a) Frenetic, danceable indie-rock fun.
b) Whatever.
c) A heap of over-hyped everything-on-Domino-is-ace shite.
d) All/none of the above.
Whichever you pick and whatever you want to lay upon the Arctic Monkeys and this, their second single proper from next week's debut LP Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, it's generally accepted that you've at least heard of them; for large portions of both the indie elite and the record-buying masses, it's time to step out of the '...Dancefloor' bubble and ensure that we're going to want to spend more than five minutes with the Arctic Monkeys.
Lyricially a tale of a prostitute and her pimp, 'When The Sun Goes Down' opens gently; the first time we've been subjected to a downbeat portion of the Arctics' catalogue and it's certainly not without its charms. To be honest though, this isn't what gets The Kids going; it's the effortless wheeling out of massive indie anthems that makes this band so appealing, so when a juxtapositionally loud guitar cracks open the slow movements of the intro, we're back on track.
I'm certain that if I were 15, I'd be skipping school to stay at home and dance in the mirror to the refrain of this song - even now I find it hard to keep still. In the same way that Mystery Jets induce the most ridiculous smile across my face, the Monkeys' obvious, yet vital, sound of 'now' is only to be ignored by the too-cool-for-art-school crowd, obsessed with the records that make them look great but are as boring as art school itself.
I'm going with option a) on this - whether an album can maintain this pace and fun remains to be seen, but for now I'm more than happy to don a Northern accent and nonchalant attitude towards life for every two minutes that this song enters my life.
But then what do I know? I like McFly.
Haha, beautiful review Colin
I'm lost on Arctic Monkeys. I blame the hype.
...
what a load of wank
what a load of wank
what a load of wank wank wank wank wank
i'll treat your comment with as much intelligence as it deserves.
camembert?
Definitely a B in my case
It's nothing special. I'm sure I'll hate them soon with the inescapable hype.
Pseud.
Anyone who hates a band because of the hype isn't a music fan. They're a pseud.
do "the kids" understand all the big words
and is it about your son going down?
it's all so JT Leroy.
Anyone who doesn't like these lads
Is a twat.
That is all. Thank you.
art school is fun
thats all
i'm sure that you could be in art school
and enjoy this.
Love this song.
i wanted to hate them
and dismiss them as NME approved "Jet" comparable waste.
turns out they are tremendous fun, and just as well, because all GYBE! and no play, makes jack a dull (but well listened) boy.
Just the same...
As the Kaiser Chiefs. And by that I don't mean that they sound the same, just that they're a kind of enjoyable, tuneful, fun, danceable stuff you'd quite like to hear on the radio...but you wouldn't want a whole album of it.
I would.
And comparing Arctic Monkeys with Kaiser Chiefs is just lazy.
Art school isn't boring.
And not liking Arctic Monkeys doesn't mean you are trying to look cool. I love ya Colin, but that paragraph is as bad as something Wrighty would come out with.
Or to rephrase in a slightly less knee-jerk manner:
It doesn't take art school to realise why this band sucks. Although they'd probably get kicked out of art school because you have to do something creative there.
Sure, I see your point
...but it's all about perception; surely at art school and indeed, life, you learn that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?
That my friend
Is a thorny subject on which many a late night brow has been furrowed. It boils down to the question of whether any kind of value judgement can ever be valid. Or to carry on talking in aphorisms - beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, just as one man's gold is another man's trash.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then the only judgement that matters is the judgement of the individual. And I like that idea. But when you add all those individuals up, you get popular opinion. And popular opinion, I have problems with. Popular opinion says Angels by Robbie Williams is the best song ever. So that's a LOT of beauty beholding going on right there... but surely we know that that song is a piece of shit, right? But how can we say that then in the face of popular opinion? Doesn't that mean we're open to comments about spoiling people's fun and being peanut munching, mumbling, corner sitting elitists, as someone just said on this thread?
I think
value judgements are the only judgements worth making.
What use is a judgement that doesn't value something?
And the only reason 'Angels' is so popular is because it had a lot of money spent on it. Never mind it's worth as a song, there is no other reason. The fact that an individual likes is their own value judgement. The fact that so many people like it is due to commerce.
Nonsense...
Obviously Robbie Williams had an advantage with "Angels" because money was spent promoting it, radio stations agreed to play it and obviously more people heard it than, say, Arcade Fire's "Crown of Love" for example.
But spending money itself isn't enough when there's no product. Anyone remember Girls on Top? Or Triple 8? Well, exactly.
