The Strokes inspired Lizzo on her new album Love in Real Life

14 March 2025, 22:28

The Strokes and Lizzo. Picture: Press/Jason McDonald, Amy Sussman/Getty Images

The US star has talked about her change in musical direction and how the NYC indie rockers inspired her forthcoming album.

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Lizzo was inspired by The Strokes when making her new album.

The About Damn Time singer announced her comeback this year and has so far released the 80s-inspired Still Bad and the indie-tastic album title track Love in Real Life.

As NME reports, talking about her new record, the singer and flautist admitted to Apple Music: “The Strokes were just such a huge inspiration. The Strokes were on the mood board for ‘Love in Real Life’,” she told Lowe. “I had been writing since like October 2023, wrote a lot of shit. Then I think I had a turning point in early 2024 with ‘Love in Real Life’.

“I wrote that song and was like, ‘Whoa, this is it. Erase, scratch everything we did’… Starting with Love in Real Life is the track one. That’s where the rest of this kind of happened,” she added.

Lizzo - Love in Real Life (Official Video)

On "finding" a new sound on the upcoming record and how amazing it felt, the singer went on: “I always hear stories about artists finding their sound and finding the sonic [in their] album or the project […] This time I really feel like I was sonically focused on a sound.

"The way that we found it was just, I was like, ‘Wow, I’m one of them now’. I can tell this story. I was so excited to tell you this story seven months ago when we were finding this sound.”

Love in Real Life is Lizzo's first album since 2022's Special, which included the singles About Damn Time, 2 Be Loved (Am I Ready) and the record's title track.

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Lizzo joins a long line of celebs to be inspired by The Strokes, including Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner, who described how things changed for him drastically as soon as he heard the band as a teenager.

Speaking to Radio X's John Kennedy about namechecking the band in the band's Star Treatment single, Turner explained: “The arrival of The Strokes changed what music I was listening to, what shoes I was wearing. I grew my hair out and borrowed my mum’s blazer."

The Four out of Five frontman added: "I was a huge fan. That line seemed to encapsulate this idea that a period of time went by in a flash.”

Listen to Alex Turner talk about Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino in an X-Posure album track by track below: