The Arctic Monkeys have yet to deliver a dud in their six outings to date. This deeper dozen reflects this view by featuring two tracks from each album. Enjoy…
The View from the Afternoon - The opening track from their debut album, in particular Matt Helder’s incendiary drumming, set things off in blistering style.
A Certain Romance - Turner depicted everyday scenes and characters with impeccable accuracy and wit throughout the first album. It was with another lyrical stream of observation that he fuelled the bittersweet closing track. Noughties indie had peaked.
Teddy Picker - On ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’ the Monkeys served up something akin to the first record, the quality remained high and, if anything, the playing was even tighter. This punchy top 20 single from the album had echoes of Dr. Feelgood’s ‘Roxette’.
505 - ‘Only Ones Who Know’ and ‘505’ were laced with a melancholy not heard on the debut. Bleak organ chords and haunting guitar courtesy of Miles Kane set the tone on the latter before the song culminates with Turner’s howling crescendo - “But I crumble completely when you cry, it seems like once again you've had to greet me with goodbye”. Of the former there is lovely live version with Richard Hawley here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDVg2yNASUw
Cornerstone - This poppy romp was at odds with the sound of 2009s parent album ‘Humbug’. Despite obvious anthemic qualities the single release stalled at number 94 in the UK charts. A parred down version of the track featured in live shows in 2018 demonstrating how the seeds of ‘Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino’ could be traced back to this period.
Pretty Visitors - Frenetic vocals and machine gun drum fills are interspersed with a zombified and languid organ led chorus on this mad belter. The song also contained the priceless line “Who came first, the chicken or the dickhead?”.
She’s Thunderstorms - With the fourth album came summery ‘Byrdsian’ influences. Opening track ‘She’s Thunderstorms’ set the jangling tone.
Love is a Laserquest - Not all of ‘Suck it and See’ was shimmering melody though, this track, one of Arctic Monkey’s finest, seemed to document Alex Turner’s breakup from Alexa Chung. It is bruised but beautiful “And for a minute it gets easier to pretend that you were just some lover”.
Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High? - The hip hop influences, a bit like our protagonist in the lyric, came on strong on this beat led ditty.
Fireside - A rumbling stomper from the second half of ‘AM’ carried a hint of noir characterised by the haunting backing vocal, (what I think is) a harpsichord and Bill Ryder Jones’s guest guitar spot.
Four Out of Five - This was the most accessible cut from the last record. Whilst the sinister tone echoes previous Monkeys outings (see ‘505’ or ‘Pretty Visitors’ above) this is unique in their canon. The track is bleak, euphoric, sarcastic and transcendent all in five beguiling minutes with nods to Bowie and the Beach Boys thrown in for good measure.
The Ultracheese - The production bears some resemblance to John Lennon’s ‘Plastic Ono Band’ album, in particular, songs such as ‘God’. However, in stark contrast to the overtly heavy subject matter of that record, this song is delivered with a wry smile even if some of the lyrics are hard to interpret and hint at darker themes “the dawn won't stop weighing a tonne”.
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