23. Library Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmVerkoFPJU Artist: Arctic Monkeys Album: 'Suck It And See' Year: 2011 Best lyric: "Been watching all the neon blossom / Flickering / You look as if you've all forgotten / Where you've been." A lot of people expect lyrics to talk to them. There's no point in a song if you can't relate to it, they'll tell you. Poetry, alternately, doesn't have to make any sense. And that's perhaps why it's one of the least popular art forms of the 21st Century, an era of explanations, paparazzi and SongMeanings.net. 'Library Pictures' is poetic though. The words float through the track like lava lamp blobs, none of it makes a lick of sense, and yet, it's beautifully written. That's what poetry is: it has its own space and cadence and could live without that distorted soundtracking. You'll probably never run away from some ellipses through a curly straw (unless you're Noel Fielding), but 'Library Pictures' is capable of talking you in a completely different way. 22. Crying Lightning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZD5kPBBPN4 Artist: Arctic Monkeys Album: 'Humbug' Year: 2009 Best lyric: "With folded arms you occupied the bench like toothache / Stood and puffed your chest out like you'd never lost a war / And though I tried so not to suffer the indignity of a reaction / There was no cracks to grasp or gaps to claw." For an opening two shots, 'Whatever...' and 'Favourite Worst Nightmare' are an incredible pair of albums to pull off. There's just enough evolution from the first to the second, and though Arctic Monkeys had created a dark, sad and often hilarious world to live in, they weren't planning on staying there. 'Crying Lightning' is darker. Heavier. More ambitious and more intricately worded than Alex had ever been before, this time brushing longer locks out of his eyes to survey his surroundings. The riff is taunting, the melody worryingly cool and when the track finally unleashed the outro it was promising, it rang just like the Monkeys tracks of old. Arctic Monkeys were changing, and 'Crying Lightning' made it such an exciting transition, but this was the sound of a band that could do what they want, and they'd always be as good.