In the New York rock band’s song from their new album Reality Awaits, they make subtle references to artists like Harry Styles they felt used their influence, and also settles a score with music critic Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop.
The Strokes nod to Drake and The Weeknd on their new album Reality Awaits..
On the New York rockers' new album, out today (Jul. 24) on RCA/Sony Music Canada, they make subtle mentions of the two Canadian artists among others on their track “Lonely in the Future.”
While the band hasn’t confirmed the song’s meaning, it seems to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to artists whom they deem have copied their style over the group’s nearly three decades together.
In the first verse, The Weeknd catches strays with the line: “Weeknd, I like your outfit.” It seems to subtly imply that the Scarborough native copied one of frontman Julian Casablancas’ looks. On Reddit, internet sleuths have deduced that Casablancas could be referencing a look that The Weeknd wore in the mid-2010s when his career was just taking off.
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It seems to be a bit of a one-sided grievance as The Weeknd and The Strokes have never publicly interacted.
In the same verse, they also seem to take a shot at Drake’s once-ubiquitous 2010s phrase “YOLO,” as heard in his hit 2011 hit “The Motto.” On the track, Casablancas sings: “YOLO, you only live once.” He's referencing The Strokes' 2006 song, "You Only Live Once," the opening track of their studio album, First Impressions of Earth, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart.
Similar to The Weeknd, Drake hasn’t publicly spoken of or interacted with the rock band — other than their shared phrase.
With the repeated phrase "I did that yesterday, when I was a kid," "Lonely in the Future" is seemingly a song about The Strokes and their ahead-of-the-game influence throughout the years, including their impact on the artists who’ve come after them.
Harry Styles gets called out, too, when Casablancas claims, “Dude kept the beat 'As It Was,’” a reference to Styles’ chart-topping hit that spent 18 weeks at the top of the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 and bears a striking resemblance to the rhythm of many Strokes songs including "One Way Trigger."
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Other artists and notable media figures get mentioned in the song, including John Legend, Josh Groban, journalist Chris Hedges and music critic Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop, who gets quite the lashing on the track.
“Stick to the technical 'cause that's great / But you would not recognize art in any age,” Casablancas sings. Back in 2024, Fantano, called The Voidz’s Like All Before You “NOT GOOD.” The record was the third full-length release from Casablanca’s side music project.
Casablanca took offense to the review, commenting on Fantano’s capabilities as a reviewer as a guest on the Oh Gatekeeper podcast.
“He's not my f—--g brother. He should stick to... You know what he should stick to? He should stick to analysis when he's methodically and scientifically describing things. He does a good job of like, 'he used this studio and did this.' So he's good at that. When it comes to art taste, he's trash and knows nothing,” he said.
Fantano responded to the lyric mention on X, simply commenting: “welp.” He later uploaded a nearly 10-minute video to YouTube to address the comment.
