I blame popular radio for never getting into the Arctic Monkeys back in the day. Given that their first and second records came out in my prime music discovery time (middle school), somehow these guys slipped under the radar and then I only ever heard “Do I Wanna Know?” and “Are You Mine?” on repeat in 2013. That was too much for me. But here I am, many, many years later and I’m finally giving them a fair shake. I’d say it’s largely due to the fact that I’m obsessed with The Last Shadow Puppets. Something else I might be obsessed with? Arctic Monkeys’ first record, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.
While listening to this record, I had to keep reminding myself that this came out in 2006. I mean, it 100 percent sounds like stuff I listened to in 2006 and that’s why I liked it so much. If I wasn’t thinking about it I would say to myself, “man, the Arctic Monkeys made a freaking amazing nostalgic sounding record.” I can’t say that since I haven’t listened to any of their recent music, but in my book, this debut effort is gold! Overall, it had a hardcore and punchy vibe that sounded like a weird mixture of punk and beach rock at times. It doesn’t sound like it should go together, but they really make it work. I was also thinking of a lot of other bands while listening to this record. Early Fall Out Boy came to mind, as well as Klaxons and Vampire Weekend. It also made me think that the Australian punk band, The Chats were maybe a little influenced by early Arctic Monkeys. Either way, these are all bands I love, so the fact that they sparked that recognition is another gold star for them.
Something similar to their mid-2000s counterparts are the ridiculously titled songs. The only difference here was that they broke up their tracks in an interesting way. There were a chunk of six songs that all seemed to blend together almost like a story with similar characters, then there were another six and then the closing track all on its own. That’s a cool thing to see when you’ve got the physical album in your hands, so I pity the streamer-only listeners. Given that lead singer Alex Turner was a fresh twenty years old when this album came out, it made sense that most of the songs on the record seemed to focus on British youth culture. While I can’t immediately relate to that, it did provide some pretty fun visuals while I was listening.
Some of my favorite songs off the album had to be the opening track “The View from the Afternoon” and “Red Lights Indicate Doors are Secured.” They just had some awesome sounding guitars and were pretty quick and hard throughout. Other songs that really had an impact were “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” which seems very obvious now why it was a lead single for them (it’s so damn good!), and “Still Take You Home.” The rest of the album was pretty solid and almost equally as catchy. If you want some more beach-like songs from them, I’d say check out “Mardy Bum” and “Fake Tales of San Francisco.” Their closing track, “A Certain Romance” seemed like a perfect culmination of all the sounds present on the rest of the record, so it was a pretty perfect way to round it out. “Riot Van” was perhaps my least favorite off the record because of how slow it was, but the lyrics were still genius.
I think this is a lot to live up to, but I hope the rest of Arctic Monkeys’ records hit just like this one did. Sometimes it’s hard to recapture the magic of a first record, but based on the fact that they are still huge today makes me confident there will still be some winners in their catalog. Be on the lookout for the next Arctic Monkeys review!