Bad Decisions

Bad Decisions

The Strokes

“Bad Decisions” is, according to band member Albert Hammond Jr., the first official single from The Strokes sixth studio album The New Abnormal. The Strokes debuted the song with a live performance at the Bernie Sanders New Hampshire primary rally on February 10, 2020. They later premiered the song and its music video on February 18, 2020.

The song interpolates the main melody from Billy Idol’s hit July 1981 single “Dancing With Myself,” as Julian sings a self-aware commentary about the band’s interaction with its fans and the music scene, as implied by the music video’s point that a lot of what the fans want are sounds reminiscent of their debut album. Making “bad decisions” in the context of the song implies the band making the decision to stray from that sound which doesn’t sit very well to their fans, especially to those who vie for their old sound.

It is also possible to interpret this song as about Julian’s problematic relationship with his father as in the past, Julian hasn’t shied away from being a lyrical critic of his father (see: Barely Legal, When It Started, & Human Sadness by The Voidz).

His parents' tumultuous relationship was well-documented in a 1988 New Yorker profile on his father, John Casablancas. In that article, when Julian’s father found out his girlfriend, Jeanette Christjansen he warned her that he was,

”Not the type of man who would ever change diapers. ”You’ll see; once the baby comes, he’s cute,’" Christjansen recalls saying. “And he would tell me, ’Jeanette, don’t ever ask me that’.”