2006

28/5

Uncategorized

Who are the Arctic Monkeys? Should you care?

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So everyone is talking about the Arctic Monkeys. Ashwin Raghu has a few words of his own. 

Truth be told, I didn’t even know these guys existed until the other day when a friend of mine asked me if I’d heard them, or even heard of them. Seeing my persistent non-expression, it was followed up immediately with “How could you have not?” (Actually it sounded closer to “How could you have not?!"

Alright, calm down, I say, and proceed to open my download client and search for… dang! I’m not supposed to be saying that here! Let’s rephrase that: Alright, calm down, I say, and proceed to the nearest music store and pick up a copy of ‘Whatever People Say I’m Not, That’s What I Am’. Which is somewhat ironic, considering that Arctic Monkeys built their initial fan base almost exclusively through the internet.

The View From The Afternoon, the opening track, has a wake-up! energy to it that makes you sit up and take notice. The opening line sets up the album in terms of tone, and in terms of subject matter too: "Anticipation has the habit to set you up / for disappointment in evening entertainment".

My favourite track off the album is Fake Tales Of San Francisco, a song with a big riff that’s kept going through-out, and backing vocals clearly tongue in cheek, which I understand is the drummer’s doing. The vocals scream Britishness, defiantly so. The song, as is the case with many that follow, is constructed around the vocals and the vocalist. This is smart considering that the guitar solos always sound worn. The kind you'd imagine an ardent but battle-weary guitar salesperson would pick when he's demonstrating an electric; licks that he's played many times before.

Music from the last decade or two, especially the broad category of rock, and consequent views on it is a lot like NBA basketball’s annual slam dunk competition. When it started in the 80s, spectators were treated to performances of phenomenal innovation and creativity, with moves that they'd never seen before. As the years have gone by, however, the voice that cries deja vu has only become louder and louder. The pioneering dunk men had an empty slate to workwith; they also didn't have to suffer the odiousness of comparison to someone before them.

So too with musicians, who have to constantly strive to create sounds within a framework that has become increasingly fragmented, and hence, again open to a tendency of "slotting" and labeling. I speak primarily of musicians in the rock realm, as obviously genres like techno, rap and even pop have gained breadth, popularity and acceptance only in the last couple of decades or so. Rock on the other hand, has to constantly compete against its illustrious past and its rose-tinted glory days of the 60s and 70s.

What this leaves us with is that good rock music made today can be brushed off. A solid heavy metal album is "proto- Black Sabbath", a work with the clean feel and quality that characterised classic rock is merely "retro". But Arctic Monkeys, in all of their transient glory, never make enough of a case for themselves to rise above such slotting. 

Although you can see how the band could fill a few halls with raucous teenagers, there's never anything about the music that suggests a more lasting impression. The lyrics have the feel of social commentary for fringe-social 18 year olds and the things they feel angsty about. Sample this: "Those that claim that they're not showing off are drowning in denial", and  "When it comes to acting up, I'm sure I could write the book."

Things always move along at a brisk pace, and you either get used to the tempo or get tired of it. The songs mostly clock in at three minutes or less, in keeping with the bursty nature of the music. Songs such as You Probably Couldn't See The Lights But You Were Looking Straight At Me and Red Light Indicates The Doors Are Secure go by in a blur. Most songs have pep, and the band employs a stop-start technique that is used well at times.

After about thirty minutes of this though, I find myself wondering if the band isn’t slipping into formulaism, do they have another side that they can offer? Some songs, such as Mardy Bum, do start off with the promise of something different. But they lapse into hasty vocals
over hastier rhythms very quickly, and yet another take on the nuances of the give-and-take that happens when you’re a teenager at a bar asking a woman to dance.
 
The last track, A Certain Romance is a slight reprieve though. For once the vocalist does not sink back into staccato ramblings and is not afraid to sing. The long song titles are the reticent music reviewer’s dream. Although they can seem like a little bit of a gimmick that artists employ, a clever song title that can stand on its own deserves any (admittedly non-musical) attention it gets. For instance, who can forget Meatloaf’s classic Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back. Or Pink Floyd’s Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict. Not.

(Ashwin Raghu likes to think about music when he's not listening to it. His Fab Four would be Robert, Jimmy,John Paul and John, although Roger, David, Nick and Richard would run them close. Just as John, Paul,George and Ringo would. Looking back at that, he's pondering the possibilities of a supergroup with John,John, John and John, and not necessarily in that order
either. Did he say "think"?!)