There's a hell of a lot of songs with loads more money spent on them than "Angels" that haven't stuck in the public consciousness in the same way. Indeed Mr Williams' previous singles had crashed and burned despite that marketing spend.
Everyone whose heard "Angels" will have made an individual decision based on their own "Value Judgement". Robbie Williams had an advantage in that more people heard it so they could form an opinion but to claim that "the reason so many people like it is due to commerce" is not - and on any analysis - cannot be true.
angels
...like aguilera's "beautiful", is adored by the general public because it's a great big epic thing that's "meaningful", and that they can "relate" to. it gets requested for wives and boyfriends on the radio, and gets played at weddings. someone, think it was on here, might have been adam anonymous, wrote a wonderful piece about this phenomenon. i'm going to sound frightfully patronising when i say this; there's no way around that other than by not passing comment, so i'll just say it - angels is largely adored and placed at the top of "best song ever" lists by people who haven't heard enough music which is just infinitely BETTER. and i pity anyone who truly thinks that's an elitist indie attitude - look deep into your heart, seriously.
it's not the worst thing he's ever done, though his delivery is shocking. if people liked it, they liked it. but i do not believe it's actually possible to really hear a wide range of music - i.e. beyond the charts - and still consider it the best song of all time.
as for the arctic monkeys: option [b] please. this song's lyrics interested me but the song itself didn't alight anything in me. ...dancefloor's alright. it's all just alright. shrug.
Arse.
You're too sensible.
That wasn't meant as a compliment.
Rock'n'roll's about being silly.
dude
i'm just stating how things are.
rock and roll's certainly about being silly though. [my unconquerable love for aerosmith attests to that.] ergo, po-faced pop doesn't do it for me - "angels" and "beautiful" being perfect examples of that. i don't want pop stars to instruct me how to lead a better life and love myself from the inside. they're largely narcisisstic, self-obsessed divas with dubious hair, coke addictions and funny diets whose opinions i'm not interested in, and their words of "wisdom" are patronising, trite, syrupy guff. i want fun, not life-coaching. therefore girls aloud, tatu, venus hum & shakira > robbie williams/aggy/j lo et al.
Sensible was the wrong word.
I don't know what I meant, really. Dispassionate, maybe. I dunno, it was too early in the morning to be thinking rationally.
You just kind of annoyed me a bit with all the hype stuff and saying the Arctic Monkeys were 'just alright'. When you feel passionately about a band, like I do about the Arctic Monkeys, the worst insult to throw at them is the 'alright' tag. I suspect that's why a lot of people use it. I can handle people hating them, but not indifference. For that reason I tend to stay out of discussions about bands I neither love nor hate, cos I know how annoying it is to have people being clinical and dispassionate about a band I feel passionately about.
With you on Girls Aloud, though. The ballads are generally crap but the uptempo ones are the bollocks.
if
all you want to do is moan about stuff, go and sit and mumble in the corner and quarrle about the price of peanuts and fugazi`s first album and let everyone else have a good time.
But:
criticism is allowed. Of anything. Even things you like I'm afraid - opinion on this band seems pretty divided. Arctic Monkeys' critical detractors aren't going to stop their mainstream success. They are a re-run of last year's Kaiser Chiefs debate, namely - is safe as houses, student disco, second-hand Britpop revival guitar-pop-by-numbers good or not. I say: NO! You say: YES! etc
I say
It's harmless. It's fun. Sometimes.
I'll never choose to put this on.
But... it doesn't offend me.
WUT?
so
you're saying it's like James Blunt
James Blunt offends me.
ah ok
that is true
i have seen you react to That Song
you have the eyes of a bushbaby being chased by wildfire
but...
these arguements really happened 12months before that.
</attempt to win indie points>
<backs self into corner>
*covers eyes and waits for it to blow over*
</backs self into corner>
ROBERTS
you're SUCH A sellout
Snobs
It's amazing how people suddenly turn against a band as soon as they become famous. these are probably the same people who were saying how good they were for the last 18 months, just getting off on the fact that noone else had heard of them. now that your man on the street is talking about them you all move on and pretend you never liked them anyway.
well listen. YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL, ULTRA-COOL OR AHEAD OF THE HERD BECAUSE YOU ARE TRYING TO BE THE FIRST PEOPLE TO DISLIKE THE ARCTIC MONKEYS. YOU ARE SNOBBY PRETENTIOUS TWATS.
rock is the new pop!
these kids hold guitars and swagger rather than do choreographed ascensions from stools during key changes!
Only heard the one tune but it rings of one hit wonder, but if am wrong then no big deal :) the media hype is what turns me off more than anything, it's not nice to be TOLD that a tune/album is good, there's no room in NMErganomics for people to like it for themselves, despite the alleged origins of the band's success...
