Arctic Monkeys - AM

Arctic Monkeys are a strange band. When they first started off they were definitely excellent already - who doesn't love 'I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor'? - but they were so, so different to how they are now. They were the sort-of scruffy band of boys from Sheffield with fast songs and clever lyrics. Arctic Monkeys were one of the first bands that I was old enough to really appreciate, and I've had Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not and Favourite Worst Nightmare for years. I always admired the way Alex Turner plays with words in his songs, the sort of humorous touch he adds to songs despite their usually mundane topics ("Oh you've saved me," she screams down the line/ "The band were fucking wank and I'm not having a nice time") and his voice, which brings a refreshing change to the usual faux-American accent so many artists adopt.
Then, somehow, they kind of drifted off my radar. I was vaguely aware of the work they were producing, but never looked it up past the occasional listen to 'Crying Lightning'.
By pure chance, I've rediscovered them. I was in the car with my mother, and 'Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?' was on. We discussed its relevance to some of our friends, and promptly forgot about it.
A few weeks later, and I find myself listening to that same song over and over. It's a good song, I think, a damn good one, but different to their older stuff. Their earlier work is a lot louder and more aggressive, whereas this is subtler, the kind of music that sits in the cafe in a black and white film smoking a cigarette. You don't get hit in the face with it, but it sneaks up behind you and catches you that way instead.
It left me intrigued to find out what else they were up to, and as it turns out, they've been up to releasing AM. I'll admit, as a review, this is a bit slow on the uptake given that it was released here on the 9th, but I don't think I've missed it completely.

Track one, 'Do I Wanna Know?' starts very simply, just a slow drum beat. It's joined by a lazy guitar and Alex's singing about "this tune I've found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat", the words natural enough that he sounds almost as if he's speaking normally and rhyming by coincidence. Then the chorus hits, and you find yourself swaying in your seat to keep with the beat.
A lot of people have been going on about 'R U Mine?', the track that follows. It sounds a little more similar to their older music, a bit more noise involved. It's good, but I don't think it's quite my favourite so far. It jars a little with Do I Wanna Know?, so maybe it's just in the wrong place.
After that, they return to the slow, moody style they seem to be sticking to now, a sort of gloomy but still romantic tone that comes up throughout the songs - I just really love lyrics - with lines like "when you tell everybody to go, will you pour me one for the road?". It is amazing the way they manage to tell stories through the songs, the music and the words not being specific but giving you a sort of wink, like we all know what's going to happen next.
I do like this darker style, but by the time it reaches 'Arabella', it's getting a little bit same-y. The drum beat and the guitar, on occasion, sounds so similar that if you weren't concentrating properly it could almost sound like this album was just one long slow song.
However, just where it was needed, 'I Want It All' brings a refreshing change of tempo. It's like a more expertly done blend of the (comparative) noisiness of R U Mine and the other slower songs, still very cool and and nonchalant (can you say that about songs?), but with enough going on in it to keep you bobbing about.
'No. 1 Party Anthem' sounds very deliberately like the slow song the DJ puts on at weddings when everyone's a bit drunk and emotional. It sounds softer than the other songs, but still carries what appears to be a somewhat typical Arctic Monkeys theme of awkwardly trying to pick up a girl in a bar.
'Mad Sounds' is even more laid back than the rest of the album, so much so that it's nearly horizontal. Another 'we're having a break now kind of song', again it's probably not my favourite, but it's making AM make a lot more sense now. They've kept the same mood going throughout, but in such a subtle way that you almost can't tell - it's either an album you need to have on fully in the background, or on loud enough to concentrate, because it feels like there's a story going on here and it won't make sense if you don't hear the whole thing.
'Fireside' definitely does give the feeling that the album's gone through some sort of transformation. I hate to use the same word over and over, but 'subtle' for me is AM's watchword here, and it's the only one word I can find that fits. This song's bringing the speed back up again, gearing us for the finale - it is a pretty short record - but it sounds different.
Here's my favourite; 'Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?'. The beat, the lyrics, the whole thing, it's brilliant. It's the kind of song you put on while you've got your headphones in and you want to give yourself a bit of a strut as you walk round town, as well as sounding suitably kind of trippy.
Then comes 'Snap Out Of It'. This one really makes me wonder if Alex wrote these songs while frequenting family parties, hiding behind the buffet table with a notepad and pen as he watched the mums and dads doing their Mum-And-Dad-Dancing. This one doesn't sound quite like any of the others on the album, making more use of the backing vocals and  which is awesome, but it also leaves me wanting a lot more. It feels like they started with the raw elements of the music they wanted to make, that are awesome individually, but started mixing them together part way through.
Thankfully it continues with 'Knee Socks', which has the aforementioned stampy drumbeat ; the difference is that they've paid more attention to the guitars here. It's doing romance songs in a way that makes me much less annoyed about the amount of songs there are out there about romance. It sounds like the way real people do it.
I had a hunch about this song and followed it, and it turns out this song is actually originally a piece written by the famous John Cooper Clarke. I won't claim to know anything about it beyond that he wrote the words, but this gloomy, lonely version pulls off those words fairly well (further research - reading NME - has revealed that JCK is something of an inspiration for Alex Turner, which is evident even when you've seen as little of the former's work as I have).

