25. Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6366dxFf-Os Artist: Arctic Monkeys Album: 'AM' Year: 2013 Best lyric: "And as I arrived I thought I saw you leaving / Carrying your shoes / Decided that once again I was just dreaming / Of bumping into you." Arctic Monkeys have always been fairly enigmatic for a indie band. We don't hear about their private lives, we don't see too many revealing interviews: there's a coyness to Alex Turner and a mystique about a teenager who could find a rhyme for "totalitarian": it's maybe unsurprising that Jarvis Cocker was once rumoured to be the brains behind the Monkeys' words. The band's latest single however is like the unveiling of a prize on a gameshow: they used to never talk about drugs. They never used to be this musically direct. And while there have been hints of this for years, we've never been greeted with such an infectious Dr Dre-style stomp from the band. It's no surprise that it's the highest the Monkeys have clambered up the chart for quite some while. 24. Still Take You Home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmfXYlEUqZY Artist: Arctic Monkeys Album: 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' Year: 2006 Best lyric: "I fancy you with a passion, you're a Topshop princess, a rockstar too / You're a fad you're a fashion and I'm having a job trying to talk to you." If a song were to paint a thousand words, 'Still Take You Home' would be an amalgamation of every drooling review that debut record earned: witty, aloof, ferocious and exciting and in equal part. But 'Whatever People Say...' is more than the sum of critics' hyperbole, and the precision of songs like 'Still Take You Home' reinforce this. It's a mad concoction, a song that sounds both fiercely energetic yet nonchalant, and though that might remind you of the Strokes, 'Still Take You Home' is perhaps the definitive picture of a young Alex Turner. He's hungry for love and horribly pissed off: and it sounds brilliant.