![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6dd500fdc12bfe99b0d3ef3b0c4ab6afb2-julian-fantano-split.rsquare.w330.jpg\")
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\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: fantano via Youtube, Kayla Bartkowski\/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
The Strokes\u2019 new album, Reality Awaits, is kind of like the darker, more deranged sibling of their Grammy-winning 2020 output, The New Abnormal. We won\u2019t be arguing its merits, but the third song is intended as a victory lap for front man Julian Casablancas: \u201cLonely Is the Future<\/a>\u201d takes a few shivs at artists such as the Weeknd, Josh Groban, and Harry Styles, who, as a swaggering Casablancas reckons, don\u2019t come close to matching his legacy because \u201cI did that years ago when I was a kid.\u201d He also dedicates a full verse to music critic Anthony Fantano, of whom he believes should stick to reviewing the technical side of music because he \u201cwould not recognize art in any age.\u201d Fantano, who recently crowned himself<\/a> the most impactful music critic of the past decade, of course has a few things to say about it. Posting a nine-minute response to the diss track on his YouTube page<\/a>, Fantano reiterated that the Strokes are \u201cone of my favorite bands of the 2000s,\u201d and he was confused by the venom in Casablancas\u2019s pen. \u201cThis is quite a bit different. Not even funny or silly or tongue in cheek in any way whatsoever,\u201d he explained. \u201cReally just a bitter diss. And one that I find very funny because it\u2019s one of the few \u2018beefs\u2019 I have going on in the music industry, though I really don\u2019t. This is not a beef. If anything, it\u2019s one-sided at best.\u201d<\/p>\n Fantano believes that the crux of their tartare comes from his negative review of Casablancas\u2019s side project, the Voidz; the band\u2019s third album, 2024\u2019s Like All Before You, utilized AI artwork, a decision that Fantano torched in a video. \u201cIt\u2019s very ironic to be making the claim that I can\u2019t recognize art when I see it when you clearly think nothing of presenting your music with AI art,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d Confusion aside, though, Fantano said that his review came from a place of being a longtime fan. \u201cI\u2019m not here to actively bully Julian and the band. If anything, I\u2019m a little bit of an apologist,\u201d he added. \u201cThe claim that I completely lack the ability to assess or recognize art is just patently untrue, especially from someone in Julian\u2019s position. What was I doing with every positive review I\u2019ve given to you or the Strokes over the years?\u201d Who knows when Casablancas will respond to this, or if he\u2019ll utilize Auto-Tune if he does.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: fantano via Youtube, Kayla Bartkowski\/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images The Strokes\u2019 new album, Reality…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":963316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[359449,185,387282,171,387281,975,387283,103983,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-963315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-anthony-fantano","tag-celebrities","tag-dis-tracks","tag-entertainment","tag-julian-casablancas","tag-music","tag-reality-awaits","tag-the-strokes","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116994246513074903","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}