The New Abnormal

Writing sessions for The New Abnormal dated as far back as 2016, following the release of the band's Future Present Past extended play from the same year. Guitarist Nick Valensi had told DIY that they were "slowly but surely" making progress on the album.[2] The following year, Albert Hammond, father of guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., told The West Australian that the Strokes were working with Rick Rubin on an upcoming album.[3] Hammond Jr. responded to this via Twitter, stating that they were only presenting musical ideas to him and were not in any recording sessions.[4] The band would eventually begin recording sessions with Rubin at his Shangri-La studio in Malibu, California. Additional recording took place at Studio City Sound, Lucy's Meat Market, Groove Masters, and Joel and Zach's Studio, all in Los Angeles County, as well as Mauka View in Princeville, Hawaii.[1]

On May 13, 2019, the band performed live for the first time in two years at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, premiering a new song entitled "The Adults Are Talking".[5] The show was the first of what was dubbed a "global comeback tour".[6] Early shows were plagued by technical difficulties ranging from sound issues[7] to rain-outs[8] to cancellations of entire festivals, partly due to COVID-19.[9]

Music critics have generally considered The New Abnormal to be an indie rock album.[10][11][12] Matty Pywell of Gigwise wrote that it blended indie rock and "new wave mixed with electronica".[12] Writing for Newsweek, James Crowley wrote that the album sonically leans more towards the "disco-tinged post-punk than the garage rock they made their name with,"[13] while Kitty Empire of The Observer labeled it as "all-out pop".[14] Writers have also considered the album as having elements of 1980s pop music,[15][11] glam rock,[10] and dream pop.[10] The album houses the same style of dueling guitar riffs heard on the Strokes' previous albums.[16] Harrison Screen of Vinyl Chapters found that it also carries on the tradition of the band blending "a vintage feel into modern-day," adding that "these songs are straight from the seventies."[17] Reviewers found that the second half of the album has a much slower pace and is more dedicated to ballads.[16][15] The album also includes a series of outtakes of studio chatter interspersed throughout the album.[14] Many lyrics on the album are thought to refer to Casablancas' divorce from his wife Juliet Joslin.[18]

Two songs on the album incorporate vocal melodies from other songs, both of which include songwriting credits for the original performers.[1] The chorus of "Bad Decisions" uses the vocal melody from the chorus of "Dancing with Myself" (1980) by Generation X,[10][19] and some of "Eternal Summer" uses the vocal melody from the chorus of "The Ghost in You" (1984) by the Psychedelic Furs.[20]

The cover art for The New Abnormal features the 1981 painting Bird on Money by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.[21] The album's title was inspired by a quote made by former California governor Jerry Brown in November 2018 in the midst of the California wildfires.[22] Brown had responded to the emergency events being labeled "the new normal" by instead calling them "the new abnormal".[23] The wildfires had especially impacted Malibu, the location of Rubin's Shangri-La studio at which the band were recording the album, though the studio itself was left unharmed. This chain of events influenced the band to use the quote as the title for their album.[22] Despite the album title having been revealed in February 2020 and instead referencing Brown's quote, New York Times writer Jon Pareles noted in his review of the album that the title was a fitting description for public life during the COVID-19 pandemic.[24] Strokes singer Julian Casablancas also noted during the pandemic that the title "feels so prescient because of the parallel between something like coronavirus".[22]

To compensate for the cancellation of their performance at the Governors Ball Music Festival on June 2, 2019, the band played a special New Year's Eve show at Barclays Center in Brooklyn with Mac DeMarco, Kirin J Callinan and Hinds.[25] During the show, Casablancas announced the release of a new album, stating, "Yeah, we’ve got a new album coming out soon ... The 2010s, whatever the fuck they’re called, we took ‘em off. And now we’ve been unfrozen and we’re back." The band also premiered another new song entitled "Ode to the Mets".[26] Other notable performances included a rally for Bernie Sanders in Durham, New Hampshire on February 10, 2020, alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sunflower Bean, Cynthia Nixon, and Cornel West.[27] There, Casablancas confirmed that the new album, titled The New Abnormal, would be released on April 10, while the band debuted one new song, "Bad Decisions", and screened a music video for another, "At the Door".[27]

To further promote the record, the band released a series of self-produced videos titled and stylized as "5guys talking about things they know nothing about."[15] The band explained that "...we wanted to see if we could connect with folks, and turned what was supposed to be a pirate radio thing for our album release (which we would make in-person) into a video chat instead..."[28] The first episode premiered on April 8, 2020, and in the following episode, released April 9, 2020, the band previewed the entire record.

The Strokes performed "The Adults Are Talking" and "Bad Decisions" during the October 31, 2020, episode of Saturday Night Live's 46th season.[29] "The Adults Are Talking" was released as a radio play single, impacting alternative radio stations, on November 3, 2020.[30]

All lyrics are written by Julian Casablancas; all music is composed by the Strokes, except where noted.[1]

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.[1]

• List of 2020 albums