Cue up your garage rock revival jokes! In The Strokes' latest music video, viewers are implored to call in and order a device much of the music industry spent the early 2000s wielding, if only metaphorically: a magic button that lets you multiply The Strokes as many times as you wish!
The new video introduces "Bad Decisions," the latest track shared off The Strokes' forthcoming LP The New Abnormal, due April 10 on Cult/RCA. It's staged as a cheeky, 1970s infomercial hawking a device to clone, dress, and style the members of the band at will. It's been a while since you couldn't throw a stone through lower Manhattan without hitting a gang of scruffy white dudes trying to rip off Is This It, but if the band is indeed referencing this defining era, hats off to them for turning it into an delightfully goofy video in 2020.
As for the new track: unlike last week's plodding, electro-experiment "At the Door," the Rick Rubin-produced "Bad Decisions" is certainly culled from the band's garage and new wave wheelhouse. So much, in fact, it appears they felt the need to toss songwriting credits to the guys behind one of the genre's classic tracks. As Pitchfork points out, "Bad Decisions" sounds a good deal like Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself" and credits Idol and co-writer Tony James alongside The Strokes.
"Bad Decisions" was debuted at last week's Bernie Sanders rally, where The Strokes performed in Sanders' support at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. The quintet performed a handful of tracks off The New Abnormal in addition to riling up some on-hand law enforcement with a performance of their old rabble-rouser "New York City Cops."
The "Bad Decisions" video was directed by Andrew Donoho and produced by Ian Blair. Check it out below.
81