10 Greatest Debut Singles Of All Time
6. Arctic Monkeys – I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor
“We’re The Arctic Monkeys, and this song’s called I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor”. Don’t believe the hype.”
When a 19 year old Alex Turner muttered that into a microphone for the video for his bands first single, he probably thought his band would peak early. Isn’t that always the way? Hyped up prospect, couple of decent tunes, an underwhelming debut and if you’re lucky, a jaunt around the Carling academies before being quietly dropped and getting the old CV out.
15 years, 6 albums which have sold 20 million copies and multiple sell out tours later and still, there’s an argument he was bang on the money. Perhaps this is my Brit Bias showing but the Arctics have never been more omnipresent than they were around the release of Whatever People Say I Am… and you can thank this deathless banger for that. A firestorm of riffs, hooks and syllables played like it was nothing at all.
Words to live your life by that describe nothing more than making eyes with someone in the club (and not even one of the good ones, this is Thursday night at Club Aquarium at *best*). It’s Teenage Kicks with The Strokes’ swagger, so Turner and Co did the best thing they could do after its release. Run away from it and never look back.