Geese Is Ready for Its Close-Up. Are You?

For all of 2025, I had the Strokes on the brain. The result of that fixation will be out later this year, but for now, I’ll offer a quick preview of my premise: When people saw the Strokes for the first time in the early aughts, they weren’t “just” responding to an exciting young rock band from New York City. They also weren’t reacting “only” to a bunch of overhyped rich kids with guitars. They were seeing every other rock band that had ever captured the zeitgeist in the previous century. And they projected those archetypes onto Julian Casablancas and his compatriots. They did this unknowingly, although you would instantly recognize these “rock band” tropes if I pointed them out to you. Everything from the magnetically disheveled lead singer and the inevitable “guitarist with mystique” to the particulars of their meteoric rise (worshipful music critics) and crushing fall (those same critics turning on them).