What are you on about Shellfish?
I always said they were shit from day 1.
sorry-
if i haven't followed your critical career from day one, john.
Well done, Brainfart.
You officially hated the Arctic Monkeys before anyone else. Add another ten points to your indie pseud-o-meter.
BECAUSE THEY ARE LIKE 100 OTHER BANDS
Why can nobody see this?
They are EXACTLY like 100 bands before them.
Or more.
Hence the immediate appeal.
Yup.
In that case,
so were The Smiths, The Kinks and The Clash.
Yes & no.
Each of those bands has more character in their singer's little finger than Arctic Monkeys have in their entire band. They all had influences of course, everyone does, but they gave a distinctive and valuable reading of them. Arctic Monkeys have literally nothing new to offer. They fill the space that is allowed a new guitar band - inoffensive, basic, disposable. You couldn't say that about any of the others you mention.
By the way, did it take all of your incredible skills for picking genius out of the populist mass of contemporary music to spot Oasis? You really are one keen eyed musical eagle.
No, no and thrice no.
Methinks those 6 (six!?) years at art school have detached you from reality. Or is there another reason why you're so out of touch with the kids on the street?
Sure, Alex Turner has his unfluences, namely John Cooper Clarke, Jarvis Cocker and Mike Skinner, but he adds his own distinctive take on them. You can disagree all you like, but the kids on the street know. They always know. They might not have gone to art school to learn what's 'cool' and what isn't, unlike you, but they've got something you lost years ago: a bullshit detector.
You can bleat on endlessly about semi-obscure bands that no one gives a shit about cos they're too busy making 'artistic statements' to write a decent tune, but here in the real world the Arctic Monkeys appeal to thousands of teenagers who didn't spend six years at art school, don't give a shit about pretentious art installations, and didn't learn how to paint an orange in the style of a Romanian librarian in the 1950s called Olga.
As for Oasis, I like 'em cos I enjoy singing my cock off to their tunes. Simple as that. Is there a law against it?
Yes.
And what the fuck makes you think I want to be in touch with da kidz on da street? I am not Will Smith, believe it or not. I do not "bleat" thank you very much, and your version of the 'real world' is only YOUR version.
Wake up.
I'm wide awake, thanks.
And in MY version of the 'real world' the Arctic Monkeys are sitting atop the midweek singles chart. And frankly, that's the version of the 'real world' I want to be in. Not some sad little indie ghetto full of snobbish, narrow-minded tosspots. Naming no names.
one thing the kids on the street don't have
is a bullshit detector.
there's been some fucking HORRIBLE music over the decades; and i'm very aware of it, because it's gotten played on the bloody radio all these years. some pop music is great, and some of it is awful. obviously personal taste comes into it, but how do you explain the bay city rollers? BAD MUSIC. it exists, and some of it does well. accept it.
the arctic monkeys have been hyped for a long time. hype doesn't start just before you hit the top 40.
a+r folk build hype.
people on the record of the day forum build hype.
people who've been told by someone else who was told the same thing by someone else who was told the same thing by someone else who MUST be right because they signed _____ build hype.
that doesn't mean the arctic monkeys are shit. [for what it's worth i really don't care either way. they're alright.] it DOES mean they haven't achieved their success purely on the basis of merit. people who wanted to make money out of them believed what they were told about them, and convinced enough other people. the arctic monkeys got the kind of mysterious "i've heard that they're great" word-of-mouth hype and exposure most bands can only dream of. and then everyone else heard them, and enough of them found it enjoyable enough to buy a record.
Utter tosh.
Pretty much every decent rock'n'roll act in history has been bought by the kids on the street. From Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard in the '50s to The Beatles, the Stones and The Who in the '60s, to Bowie, T-Rex and the Pistols in the '70s, etc, etc. What have adults bought? Fucking Dire Straits and James Blunt. If it wasn't for the kids on the street rock'n'roll wouldn't even exist.
As for hype, I couldn't give a giraffe's knackers about hype. The songs are what matter and the Arctic Monkeys have 'em. Hype didn't get Gay Dad No.1 singles cos they didn't have the songs. Hype didn't get Menswear No.1 singles cos they didn't have the songs. I fell in love with the Arctic Monkeys before I'd read or heard a damn thing said about them. One song is all it took. How many so-called 'indie' bands have had a No.1 single before they made the cover of the NME? The Arctic Monkeys didn't do it by hype. They did it by word-of-mouth. And word-of-mouth isn't hype. Word-of-mouth is people power. Hype is for the fashionistas and scenesters. The Arctic Monkeys are for the people.
