Unsolicited Opinions On Arctic Monkeys

Hey! Real first blog post! First of many longer, music related posts, I assure you. I just wanted to tell the masses ...well. . my unsolicited opinions about Arctic Monkeys. First band I really fell in love with, top artist on spotify two years in a row, going to see them live later this year. With that date swiftly approaching, I have to start reconciling with the fact that this will actually be happening to me!!!!!

This band first entered my life about 2 years ago in the back of my science classroom. I was going to do some assignment and wanted to listen to some music. By this point I had heard some of their more popular songs. Like everyone else at the time, the song 505 had a grip on my throat and i could not shake it. That class period I listened to Favorite Worst Nightmare and AM, and then later Suck It and See, Tranquility Base, etc.

ANYWAYS that summer i was fully in a rabbit hole. Shortly thereafter I discover The Last Shadow Puppets and that fully changed the game for me. I watched live show after live show, all kinds of interviews. I do confess that I also regularly watched clip compilations of funny/random/cool moments from both bands.

Although my love of Arctic Monkeys has faded a good deal, I still love to listen to their music. It's comfortable, it's what I listen to when i have no idea what to listen to. Maybe I've watched too much Anthony Fantano or maybe my taste has just changed a bit, but I'm not so crazy about them anymore. That being said, the whole point of this was to just air out my dirty laundry that I have more or less pent up for the past few years, so HERE GOES.

1. I love the energy and obvious passion from Whatever People Say I Am, but I've only listened to their first album, front to back, like once, so THAT IS MY FAULT. Lyrically, i prefer later stuff, but I love the kind of anecdotal angle. THE BASSLINES ON THIS THING

2. The Bad Thing is pretty much my fav off of FWN and Only Ones Who Know is my least favorite. feel free to attack me. the lines "Do me a favor and break my nose" as well as "And to tear apart the ties that bind/perhaps Fuck Off might be too kind" will haunt be 4 the rest of my days. The build up in that song is crazy.

3. Humbug might be my favorite. I Love all the weird experimental shit they started doing on that album. Cornerstone is my favorite song to sing, Dance Little Liar is my fav, but Alex's voice on The Jeweller's Hands is INSANE. I'm personally a huge fan of their weird cryptic poetry lyrical era, and that's when this really took off.

4. Suck It and See is their most underrated album. period, end of sentence. Every single time I listen to that album I find songs I love that I have completely forgotten. Like, I tend to think that it was a transition album, that they really didn't push any boundaries, but I now see it more as taking their sound up until that point and PERFECTING it. Dont Sit Down kicks so much ass just generally, and Reckless Serenade is probably one of my favorite songs lyrically that I have ever heard.

5. You know what I never liked AM very much but whatever it has some grooves okay. Objectively the worst era for singles. Arabella is my favorite like it's just so good. I love singing to it!! I Wanna Be Yours is my least favorite Arctic Monkeys song. I hate it. Yes tht means Youre So Dark is above that. Cant stand it.

6. Tranquility Base will always have a good place in my heart because how couldn't it? Star Treatment is one of my fav AM songs, places high on my list of all time favorites. Lyrically TBHC is strange i get that but it was so different. I feel like the sound could have been more fleshed out, like i feel like there could have been less...idk empty space? but seriously, Tranquility Base is the album I listen to when i cant go to bed so i stare at the ceiling and think. Also yeilds my favorite music videos!!!!! (besides fluorescent adolescent and cornerstone, ofc.)

7. I dont wanna talk about The Car (also i dont really think I can LMAOOO) Look I listened to it the day it came out, though it was drab as hell and have been too scared to listen to it since. of course i can't completely hate it, Alex Turner is incapable of making something completely unlistenable. I thought all the single were pretty good, nothing amazing or whatever... (I've cried to Mirrorball more than once), and i think Body Paint sounds like 1000 times better live! its one of the songs im looking forward to the most. However, Perfect Sense came on shuffle today and i was like damn....i may have to listen to this shit and possibly change my mind haha!!!!!!

OTHER:

- Humbug and EYCTE are the best hair eras. Cringe culture is dead and I can say that.

- Leave Before the Lights Come On is my favorite of theirs. I think.

- At this point I enjoy Arctic Monkeys and TLSP equally (as much as i can compare them, you know) Sweet Dreams, TN is like, my 3rd favorite song of all time.