This past weekend, The Strokes finally picked up the first Grammy victory of their esteemed career, as The New Abnormal took home the trophy for Best Rock Album. That got the band talking about rock music in general, with Julian Casablancas declaring that while rock isn’t dead, he wouldn’t be too bothered if blues rock died.
After getting the news about their win (and giving a slightly awkward acceptance speech marred by technical issues), the band spoke with some media and was asked if rock music is dead. Julian Casablancas replied (via Rolling Stone):
“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. 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. Anything that’s been beaten to death, obviously trend dictates those things will be extinct, and you evolve from those things. But what that means, what it’ll be called, who knows what it’ll be called. Rock and roll should definitely stop the way it was done [before], we don’t need more of that.”
Watch the band’s acceptance speech above and find the full list of this year’s Grammy winners here.
