Music reviews make most sense right after release — first impressions, immediate reactions, the album in context of the moment. But there’s something to be said for coming back to an album years later and asking whether it still holds up. Sounds evolve, tastes shift, and what felt significant in the moment doesn’t always survive the distance. The New Abnormal came out in 2020, won a Grammy, and six years on it’s still among my most played. That feels worth writing about.
Ode to the Mets, The Adults Are Talking, and Bad Decisions are still among my most played tracks — not just from this album, but from everything I’ve listened to over the last few years. That doesn’t happen by accident.
What keeps bringing me back to this album is the sincerity. It’s a rough diamond, deliberately unpolished. Julian Casablancas singing about friendship, regret, growing older, missed connections, people drifting in and out of our lives. Familiar territory, delivered with a vulnerability that feels earned rather than performed. The best way I can put it is that the album is nostalgic without sounding trapped in the past.
My introduction to Julian wasn’t through The Strokes. It was through Instant Crush on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories. Loved the song, never followed through. Then came 2020. Lockdowns, empty streets, endless uncertainty. Right in the middle of all that, The New Abnormal arrived. Looking back it feels like the soundtrack to those strange months, a silver lining during an otherwise gloomy time.
My favourite moment on the album comes at the start of Ode to the Mets.
“Drums please, Fab.”
But it's not easy, well, maybe for you
Hope that you find it, hope that it's good
Hope that you read it, think that you should
Cuts you some slack as he sits back
Sizes you up, plans his attack
Ah-da-da
Drums please, Fab.
According to the band, there wasn’t some elaborate plan behind it. Julian sat at a keyboard, felt something, and said those words. Fabrizio Moretti then improvised the drum part in a single take. No rehearsal, no endless revisions. Just musicians trusting the moment.
There’s another layer to Ode to the Mets that I love. The title came from a baseball game where the New York Mets were eliminated, but the song isn’t really about baseball. The Mets become a symbol for that person, dream, or ambition that never quite lived up to expectations, yet you keep rooting for anyway.
Speaking of baseball — if you’re anxious about AI and what it means for the future, watch the music video for The Adults Are Talking. Humans go up against robots in everything from boxing to cooking to baseball. The robots are faster, stronger, and better in every conceivable way, obliterating the humans completely. Then a single raindrop lands on the pitcher robot’s vision sensor. The pitch hits Julian and he walks. The next batter steps up and cracks one deep. Julian rounds the bases and scores. The humans completely lose their minds over that one moment of chance. One tiny imperfection and a lot of luck is all it takes.
The funniest part is that in this future full of hyper-advanced robots, the one thing that hasn’t been automated is the baseball umpire. Considering how many calls they get wrong every season, that might be the least realistic part of the whole video.
I wish I could listen to this album for the first time again. I genuinely envy anyone who still gets to discover it.
And if you’ve already fallen for The New Abnormal, we probably have enough in common to share a beer and let Julian soundtrack the evening.
