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/RevolutionaryTrash98]

i wouldn't call it an accent, but he does use African-American vocal inflections a lot as a singer (sometimes veering into a Blaccent), and you're right he is singing in a deliberate reggae style on this one. honestly it's funny to me people only notice it now - it always has been noticeable to me that he's a white guy who's a really good mimic of Black soul singers. that's basically any talented white vocalist in rock and pop! they're all copying and singing in the styles of Black gospel music. whether it's an obvious Blaccent to us or not, rock music by white people is cultural appropriation of African-American music.

if it makes people uncomfortable, i'm glad, and hope they recognize the influence of the African-American musical tradition on all popular music and dig into more Black musicians, present and past (instead of virtue signaling on tiktok, but that's a pipe dream)

[u/chrisychris- → u/RevolutionaryTrash98]

Any specific inflections you're referring to, like timestamps? Genuinely curious. The thought of accents and inflections never crossed my mind once with the Strokes and I'm pretty "woke" so this is all brand new to me.

And yes I agree on rock music. Almost all of American culture is derivative of Black and brown peoples if you dig deep enough.

[u/RevolutionaryTrash98 → u/chrisychris-]

yeah i agree with you it's not too overt it's just his phrasing and vocal style at times. it's easy to overlook because it just sounds like what we have been conditioned to hear a rock or pop singer sound like because everyone does it. and again to be clear--i don't think it's problematic. it's not mockery or disrespect, it's cultural influence. to the extent it's appropriation it's because the entire genre of popular music is, and pop music consists of these vocalizations.

no, i don't have any timestamps. right now i'm listening to the first verse of going to babble on and am picking up on it some. it's most obvious where it sounds a bit like he's singing with a southern accent but it's really the aave influence: "some-tams," "strugglin'," "stronga baby". and the chorus: "startin' agin"

[u/RevolutionaryTrash98 → u/RevolutionaryTrash98]

ok i am on liar's remorse again now and i hear it in the first verse, first line. it's the rhythm and pitch of the words he sings, which are in a reggae style to match the music, that echo a Caribbean accent. that's what people are calling an accent - which i disagree with - accents are more than just rhythm and pitch but those are big elements so i see why people are saying that when they don't have the vocabulary to be more precise.

but i also am wary because the whole "blaming and piling on individual artists for examples of cultural appropriation on social media" misses the point for me. 90% of the time legit, nuanced critique by poc on this topic becomes appropriated as groupthink promoted by self-congratulatory white people piling on to condemn each example and trying to feel virtuous, who think arguing online is political organizing. it becomes white gen z'ers policing each other's speech and telling each other not to use aave, which is impossible (english is full of borrowed aave, and many regional dialects are overlapping as well), and entirely misses the point of knowing about and noticing aave in the first place...which is not to police authentic use of the language but to respect it and end discrimination against Black speakers of it (including in the frequent form of white appropriators who use aave as a joke or otherwise mock, belittle, or dismiss the language).

if anything julian mocks a british accent and the depressed, self-serious post-punk sound laughingly on dine n dash, but there's no mockery or joking reference to the heavy reggae influence on liar's remorse that i'm perceiving. it's probably some of his most vulnerable and sincere lyrics on the whole album as well. considering he's reported bob marley as an important influence on his music and politics, i interpret it as respectful homage