10 Catchiest Indie Rock Songs
2. Arctic Monkeys – Fluorescent Adolescent
Alex Turner has a defined manner about him. His songs, especially in the earlier days of the Arctic Monkeys, have a reflective quality to them. They mirror the experiences of an angsty young man in Northern England in an uncanny, slightly negative manner. Almost like they’re written while staring at the image reflected in the surface of a muddy puddle forming in a pothole in a grimy back lane.
‘Fluorescent Adolescent’, Turner’s damning attack on the realities of settling down after an adolescence full of wild sex, is a marvellous example of this kitchen sink indie. It has everything. Relentless rapid-fire verses that you somehow know all the words to? Check. A jaunty, jangly chorus? Check. An iconic, diatonic riff consisting of only five notes? Check. Comparisons between a man’s personal endowments and a writing implement found in a bingo hall and/or bookmaker’s? Double check.
It also seems rather apt that the single’s music video depicts a group of clowns running riot, as the entire track has a rather circus-sounding vibe, perhaps owing to the simplistic guitar hook found throughout. It’s this air of the carnival that lodges the tune slap-bang right in the middle of the memory centres of your sub-cortex. It turns your head into a merry-go-round, tinting all of your memories yellow and transposing them into the key of E major. This song sticks to everything it touches, your mind guaranteed to be one of them.