The Later Arctic Monkeys
I pretty much spent the 21st century ignoring the Arctic Monkeys. In 2005, the only place I could hear new music properly was at record stores like Tower or HMV, which once had a massive five-story store in Shibuya, Tokyo. The same for Tower. My cheap entertainment was going through Shinjuku or Shibuya and going to record stores to hear whatever they had offered through their various headphones throughout the store. I remember mostly being on the Western Rock floor or the J-Pop level to listen to music, and the only other people were teenagers or customers in their twenties. I was 51 years old when the first Arctic Monkey album came out, Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not, and at the time, I heard this type of music over and over again through my various decades. Their lead singer and writer, Alex Turner, had a way with words and was obviously, talented, but it was just not my interest when there was a re-issue of Sput Sput Sputnik on the record store playlist.
Seventeen years later, and by chance, selecting music randomly on Apple Music, I came upon the song There’d Better Be A Mirrorball, their new song on the album The Car. It was a bingo moment for me, and this song grabbed me due to the minimal lyrical play but big drama and cinema-like attention to detail. Music often appeals to one’s emotional state, but I’m impressed by their skillful approach to a pop song. The dramatic John Barry-like orchestration in the beginning, then the simple piano chord, the minimal electronics, and the lounge aspect of their sound were like a tasty cocktail of culturally mainstream ingredients. I found myself drunk in that aural sense of intoxication.
I have heard this type of music before, such as in Pulp’s masterpiece This Is Hardcore, and The Car reminds me a bit of that, as well as some of Edwyn Collins's (of Orange Juice fame) witty observations on whatever is in front of him. The same goes for Jarvis Cocker as well. So, Alex Turner has that lineage that is carried on into his music and words. If Jarvis is a basement to the street-level version of Bryan Ferry, then Turner worked himself up to the more expensive membership clubs of the Soho/Beverly Hills landscape. He’s the poet for those who made it, but at what cost, and with what horrific company?
Arctic Monkey looks like good blokes out for the evening; in that non-image of no-nonsense, their swagger is kept in place because they are the cats who ate the canary. Jarvis reveals his weakness, but Alex and the boys keep their tongues in their cheeks and mosey down the terrain with Alex’s notebook to observe the clientele. Alex has the talent to sing both about his audience and himself.
As of this writing, I never listened to the first five Arctic Monkeys albums, except briefly, the first one in a Tokyo music store. My technique in investigating a band or artist’s work is to start from the last album and work my way down, like time-traveling to the past. A week after listening to and buying The Car, I purchased and listened to Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, the album they released in 2018. Similar to The Car in sound, there is a theatrical ‘feel’ to the songs and what I imagined as a theater piece. But I think Turner and the others think of the album as a whole, not a group of individual songs. The songs flow nicely from one to the other, and they’re not long album length. A proper 1970s 40-minute album. A space-age exotica adventure of a record. Conceptually it deals with moon life and being very much aware of the planet Earth as strangers in a strange land or ready-made for the human population. James Bond is in an existential mood in outer space.
The Arctic Monkeys are an established band that plays in huge venues worldwide. I’m not used to liking an artist that popular, but if they keep challenging themselves, either by failing or succeeding, I’ll keep my ears open to their world. Here I should mention the other band members because they contribute significantly, as well as Alex. They are Nick O’Malley, James Ford, and Jamie Cook. The Car and Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino are worthy albums.
