Hi everyone. Bigthony Nametano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and yeah, we gotta talk about this.

I have once again been immortalized AGAINST MY WILL in the lyrics of the brand new Strokes album Reality Awaits, on the track specifically "Lonely in the Future."

Now, I want to let it be known before I say what I'm going to say here, I have not heard this song yet. I have not heard the Strokes album outside of the singles. I don't need to because this video is not a review of the song, or me assessing the quality of this record and its music in any way. This is more me talking about the lyric where I come up, which is posted on platforms like Genius and the mention of me is actually confirmed by Rolling Stone in their coverage of this record too

So it is real, it is a thing. So let's start getting into this by reading the lyric itself. Julian says:

"I heard that 20 effing 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 recognise art in any age"

Okay, so essentially Julian's insult or assessment of me is that I lack the ability to recognize art, and describing art only in sort of like a technical fashion is the only thing I'm really good for as a critic and commentator. Now, for greater context here, just in case you are not really in the know, these sentiments and opinions Julian has more or less expressed before, not too long ago, on a recent podcast hosted by none other than Joe Talbot of IDLES fame, where, again, he said exactly that.

Joe Talbot: "Anthony Fantano"

Julian Casablancas, laughing: "Oh my god, how dare you?"

"How dare I what? Are you being protective of your brother?"

"Oh, hell no. He's not my fucking brother. He should stick to... You know what he should stick to? Like, analysis. When he's, like, methodically and scientifically describing things, he does a good job of, like, 'He used this studio and did this,' and so he's good at that. When it comes to, like, art tastes, he's, like, trash and knows nothing and wouldn't know... And he, like, reviews old albums to sound like he knows what he's talking about, which is, like, wow. Like, yeah, review an old Lou Reed record and say it's cool. That'll give you cred."

And look, at the time I addressed Julian saying this, on my YouTube channel, and being offhandedly mentioned by someone in a long podcast interview is whatever, it happens. But literally being mentioned by name on your new album, which is being printed physically to CD and vinyl and being released into the world, and people are going to pay money for this media and stream it on Spotify and Apple Music, and so on and so forth. That's a little bit different.

Now, of course, this is not the first time I have been mentioned on an artist's song. It has happened in the past, be it on records from Brockhampton or even Post Malone, who had a funny moment mentioning my name at the end of Beerbongs & Bentleys. But this is quite a bit different. Not even funny or silly or tongue-in-cheek in any way whatsoever. Really just a bitter diss, and one that I find very funny because it's one of the few "beefs" I have going on in the music industry, though I really don't.

This is not a beef. If anything, it's one-sided at best.

It's so funny that Julian has mentioned me in numerous contexts on social media and in conversation in a public fashion. But almost every time, so many in his audience kind of come away from it scratching their heads, because they can so plainly see that I am a fan of The Strokes. I am a fan of Julian's work. The Strokes are easily one of my favorite bands of the 2000s. And any time I have been critical of Julian's or The Strokes' work, it has come from the place of a fan, quite clearly.

Like, I'm not out here to actively bully Julian and the band. If anything, I would say I'm a little bit of an apologist, especially given a lot of the glowing coverage I've given to The Voidz over the years, too. That is except for the latest Voidz album, which I've said before, and I will say it again, I feel like is kind of the crux of, you know, Julian's issue with me.

Not only was I quite harsh on the music on that record, because, I don't know, to my ears it felt very low quality and demo quality compared to everything The Voidz had done up until that point. But I was one among many who was also kind of disappointed to find that the cover art for that album, I guess, had been AI-generated. Like, very ironic to be making the claim that I can't recognize art when I see it when you clearly think nothing of presenting your music with AI art.

It's a silly and confusing situation for sure, and part of my reason for wanting to make this video is to come on here and communicate to you guys that this is all as weird to me as it is to you. And despite this kind of pithy comment and mention, my hope is to go into this new Strokes album with an open mind and with hopes to enjoy it. Even though I haven't really liked the teasers due to their overuse of autotune, which again is a feeling and a perspective that has been shared by a lot of Strokes fans.

Given Julian's singling out of me, I do think it is important to remind people that it's not like my opinions on The Strokes up until this point have been so far and away outside of the norm among their fan base.

The last thing I would like to say, though, is I know in the past people have been angry at me or have been upset at me when I have stood ten toes down for my reviews, for my content, for the legacy I have built up until this point, having done this for 20 years now, because The Needle Drop started as a podcast back in 2007. Because of all that time put in, all of that effort put in, all of the growth that I've seen since those early days of The Needle Drop brand. Yeah, it's upsetting and personally disheartening to me when I am confronted with these, frankly, bunk assessments of me and what I do.

And I'm sorry, but in this case, while everyone is free to disagree with my opinions and think I'm wrong, or that I am completely clueless when it comes to certain records or certain genres, the claim that I completely lack the ability to assess or recognize art is just patently untrue, especially from somebody of Julian's position. Because what was I doing with every positive review I've given to you or The Strokes over the years? What was I doing when I was giving bands like Geese positive coverage, long before most people even knew about them? Before even Julian knew about them, I presume, because I had reviewed them years before he decided to post them up on Instagram.

And even in the case of the podcast of the man that he appeared on, Joe from IDLES, my reviews covering their work are some of the most popular videos about the band when it comes to any sort of commentary, on the YouTube platform, on the internet. I was going pretty hard for IDLES much earlier than a lot of people were, back when they dropped their Brutalism album, and it's been really cool to watch the band grow and evolve since then. Of course, this is not me coming on to say "I made these artists popular and they owe their success to me."

That's not my argument. Here's my argument:

I have a history of being an early adopter of a lot of different musical movements and a lot of artists who have gone on to do really cool and great things. Artists who have gone on to be widely admired by other artists in their respective genres and scenes. I loved these artists and their work and supported various album cycles from them, not because anybody told me to like them or anybody explained to me, behind the scenes, that they were really cool and helped me get it. I heard their music, I saw what they were doing from a distance, and I made that assessment on my own. I've been doing it for over 10 years now, and I'm still doing it today.

The band Earth Tongue just posted to Instagram due to my glowing review of their new LP that they've sold out of physical vinyl copies of their new record, and that you can only buy them right now, until they repress more on their tour, in person, which I recommend you go see them. That is before Julian Casablancas finds out about them and starts getting into them himself, and then posts about them and shits on me at the same time on Instagram.

I'll close this video out by saying this, regardless of how good this new Strokes album is, when I and you hear the entire thing, the band has guaranteed themselves at least one sale. Because, I mean, my name is in that shit. I gotta buy it. How am I going to sit here and not own a physical copy of the one Strokes album that has my name on it? In fact, I'm going to order that thing right now.

Anthony Fantano. Julian Casablancas. Recognizing Art. Forever.