For the people
The people can have them.
My Gay Dad and Menswear are plain shit though. Better than that is not hitting the peak, is it?
"Why can nobody see this?"
Maybe cos they aren't. Just a hunch. Don't sue me.
Sod the media hype.
Anyone who gets turned off by the media hype is daft.
.
The indie scene is so self destructive- The whole thing about 'indie' is that it's supposed to be a bit different and special than mainstream music, so the minute an indie band becomes mainstream, there are thousands of troubled teens who's identities are threatened by maybe not being so different to the mainstream after all...then the anti-hype begins, and we end up with pop shit in the charts again.
If anyone can consolodate that into a badge, I'll wear one.
or you cold sum it up in 500 words as a feature for the site
.
nah, it's the phenomenon whose name should not be spoken. If we don't mention it, it might go away!
How About...
...a badge depicting a snake with 'indie' written on it's side simultaneaously eating/vomiting on it's own tail.
The snake may or may not have an interesting haircut for effect.
.
awesome! I'm gonna make one!
Top pop tune.
With you on the 'too-cool-for-art-school' tossers not liking it either. You can spot them a mile off. They're the sort that won't even actually say it's shit. They'll say it's 'average' instead. They'll compare it to the Kaiser Chiefs or something daft like that. Divs.
Of course, anyone with an ounce of genuine pop nouse will be able to see beyond the hype and appreciate the lyrical brilliance on display in this here tune. Saying the Arctic Monkeys are average is like saying The Kinks were average. Balderdash and indeed, piffle. The ability to differentiate genius from the merely ordinary is what seperates the genuine pop music fan (me) from the pseud (Brainfart and his ilk).
A genuine pop music fan?
Do you like Britney?
Anyway, i wasn't too cool for art school.
i WENT for 6 goddamn years.
Oh, I forgot, it's you.
So no sense required. Just polemic.
Using Art School as a derogatory term is so lazy though...
It displays the same narrow-mindedness and prejudice as people who call all working-class people chavs.
I've real point here, I just hate sweeping generalisations and lazy insults.
what i've found is
sweeping generalisations cover at least 90% of the population in question
it's the alternative minority of that minority that the stereotypes don't truly apply to
many of those who fight the corners of those minorities are so out of touch themselves that they have no real idea about the people theyre representing
and the arctic monkeys are shite
You went to art school?
I'd never have guessed. You're not the least bit pretentious. Still, for every Paul Simonon there's a Damon Albarn, I suppose.
Er
You know that half the bands you like went to or formed at art school, right?
You know The Beatles met at art school? And you know Morrissey is a painter?
And that Joe Strummer went to art school?
And Super Furry Animals? Art school.
Bowie? Art school.
So what the fuck are you on about, basically.
Some of 'em did.
Some of 'em didn't. Some of 'em went and left pretty sharpish cos they thought it was shit. That's what Joe Strummer did. I seem to remember John Lennon saying he thought it was boring too.
I never said everyone who goes to art school is a pretentious tosser. That would be daft. Paul Simonon went to art school for a bit and he wrote 'Guns Of Brixton' for fuck's sake. The point is, for every Paul Simonon there's a thousand wannabe Damon Albarns without the musical ability but with all the, ahem, charm. Guess which category you fall into.
Presumptuous little shit.
Game over.
He think it's all over.
It is now!
"Do you like Britney?"
She's sung some good tunes, yeah. Her ballads leave me cold but the uptempo ones rarely disappoint.
HOw about...
Robbie? X-tina? Steps?
None of the above.
Aguilera's done a couple of good tunes, I suppose, but nothing to write home about.
Rachel Stevens, on the other hand, has done some wicked tracks recently and Girls Aloud can be relied upon to produce a handful of stonkers per album. I'm a big fan of the Xenomania songwriting team and Richard X has done some good stuff with the Sugababes. And obviously I await Sophie Ellis Bextor's new material with no little excitement.
If it wasn't obvious enough already
I can't stand your taste.
You like trite, brainless, populist rubbish. No wonder you think everything with more than 3 chords in it is pretentious. I must sound like Mozart compared to the saccharine junk you expose yourself to all day long. I wonder if there is a mental equivalent to tooth decay?
Well, The Glory is finding out for us, right now. Him and everyone else that decides what music to buy from watching T4.
important typo there:
*IT must sound like Mozart
See this is where
I suddenly develop a need to butt in. I agreed with John up to this point, but I'm sorry, NO music