It's maybe not an album I'd take with me to a desert island, but it's definitely one I'm putting on my Christmas list. Although it does get just a little bit tiring just around the middle, I find it a refreshing new addition to my music library, right when I was getting bored of all the music I'm familiar with. A friend of mine said a few days ago that "the Arctic Monkeys have become the kind of band that the Arctic Monkeys used to laugh at". That may be their own thoughts, that may be a quote, I don't know, but I think that
a) it's probably true, but
b) if that means they make songs like this, I really don't think that's such a bad thing.

Morbid Songs For Morbid Writers

Aside from listening to music, I also like to write. I like to write morbid things about death and violence. To aid this cause, I made myself a playlist, and I think it may have broken with me. So, because maybe you're after a really depressing but cool collection of music, I will share this playlist with you.

Blink 182 - I Miss You

Blink 182 - Adam's Song

Echo And The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon

Gram Rabbit - Dirty Horse

Florence + The Machine - Cosmic Love

The Cure - Disintegration

The Cure - The Same Deep Water As You

My Chemical Romance - Romance

My Chemical Romance - Desert Song

My Chemical Romance - Interlude

My Chemical Romance - Cancer

Arctic Monkeys - 505

Arctic Monkeys - Crying Lightning

White Lies - Farewell To The Fairground

White Lies - Bigger Than Us

Deaf Havana - I Will Try

Deaf Havana - Times Change, Friends Leave And Life Doesn't Stop For Anybody

Deaf Havana - Nicotine And Alcohol Saved My Life

Panic! At The Disco - Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off

Bring Me The Horizon - Deathbeds

5 Songs: M

Arctic Monkeys - Mardy Bum

The Cribs - Men's Needs

Fall Out Boy feat. Big Sean - The Mighty Fall

The Pretty Reckless - Miss Nothing

Muse - MK Ultra

5 Songs: F

Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.

My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words

Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent

The Cure - Fascination Street

You Me At Six - Fireworks

Arctic Monkeys - Leave Before The Lights Come On

I don't know how but I forgot this song even existed, and then I found it again just now and I'm really excited that I've found it again. Plus, Paddy Considine is in the video and he's one of my favourite actors 'cause he's a nutter and he did Dead Man's Shoes and stuff. But yes, awesome song, listen listen listen.

Songs You Need To Know To Live

There are certain songs that I think you need to know nowadays to be able to live. No, I don’t mean songs that I really like and think are awesome and everybody should hear, and I don’t mean songs everybody necessarily likes. It’s the songs you just need to know because they are the Songs That Everybody Knows. I was thinking about this because I was considering making a CD of some of these songs for my little sister, so that she will be able to survive in the outside world, and I’ve been trying to work out which songs they actually are. Here are ten (in no particular order):

1) Michael Jackson – Thriller

Obvious. Everybody knows Thriller. Everyone knows the dance . . . sort of. (God, I wish I could do the dance properly). Say what you like about MJ, but he could dance. It’s the default Halloween song, but it’ll come up at a lot of other get-togethers anyway.

