Alright, I’ve finally gotten to the Arctic Monkeys album that seemed to change the course of their career across the globe. Sure, they saw plenty of success in the U.K. with all of their previous records, but for whatever reason, AM is the one that seemed to resonate with the States the most. Now it’s my time to take a proper listen.
Look, I was really, really skeptical to listen to this record because all I can remember and get reminded about is the lead single, “Do I Wanna Know?” This song still gets played to death, but at the time it came out I couldn’t escape it. And that made me swear off the Monkeys really. Freaking mainstream radio. Will they ever play a different song by the band? Doubtful. And that’s such a shame, because aside from the sheer number of bangers off of their other albums, there are even more awesome songs off of this one! Something else that really confuses me about this record is people’s reaction to it’s genre. I’ve seen some classify it as emo…um, no. As a former and current emo kid I can certifiably say that it’s nowhere close to that. Rock seems a little generous, too. Sure, that’s the base element, but I feel like these people have never really listened to rock for them to say that. Finally, good old Wikipedia tells me this record is more hip hop – ha! I can understand a little bit why they’re saying that, but still no. Perhaps if there was a way to mix all these genres together we could come up with something, but for now I’ll just let it remain a little ambiguous.
Now that I’ve had my little rant, let me just say that this is actually a really great record! It’s so drastically different to what they’ve put out before that I definitely had to give it another full listen before I declared any of these songs great. Except for “Fireside.” That bassline got me immediately. Obviously, I was already familiar with “Do I Wanna Know?,” “R U Mine?,” and “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?” because they were all singles at the time. But now that I’m looking at these song titles, I wonder if they purposely released these because they are all questions? That seems like something they’d intentionally do. Anyway, “R U Mine?” and “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?” stand out to me now like they did back then, and I still enjoy them. It appears that this time around the bassline is somethin they focused on first, and I can tell. They’re all pretty great.
The only song that I didn’t really care for off the record was “Mad Sounds.” It was just a little too slow and ultimately forgettable. A couple songs that confused the crap out of me at first were “One for the Road” and “I Want It All” because of the near constant falsetto. I’d never heard them do that before. Sure, from The Last Shadow Puppets I’m aware that Alex Turner can hit a high note, but these songs didn’t really sound anything like that. I’ve learned it’s a mixture of his voice, Matt, and Jamie’s that’s giving it that sound, and after a couple listens, I’m a big fan. “I Want It All” almost immediately reminded me of one of my favorite middle school bands, The Pink Spiders, so it’s no surprise that it’s one of my favorites. “Arabella,” “Knee Socks,” and “Snap Out of It” are all insanely catchy and equally as good as all the other songs I’ve already mentioned. Perhaps the closing track, “I Wanna Be Yours,” lands at the bottom, too. The lyrics are interesting, but I expected that when I saw it was written by John Cooper Clark. I don’t know, there just seemed to be something missing from the song.
Overall though, this record is a good time, and I’m glad I finally got over my phobia of listening to it. Only one album left to go, although the rumor mill is swirling that there might be a seventh album out sometime next year. I will be ready when that happens, and I’ll be most certainly ready for a tour! As I’ve said before, go listen to all of the Arctic Monkeys!