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The Strokes believe blues-rock has run its course: “Please, no more of that”

But there’s still plenty of room left for innovation in rock, the band suggest.

Albert Hammond Jr. onstage

Photo: Joe Scarnici / Getty

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While The Strokes believe that rock music isn’t dead, the newly minted first-time Grammy winners think blues rock might just have run its course.

The New York band, whose comeback album The New Abnormal recently bagged them a Grammy for Best Rock Album, offered the opinion at a virtual press event after the ceremony, per Rolling Stone.

When asked to comment about the state of rock ’n’ roll today, frontman Julian Casablancas responded, “I think people who say things are ‘dead,’ I feel like it means their imagination possibly has died.”

“There’s room for so many genres of music; not necessarily blues-rock, please, no more of that,” he said before continuing, “All kinds of genres of music can blend in so many ways. Keys themselves, or singing styles or different bending of notes. You can sing an Arabic song with a country twang or vice versa, there’s so much room for stuff.”

Speaking about what the future of rock might sound like, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. said it “doesn’t matter where we think it should go” as it should be left to “the new kids on the block”.

The New Abnormal, the sixth studio album from The Strokes was released April 2020, seven years after their previous LP, Comeback Machine.

In other Grammy 2021 news, H.E.R. took home the Song of the Year award for her single I Can’t Breathe, written about the death of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests that rocked the US last year.

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