A five-minute fifty-second walk through grief : disorientation, denial, anger, bargaining,depression and finally, something like acceptance.
Ode to the Mets
The Strokes · The New Abnormal · Track 9
Ode to the Mets is a song where I traverse through the five stages of grief in that 5:50 duration. It starts electronically and gets you thinking it's gonna have a Daft Punky sound, a red herring. And then comes the introduction of the villain, the orchestrator of doom: that damn electric guitar.
It feels disorienting, like being lost in a jungle with no sense of direction. The notes are the fourth and the tonic, a sound repulsive by design, unresolved in a music theory sense, and also just what the listener feels. This change sets the emotional tone of the song. Its core is this guitar, which we shall follow.
And then comes the synth. Gives a sense of calm and direction, drowning the chaos of the guitar and possibly showing us the danger of denial. The guitar still exists but it is drowned. We, the listener is now thinking that the situation can be salvaged.
But it ain't. The uneasiness returns. It is the layers of sound: all of them playing contrasting melodies, which gives the entire New Abnormal its signature feel and texture. And Ode to the Mets is the pièce de résistance, the culmination of this masterpiece: a dive into Casablancas's enigmatic mind after a fracture in his family.
The rhythm for the first two minutes is kept so beautifully by the synths and the guitar that you would have forgotten the need forpercussion, the drums until Casablancas says it, solemnly, as I whisper along with him:
And Fab's got it all from that moment. The song has been elevated to a new dimension. It's a basic one-and-two-and, possibly the only part of the song which screams familiarity. Casablancas continues to say what's on his mind. The protagonist of this story would seem fine — until he starts to vent his emotions in an episode showcasing his anger: very subtly out of pitch, but still maintaining the scale and texture of the song.
This is the part that stands apart for me. The cohesion of the song is interwoven with the screams showing his agony.
And so it starts: the annoying guitar which at the start sounded much more like a mosquito buzzing. Casablancas continues bargaining, even quoting "No it's not wrong but it's not right" as he slowly spirals into depression.
And the final line is when he reaches acceptance — as the bass kicks into overdrive, with the guitar following his melody instead of playing that annoying riff, resolving old problems.
Old friends long forgotten, they all wait at the bottom of the ocean,
Has swallowed the only thing that is left of us,
So pardon the silence that we are hearing,
it's turning into a deafening painful shameful roar.
The imagery sounds very nihilistic and doesn't follow a meter — but the genius of Casablancas just continues to sing it without regard for the flow. It's the idea that has to be conveyed; it doesn't matter how it reaches, as long as it does.
He has accepted his fate, just like the listener. It's over, finally. Nothing matters now, does it? Really.