Just banging tunes and DJ sets…
Very few bands have seen their very first album become as widely embraced by an entire generation quite like the Arctic Monkeys did in 2006 and this week marks the 12th birthday of their Mercury Prize-winning debut.
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not – released on 23 January, 2006 – is a fantastic record that has since been ranked in Rolling Stone’s and NME’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Irish fans loved the band right from the start as the album won a Meteor Award and went straight to the top of the charts.
There really isn’t a poor song here, which is why we’ve found the task of choosing our five favourite songs to be very difficult. Take a look.
5) ‘Fake Tales of San Francisco’
The lyrical hook: “I’d love to tell you all my problems, you’re not from New York City, you’re from Rotherham, so get off the bandwagon, and put down the handbook”
The song is probably Turner at his most incisive, observational and poignant as he cuts through the complete and utter bullshit regarding the phony “weekend rock stars in the toilet practicing their lines.”
The tune is deeply rooted by that melodic bassline, the few chords rarely change, but the song really takes off when the the three guitarists all merge for that pumping, rousing final half.
If you don’t mind, we’re staying on the Arctic Monkeys bandwagon.
4) ‘The View from the Afternoon’
The lyrical hook: “There’s verse and chapter sat in her inbox, and all that it says is that you’ve drank a lot”
A Saturday night-out in suburbia has rarely been portrayed with as much thundering energy, descriptive detail and detached realism than this fantastic opening track.
Right from the start, drummer Matt Helders doesn’t so much play the drums as beat the living crap out of them.
Meanwhile Alex Turner’s street-smart voice, combined with his razor-sharp lyrics and poignant observations about the local night-life are as relevant to Shankhill as they are to Sheffield.
Drunk girls in limousines, fancy dress parties, lads throwing away their money, drunken texts and broken promises. Sound familiar?
The tension between chords and the transitions from one guitarist to the next is incredible.
The most impressive thing though is that a bunch of teenagers had enough confidence in their own abilities to build up their opening song to 100 MPH only to drop the beat at the mid-way mark.
‘The View from the Afternoon’ gets your heart pumping and sets the album up perfectly.
3) ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’
The lyrical hook: “I said I bet that you look good on the dance floor, dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984”
The opening guitar riff from Alex Turner and Jamie Cook is akin to the sound of a machine gun summoning you to the dancefloor.
Former member Andy Nicholson roots the song with that hip-swaying bassline, while Helders proves that he’s more than just a drummer with his rousing backing vocals from the drum-kit.
The song belongs to the frontman, though, because he wrote an anthem that perfectly summed up all those flirting half-glances, ‘dutch courage’ conversations and ‘will I won’t I’ encounters with the opposite sex on boozy nights out.
At the time of its release, the song was like an indie grenade that exploded around pubs and clubs, as teenagers finally had a band that they could identify with.
Why are the Arctic Monkeys so popular? Because they were singing about the exact same things that their fans were doing at the weekend.
2) ‘When the Sun Goes Down’
The lyrical hook: “They said it changes when the sun goes down, around here”
How many songs can examine a topic as serious as prostitution and turn it into a radio friendly hit? Alex Turner was clever enough to reference The Police by naming his character Roxanne, just like Sting did.
This song was a key indicator that the band were also able to handle more mature issues (most of the album previously dealt with the more adolescent rituals of drinking, partying, sex and music), without compromising their unique sound, draw and appeal.
Note the differences, both lyrically and in terms of the songs composition/sound, as soon as the narrator says “they said it changes when the sun goes down around here”.
All things being said, it’s a bloody amazing riff, unusual because the bass and lead guitar almost mimic each other note for note.
1) ‘A Certain Romance’
The lyrical hook: “But all of that’s what the point is not, the point is that there ain’t no romance around there”
In an album brimming with amazing tracks, we’ve opted for the tune that closed the record because this is *the* song that summed up what it was like to be an adolescent in the naughties.
It’s the perfect anthem to close the album on, because it’s the culmination of everything that the band got 100% right on the 12 tracks that preceded it.
With this song, the Arctic Monkeys demonstrated that they’re not just sublime musicians but that their frontman had the ability to capture and define an entire generation.
Deafening drums, cans with friends, “knackered Converse”, thundering guitars, new ringtones, fragile friendships, broken hearts and bruised bones are all prevalent, but in the end it’s just part of 21st century romance.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
