath your feet and leaves you reeling and dazed, thinking ‘what the fuck did I just listen to there?’.

For the time being, much as I have always enjoyed The Strokes, the vocal gimmickry on this new single of theirs is a bit of an acquired taste and requires some perseverance. Listen to Going Shopping here and draw your own conclusions.

The Strokes social media

The Strokes official page.

Julian Casablancas’ The Voidz official page

Albert Hammond Jr. bandcamp page.

words by Martin Gray.

other inane musings, critical diatribes, egregious existentialism, cheap potshots and detailed retrospective reassessments by Martin can be found on his profile.