2) Blink 182 – All The Small Things

Come on, everyone knows it, and I bet you’ve got Tom Delonge’s voice going round your head now (seriously, what on earth is that accent). I don’t even remember why, but my entire maths class was singing this once. I think it was to cover up the sound of this one girl who was trying to sing it as some warbly power ballad and was absolutely murdering it. Anyway, pretty much everyone knows this one.

3) Oasis – Wonderwall

I don’t particularly like Oasis, but you can’t really deny their ability to make very memorable songs. For me, this one brings back firstly my Year 11 prom last summer, when, towards the end of the evening the DJ put it on and everyone in the year got together on the dance floor and sang along, and the teachers got really emotional. Secondly, it brings back one of my friends who, back in Year 8 on an own clothes day thought it’d be a brilliant idea to dress up as Noel Gallagher. I still don’t know his reasoning for it. I've got it playing now and I automatically have this urge to sway and sing along in the broadest Manc accent I can manage.

4) Dexys Midnight Runners – Come On Eileen

I’m not sure how often this one comes up in the US or other countries, but at probably every single family do I’ve been to here, there will come a point in the evening, usually when everyone’s smashed, when they will play this song and everyone will sing along and it’s just cemented in my head as A Tune You Must Have At Parties. They played it at Aquatica for some reason while I was there last summer, and you could see every single British person in there pricking up their cultural ears and singing along (what on earth do cultural ears look like?).

5) Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg – The Next Episode

I don’t know, is this a bit of a random choice? Everyone I know knows this one. They don’t know the words, but they know when to chime in with ‘lalalalala, it’s the motherfuckin’ D-O-double-G’, and that’s all you need to shuffle your way through any song.

6) Bob Marley – Three Little Birds

Everybody knows Bob Marley (sadly not personally), and everyone knows most of his major songs, like I Shot The Sherriff, which is what I was originally going to put here, but Three Little Birds just seemed more right. Everybody knows it, whether it’s people who just like reggae, people like me who got made to sing it in primary school after they remembered they weren’t a Christian school and stopped making us sing hymns, or if you happen to listen to him because he’s the first thing you generally think of when you heard the word ‘weed’ so you use him to show off your lifestyle.

7) Europe - The Final Countdown

(suggested by my friend Ryan)

This has been used for everything. Ever. I don’t know how they created frantic deadline-meeting montages before this song existed. I don’t know how they ever built up tension before this song. How does one count down to a big event without The Final Countdown? It is THE final countdown. The countdown of all countdowns. You just try to have any big event with some kind of deadline and see if this isn’t used. I dare you. And if you don’t use it, you will have that terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach that something is very, very wrong.

8) Arctic Monkeys – When The Sun Goes Down

Again, this is just what I see as essential songs from what I know of the world, and from what I know of the world, with pretty much everyone I’ve ever met, if you go up to them and say “And I’ve seen him with girls of the night, and he told Roxanne to put on her red light. They’re all infected, but he’ll be alright, ‘cause he’s a scumbag, don’t you know?” I can pretty much guarantee that they will shout back “BUTHESASCUMBADDONTYOUKNOW” and then start thrashing about. Arctic Monkeys haven’t been around massively long, and their newer stuff’s not really that good, but everyone knows the singles from the first two albums.

9) Destiny’s Child – Bootylicious

Come onnnnnnnn. I grew up watching this one on MTV, never quite grasping the concept of ‘bootyliciousness’, but still knowing it was an awesome song. I’m still not ready for the jelly. Just imagine if one day you opened the door and it was Beyonce, and she was there ‘cause you’d offended one of her friends. She’d beat the shit out of you. She would destroy you. I just know that you should never, ever take on Beyonce in a fight. And that’s why this song is here; to appease Beyonce and the other two.

10) The Cure – Friday I’m In Love

I was considering putting The Smiths here, but then I remembered this song. I love this one. It’s the one that got me into The Cure, because someone left me alone on New Year’s Eve a few years ago with Singstar, and I was just doing this song over and over. This one is just necessary. It’s just a very needed song. I don’t quite know how to express how much I love this song in words, aside from using the song itself. Aaaah, listen to it, it's lovely.