It's been a long time since I've been able to write about a Julian Casablancas song, whom I consider to be one of the best songwriters of the last 15 years. Casablancas, to recap, is the lead singer and mastermind of the Strokes, a band that released a landmark debut album in 2001 and then couldn't quite follow it up with anything that stimulated the public in the same way. The Strokes eventually declined in popularity, and Casablancas began recording solo material to escape from the expectations of writing Strokes music.
In 2014, Casablancas formed a new group - Julian Casablancas+The Voidz and released the album Tyranny.
By that point, the music press had an established style guide for writing about Julian Casablancas, including citing the Strokes' strong debut, clucking about unfulfilled potential, short-changing anything Casablancas tries to atone for his past sins of underwhemsion, and (subtly, insidiously) calling into question his very intelligence as if it were a tragic flaw. It reminds me of the way sportswriters seemingly have to write about the Green Bay Packers as a juggernaut each season even though the proof exploding this supposedly safe premise is ample - ample, at least, to they who are not conformists.
So in a way, Tyranny was groundbreaking, because it pushed the music press to a level of disapproval beyond anything in the established style guide. They were forced to rouse their creative impulses to fully encompass the feelings the album called up within their well-pressed shirts.
Here is my favorite section of my favorite review of Tyranny, from Pitchfork:
“'He must be on drugs' is a typical invective thrown at artists who flirt with career suicide in the way that Casablancas is doing here, but Tyranny is too willfully weird, too labored-sounding, too beholden to its melted-frequency artifice to be merely the product of a substance-addled mind.
As that GQ article highlighted, the common assumption is that Casablancas wrote the first two Strokes albums, a rock lore factoid that suggests prodigiousness from a guy who’s spent the last 15 years looking like he’s never worked a day in his life; on Tyranny, that guy has simply worked too hard, and that sense of needless toil bleeds through in every bum lick, brick-walled sound, and garbled burst of noise shoved onto the record. Maybe Tyranny will one day have a second life as a misunderstood cult record, but in the here and now, it sounds terrible and beyond redemption."
That is a great review.
I especially love how the last sentence kind of fearfully intuits that there is life in this album that will draw people to it long after Pitchfork's opinion about it holds any currency - and that they are missing, or unable to fully enjoy, that life.
Sure, the album is a trash heap of ideas. But close your goddamned phone games for a spell and listen to those ideas.
Listen to "Father Electricity."
Consider it for what it is, which is not very normal. If you need a life vest to buoy you, just enjoy that excellent percussion, processed to almost cartoon quality.
Invite all the noise into your nervous system. Appreciate the shrewd sound quality choices of all the instrumentation. Let the usual stand-out melodic ideas of Casablancas entertain you, dashed about a much harsher, blacker canvass than the old Strokes arrangements; and let his weirder flights of fancy happen without instant judgement. Let the song amuse you.
The Voidz songs are always songs that pop on my playlist and I kind of grimace like I don't have the energy for them. But if I don't skip them, I inevitably next find myself five minutes in, lost in the audio junkyard, and perfectly enjoying my stroll.