Why are the Arctic Monkeys relevant?

The band formed back in 2002 in Sheffield comprising of neighbours Alex turner (voice, guitar) and Matt Helders (drums), who met Andy Nicholson (bass guitar) in secondary school. Jamie Cook, another friend from school, was added as the second guitarist. Initially, they were an instrumental act, they started using lyrics later on. About a year after, in 2003, they started doing live shows, where they would hand out free cds with their early demos. In a time where cd sales make a huge part of the profits of an artist, this seems a bit like a counter move, as they could have monetised on them. This resulted in a genius move with great collateral for the new band. Originally, they would be already ahead of their competitions understanding that giving away free cds would increase their notoriety and people would start singing their songs at their gigs, no matter how small the venues were. Something they (probably) didn’t forecast was the amazing rapid rise of social media and platforms like MySpace: the fans created an online page for the band and started uploading and sharing their demos, even without them knowing. They started gaining popularity in the north of England and, after releasing their debut EP. with their own label in 2005, they played at Reading Festival in a smaller stage and attracted a fairly impressive audience. Shortly after they signed with Domino Records.

It needs to be said that the band had already pretty clear ideas of where they were going and how they wanted to go about things and they accepted to sign to Domino because they liked the operating way of Laurence Bell, the owner of the label, who only signs bands that he personally likes. This made sure that things for these guys were starting to be real serious. Their first single “I bet you look good on the dancefloor” went straight to number 1 on the UK singles chart and the same happened to their second single “when the sun goes down”.

They released their debut album “whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not” in January 2006 and broke the record for the fastest debut selling album in UK history. It is still undefeated. The release was followed by a tour and the band proved that the hype around their release wasn’t exaggerated, receiving praise at every stop. To confirm that they were absolutely unimpressed with fame and recognition, they didn’t wait long to write more material, they didn’t linger on having defeated an all time record with their first album, or simply the fact that they had sold more than 100.000 on the first day of release; so they go and put out yet another EP, called “who the f**k are arctic monkeys?”, in April of the same year. It’s interesting to notice their “indifference” to political correctness, in two different occasions : the cover of their first album and the name of the EP released after it. It was 2006, it surely wasn’t the fifties or anything like that, but having a guy smoke a cigarette in the front cover and using the F word in the tile of an EP can surely cut out a fair slice of market for the band. The reason they ignored the comments of the Scottish press regarding the cover is the authenticity of their music. The lyrics tell a story of party and romance typical of their generation, so the manager of the band responded to the press addressing them as “over reacting”. Regarding the title with a swear word, they weren’t afraid of the lack of radio plays they would get, and that’s probably because they already had groundbreaking marketing focusing on the internet more than the radio. And we all know the internet wasn’t regulated in 2006, so they could just be 100% themselves.

While still picking up awards around the globe, the band released their second album in April 2007, called “favourite worst nightmare”. Like the first one released a little over a year before, this record jumped on the number one spot in the album charts. Four days after the release, the band had 18 songs in the top 200 of the UK singles chart. The sound of the album was a little heavier than the previous one and defined their ability to write lyrics and the song “505” is one of the best songs of all time with two chords. The same year they headlined Glastonbury festival and collected a number of other awards.

With their fame reaching new heights, the band attracted the interest and attention of sacred beast of the music industry, the frontman of Queens of the Stone Age, Joshua Homme, who took the band in his desert studio at Rancho de la Luna, Joshua Tree, California, and produced the album. They wrote and recorded most of it at the location, and then finished it off in New York with James Ford, the producer for Alex Turner’s side project “the last shadow puppets”. The album explores new sounds and topics, showing the artistic approach of the band that, once again, isn’t interested in low hanging fruits provided by their previous works, but prefers to evolve and broaden their horizons putting at risk their popularity. They must have done something right, because, once again, the album went straight to number one.

Taking a look at their next release, their fourth album “suck it and see” also reached number one in the first week of release. The title comes from an English expression, it states that you can never judge or make up your mind about something, if you haven’t tried that something before. Although the saying is really popular in Uk, the US market thought it had spotted a cheeky move by the band, making them change the album cover for the US. The band didn’t lose much sleep over it, simply removing the title from the cover and presenting it as plain. I should mention, for the musicians’ record, that most of the tracks in the album are live takes of the whole band, who came into the studio extremely prepared.

Their fifth number one album in a row, AM, was praised by the critics and sold 100.000 copies in its first two days of release, something absurd in 2013, with a rising Spotify trend and music being listened to online and for free. They tried a different approach, focusing on composing the songs in the studio, starting with the drumming riffs inspired by the hip hop classics that Helders is so much in love with and building the arrangement up with 70s guitar tones. The amazing lyrics of the album don’t come as a surprise after so many masterpieces being written for every album. They then went on and headlined Glastonbury once again and gained their highest popularity with their song “do I wanna know?”.

What can possibly happen after five number one records in a row? What can possibly happen after forming a band in your teens and touring the world multiple times with your school mates? What kind of individual do you need to be to still be hungry for writing songs and going after it? Let me tell you which kind : an amazing one. This is the main reason I believe arctic monkeys are relevant today, and they will be for a long time. The music industry has changed more in the last 20 years then it ever did from 1950 to 2000. The arctic monkeys were (or at least they could be defined as) a guitar band, a rock n roll band. For the singer’s 30th birthday, the manager of the band gave him a grand piano.

(Just to give a bit of context, Alex Turner’s dad is a music teacher and let his son take piano lessons when he was a kid. Although Turner didn’t follow the piano right away, in the end he found useful the little tricks his dad used to show him)

Five number one records, two (amazing, in my opinion) records with his side project and a couple of EPs here and there, Turner had no inspiration left in the guitar, and wasn’t feeling a new album coming any time soon. That quickly changed when he sat at the piano and opened a pandora box of science fiction lingo that led him to write their sixth number one record in a row “tranquility base hotel and casino”. The inspiration from the title comes from this idea of a retirement home for rockstars on the moon. With this being the base of his project, he manages to shock with new sounds and really weird poetry that shoots at various aspects of the modern world, like Donald trump or the cellphones or the first ever front flip performed by a monster truck. With an extended line up the band was able to recreate perfectly the album live, being once again a pioneering and groundbreaking band by default.