The Strokes Win Their First Grammy for Best Rock Album

The Strokes have won the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. Their 2020 album LP The New Abnormal beat out records by Sturgill Simpson (Sound and Fury), Fontaines D.C. (A Hero’s Death), Michael Kiwanuka (Kiwanuka), and Grace Potter (Daylight), landing the New York City vets their first-ever Grammy Award.

Speaking to reporters in the virtual press room following their win, the Strokes responded to a question about “the state of rock’n’roll right now.” Julian Casablancas said:

I kind of always make fun of rock’n’roll so I think it’s kind of funny, or cool, or fitting, that we won the award. I think that people that say things are dead, I just feel like their imagination, possibly, has died…. Honestly, there’s room for so many genres of music—not necessarily blues rock, please, no more of that.

The New Abnormal marked the Strokes’ first studio album in roughly seven years, following 2013’s Comedown Machine. They debuted one of The New Abnormal’s tracks—“Bad Decisions”—at a 2020 rally for Bernie Sanders. In 2016, the group released their Future Present Past EP. 

Read “The Urban Malaise of The Strokes’ Is This It, 15 Years On” on the Pitch. Follow all of Pitchfork’s coverage of the 2021 Grammys.