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2006

28/5

Uncategorized

Who are the Arctic Monkeys? Should you care?

by | Print
{mosimage}

So everyone is talking about the Arctic Monkeys. Ashwin Raghu has a few words of his own. 

Truth be told, I didn’t even know these guys existed until the other day when a friend of mine asked me if I’d heard them, or even heard of them. Seeing my persistent non-expression, it was followed up immediately with “How could you have not?” (Actually it sounded closer to “How could you have not?!"

Alright, calm down, I say, and proceed to open my download client and search for… dang! I’m not supposed to be saying that here! Let’s rephrase that: Alright, calm down, I say, and proceed to the nearest music store and pick up a copy of ‘Whatever People Say I’m Not, That’s What I Am’. Which is somewhat ironic, considering that Arctic Monkeys built their initial fan base almost exclusively through the internet.

The View From The Afternoon, the opening track, has a wake-up! energy to it that makes you sit up and take notice. The opening line sets up the album in terms of tone, and in terms of subject matter too: "Anticipation has the habit to set you up / for disappointment in evening entertainment".

My favourite track off the album is Fake Tales Of San Francisco, a song with a big riff that’s kept going through-out, and backing vocals clearly tongue in cheek, which I understand is the drummer’s doing. The vocals scream Britishness, defiantly so. The song, as is the case with many that follow, is constructed around the vocals and the vocalist. This is smart considering that the guitar solos always sound worn. The kind you'd imagine an ardent but battle-weary guitar salesperson would pick when he's demonstrating an electric; licks that he's played many times before.

Music from the last decade or two, especially the broad category of rock, and consequent views on it is a lot like NBA basketball’s annual slam dunk competition. When it started in the 80s, spectators were treated to performances of phenomenal innovation and creativity, with moves that they'd never seen before. As the years have gone by, however, the voice that cries deja vu has only become louder and louder. The pioneering dunk men had an empty slate to workwith; they also didn't have to suffer the odiousness of comparison to someone before them.

So too with musicians, who have to constantly strive to create sounds within a framework that has become increasingly fragmented, and hence, again open to a tendency of "slotting" and labeling. I speak primarily of musicians in the rock realm, as obviously genres like techno, rap and even pop have gained breadth, popularity and acceptance only in the last couple of decades or so. Rock on the other hand, has to constantly compete against its illustrious past and its rose-tinted glory days of the 60s and 70s.

What this leaves us with is that good rock music made today can be brushed off. A solid heavy metal album is "proto- Black Sabbath", a work with the clean feel and quality that characterised classic rock is merely "retro". But Arctic Monkeys, in all of their transient glory, never make enough of a case for themselves to rise above such slotting. 

Although you can see how the band could fill a few halls with raucous teenagers, there's never anything about the music that suggests a more lasting impression. The lyrics have the feel of social commentary for fringe-social 18 year olds and the things they feel angsty about. Sample this: "Those that claim that they're not showing off are drowning in denial", and  "When it comes to acting up, I'm sure I could write the book."

Things always move along at a brisk pace, and you either get used to the tempo or get tired of it. The songs mostly clock in at three minutes or less, in keeping with the bursty nature of the music. Songs such as You Probably Couldn't See The Lights But You Were Looking Straight At Me and Red Light Indicates The Doors Are Secure go by in a blur. Most songs have pep, and the band employs a stop-start technique that is used well at times.

After about thirty minutes of this though, I find myself wondering if the band isn’t slipping into formulaism, do they have another side that they can offer? Some songs, such as Mardy Bum, do start off with the promise of something different. But they lapse into hasty vocals
over hastier rhythms very quickly, and yet another take on the nuances of the give-and-take that happens when you’re a teenager at a bar asking a woman to dance.
 
The last track, A Certain Romance is a slight reprieve though. For once the vocalist does not sink back into staccato ramblings and is not afraid to sing. The long song titles are the reticent music reviewer’s dream. Although they can seem like a little bit of a gimmick that artists employ, a clever song title that can stand on its own deserves any (admittedly non-musical) attention it gets. For instance, who can forget Meatloaf’s classic Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back. Or Pink Floyd’s Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict. Not.

(Ashwin Raghu likes to think about music when he's not listening to it. His Fab Four would be Robert, Jimmy,John Paul and John, although Roger, David, Nick and Richard would run them close. Just as John, Paul,George and Ringo would. Looking back at that, he's pondering the possibilities of a supergroup with John,John, John and John, and not necessarily in that order
either. Did he say "think"?!)

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