17. Fake Tales Of San Francisco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b70Crpl2s2U Artist: Arctic Monkeys Album: 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' Year: 2006 Best lyric: "Yeah but his bird thinks it's amazing, though / So all that's left / Is the proof that love's not only blind but deaf" When people talk of Turner, one of the words that comes to mind is "funny". He is, he's a very witty young man, as 'Fake Tales...' proved, but there's more to the great comedy of his work than a cheeky fourth wall wink. It's sad how oblivious these weekend rockstars are to their lack of talent. It's infuriating that it's not the High Green boys up on stage. Sure, the deaf joke's the punchline, but there's a sitcom right there in a three-minute pop song: it's two parts 'Phoenix Nights', one part 'The Office', meticulously told with almost Blackadder-like grumpiness. 'Whatever People Say...' isn't conventional A-Z humour, it's a cathedral of caricatures, and there's no song that better showcases Turner's constructing of a scene. 16. The Jeweller's Hands
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weGqefOLsUc Artist: Arctic Monkeys Album: 'Humbug' Year: 2009 Best lyric: "In the moonlight they're more thrilling, those things that he knows / As he leads you through the grinning bubble blowers in the snow / Watching his exit / Was like falling off the ferry in the night." When Alex Turner throws a sentence up into the air, he catches it with a sumptuous rhyme. This in mind, it's somewhat unsettling to hear him drop the ball 'The Jeweller's Hands's second verse, describing the exit of the thrilling man of the moonlight. It's the genius of 'Humbug': to take what we know and adore about the Arctic Monkeys and rip it to shreds in front of our eyes is scary but weirdly exciting, like watching your protagonist's blood turn evil. It's one thing to have ambition, but it's another to present it in a glock-sprinkled, foggy, desert-rock epic. 'Humbug' shouldn't have ended any other way than this.