9. No. 1 Party Anthem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaidz31WXYA Artist: Arctic MonkeysAlbum: 'AM'Year: 2013Best lyric: "It's not like I'm falling in love I just want you to do me no good / And you look like you could." Truly great writers can conjure an emotion from any setting, leaving the average among us to paint stars and pack picnics to even coax a hint of romance. Alex Turner can ignite an affair in his kitchen, an abandoned carnival, or as 'No. 1 Party Anthem' attests, in a club with poles and cages. It's the familiar tale of a girl toying with his heartstrings, set to an Elton John-like shimmer of a tune, but as with all good stories, it's the way he tells it: he's the only man in rock who could reference Eric Cantona and a phone app in the same song, and still carry off that mesmerising tone. And whilst the world likes to imagine the Arctic Monkeys as rowdy little Northern upstarts, guitars clutched in their paws and a story about a prostitute at the ready, they are in fact becoming more and more capable of the heartbreak ballad with every new record. 'AM' rocks harder than before, but it really is no different, and 'No. 1 Party Anthem' is one of the best things that they've ever written.
8. My Mistakes Were Made For You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23PkA3G6NL8 Artist: The Last Shadow Puppets Album: 'The Age of the Understatement' Year: 2008 Best lyric: "About as subtle as an earthquake, I know / My mistakes were made for you / And in the back room of a bad dream, she came / And whisked me away, enthused." An artist's third album can turn into a bombastic combination of the first two, with just a sprinkle more ego. Just ask Oasis. And just ask any 2008 sceptic when it was announced that Alex Turner's third record in as many years would be courtesy of a supergroup and featuring the London Metropolitan Orchestra. Whether the record's any good or not, it's easy to get to carried away by your own self-belief. Sure enough 'My Mistakes Were Made For You' is sometimes cited as the best Bond theme that never was - given the caress of the guitar and the strings that swirl like autumnal leaves - but as cinematic as it is, it's a tender purr of a track, grandiose in the scope of the production, and intimate in its riddles. It's all bark and just friendly underneath, all about the melody, and while the rhymes all slot scrupulously into place like a big game of Sudoku, the song isn't really about much. It's just there to look picturesque against the more muscular 'Calm Like You's and 'I Don't Like You Anymore's of the record. The third record was in fact, wonderful. 'My Mistakes Were Made For You' was the highlight. And Alex didn't get carried away enough not to write something as touching as this.