Time to Get Back on the Dancefloor?

To my loyal readers, don’t worry, this is not me suffering some late-life disco crisis, just a few, less than complimentary, thoughts on the new Artic Monkeys album.

To those opening your first ‘Challenge 69’ post, through ‘The Sample’, this is a taster of the longer-form musical musings (not always quite so ‘mardy’) you can expect if you sign up to read my story, using the subscribe button below.

Yesterday I finally got around to listening to the new Arctic Monkeys album ‘The Car’. The realisation I had been avoiding this for two weeks, since release, should have told me something, I was clearly worried. I was right to be.

‘The Car’ may have been constructed very elaborately, but the resultant model, what finally drove off the production line, has turned out more than a little dull. More Peugeot than Porsche!

Actually, I’m not sure I really did listen to the album all the way through. The CD definitely ended, but sometime, round about the seventh track, my unentertained mind had drifted off elsewhere. I found myself imagining a conversation, one more likely set in LA than Sheffield:

Alex Turner, to the remaining Arctic Monkeys, “so, tell me guys, honestly, what do you think of our last two albums?”

The AMs in reply, “well, if you really want the truth Alex, we’re a bit confused. Thought we’d joined the The Clash but, somehow, we’ve turned into Andy Williams’ backing band.”

I exaggerate for effect, but this is definitely a car that has driven too far down an easy listening lane. More Sinatra than Strokes.

It’s worth stating at this point; I’m not against bands/artists changing and evolving, indeed it’s an essential part of ‘growing’ as entertainers:

• If The Beatles had simply carried on rehashing ‘She Loves You’, we’d never have reached ‘A Day in the Life’,

• If Warsaw had stubbornly stuck to their punk roots, we’d never have had Joy Division, and

• A certain Mr. Bowie built a whole career, and an impressively varied body of work, around his constant inclination to change.

But when it comes to The Arctic Monkeys, surely the old stylistic ‘bath water’ Alex wanted to refresh could simply have been emptied down a nearby drain, without needing to jettison the ‘baby’ into the next county at the same time. We’ve now reached a point, I fear, however unfashionable, where the emperor’s new clothing needs discussing!

The Arctic Monkeys boast a rhythm section and lead guitarist amongst the best in the business, brilliant at driving their songs forward relentlessly, yet for too long now, it seems, they have been left behind in the car park, steering control handed over to strings and orchestration.

There are still some beautifully crafted lyrics on ‘The Car’ (this is Alex Turner we’re talking about after all!) I particularly enjoyed ‘Body Paint’s, “time travelling through the tanning booth, so you don’t let the sun catch you crying,” but, in truth, these moments are now too few and far between, replaced by a constant striving for a more sophisticated veneer that just ends up leaving me nostalgic for their old uncultured sneer.

Turner’s clever wordplay, once directed cuttingly at deserved targets, now seems more concerned with self-regarding attempts to deflect criticism. If I hadn’t already been annoyed enough with ‘The Car’, when it arrived at ‘Sculptures of Anything Goes’, then the song’s snidey, supposedly ironic line, “puncturing your bubble of relatability with your horrible new sound,” would have finished the job.

I think I could end up sounding extremely bitter (and not a little demented) if I extend this argument much further, so rather than labouring the point I’ll leave my final ‘case for the prosecution’ to jury by Spotify! The attached playlist includes The AMs ‘most streamed songs’ from their first two albums, followed by the same from their most recent two. If anybody can genuinely listen to this and then tell me ‘Four Out of Five’ and ‘There’d Better be a Mirrorball’ make for a better pair of songs than ‘When the Sun Goes Down’ and ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ then I’ll eat my argumentative hat.

I’m not ready to give up on The Arctic Monkeys yet though, I love ‘A Certain Romance’ too much for that, but for now I’ll be condemning ‘The Car’ to my CD scrapyard and start hoping, against hope, that next time around they turn up in a vehicle with a bit more oomph.

To get back to my title; I’m not suggesting Alex should be retrying an old pair of ‘Dancing Shoes’ and returning to a ‘Dancefloor’ he rightly left in 2006, I’m just hungry for something that comes served with a bigger slice of ‘Arctic’ (Rock’n)Roll.