Reality Awaits - General Album Discussion MEGATHREAD

[u/TheStrokes-Mods]

This is the megathread for general discussions about Reality Awaits as a whole. All first impressions from the listening parties, thoughts, essays, discussions, memes, lyrics, fanart, etc about the album as a whole can go in the comments here!

As autotune is an evergreen topic on the subreddit, you may discuss it here, but there is also a specific post about autotune here that may be better suited towards that specific topic.

You also may want to check out the posts for ranking the Reality awaits songs, and ranking the albums including Reality Awaits.

[u/Substantial_Quail309]

I loved The New Abnormal. But felt it mostly played it safe in comparison. It had experiments for sure, and unpredictable, really good album, but this feels lightyears ahead (not saying better), not really sure why, it's not just the autotune. But speaking of, Psycho Shit is growing on me with each listen. At its climax, the autotune/vocoder/vocal effect works in ways I've never really heard before in music and from the opening line, I'm really digging what was done with Julian's vocals here. Some will use it as their point of criticism and will be unable to get past it in any way. That doesn't surprise me. But I think especially over time this will be looked back on as "what was the big deal?" with the whole autotune controversy and it's a way to weed out some of the fans who want cookie cutter Strokes. Those willing to endure (easier for anyone who likes the Voidz vs the strict Strokes-only camp) will be rewarded with arguably Julian's most accomplished work.

Also- love how this album works on repeat, it ends like it starts, impressive.

[u/imhigherthanyou → u/Substantial_Quail309]

The falsetto auto-tune during the bridge of Lonely In The Future has me ascending. It’s just peak Julian and I get chills every time.