Julian Casablancas, like most music fans of a certain vintage, really would have loved to have been a member of Arctic Monkeys.
The Strokes singer posted to Instagram on Sunday, October 11th, a perfect recreation of the Arctic Monkey’s 2006 album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not: Casablancas smoked a cigarette, eyes off to the right, looking pensive in thought, just as Chris McClure looked in the original album artwork.
“Lolll – I always wanted to be in the Arctic Monkeys,” he captioned the Instagram post. Indie rock royalty recognises indie rock royalty.
Casablancas and The Strokes were already very famous indeed when Alex Turner and co. burst onto the scene with Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. The Strokes were an obvious influence on their sound, with Turner even famously singing “I just wanted to be one of The Strokes”, in their recent song ‘The Star Treatment’ from 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.
Casablancas’ post certainly made the the original star of the artwork happy. McClure shared it on Twitter and wrote, “Anyone who knows me will know of my love for The Strokes. So when I see @Casablancas_J posting a photo pretending to be me. It’s reeeeaaaalllllly mad!!!!!”
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Anyone who knows me will know of my love for The Strokes. So when I see @Casablancas_J posting a photo pretending to be me. It's reeeeaaaalllllly mad!!!!! 😭 pic.twitter.com/4rwgj1SUmN
— Chris McClure (@chrismcclure86) October 10, 2021
Speaking of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, that was the last time we heard from Arctic Monkeys. A live album from their tour of that album was released last year, taken from a concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall, but no follow-up record has been forthcoming yet.
The Strokes, meanwhile, are opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers on several of their upcoming summer U.S. tour dates, alongside Thundercat and King Princess, making for quite the lineup.
Their seminal debut album, Is This It, also turned 20-years-old a few months ago, whose legacy we wrote about.
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Check out ‘Star Treatment’ by Arctic Monkeys:
