Every Arctic Monkeys Album Ranked Worst To Best
Remember when the boys were all electric?
Like all good things, from decent wifi to a good pair of socks, it is fair to say that Arctic Monkeys are often taken for granted. When they blew up internationally and that distinctive white waveform on a black background began to be plastered on every T-Shirt while 'Do I Wanna Know?' became the staple indie rock song, it was fair to say they had become a tad overexposed.
To overlook Arctic Monkeys though is to deny the lyrical genius of Alex Turner and the sheer consistency of the Sheffield band over a nearly 20-year career. While most bands either fall into a rut of producing more of the same until they fall out of fashion or "sell out" to a more pop-based commercially successful sound, you cannot accuse this four-man band of doing this. After they conquered America with AM they made a sharp left turn with Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino's piano-based musings which love it or hate it shows their ability to take a risk.
This evolution is evident in their lyrics, which begin in Sheffield's clubbing scene before transcending Earth entirely to a luxury resort on the moon, but also their shifting genre which has seen them labelled as post-punk revival, garage rock and psychedelic pop. Whatever their latest sound, they are one of Britain's greatest exports...
6. Humbug
Even Arctic Monkeys' weakest album cannot be described as bad but just fairly middle of the road. Not rocky enough to rival their earlier work but not different enough to mark a change in direction for the band.
The biggest insult you can give this album is that it does not feel distinctive to this trailblazing band. Songs like 'My Propeller,' by far the worst opening track of any of their albums, feels like a watered-down pop song which any second rate band could have penned. This is not to say that the album does not have any gems in it. 'Cornerstone' alone is a beautifully told story with a music video, directed by Richard Ayoade who would use Turner's solo work in Submarine, which matches the simplicity of this powerful ode.
It also contains underrated classics such as 'Secret Door' and 'Pretty Visitors', the latter containing perhaps the band's most baffling lyric "what came first the chicken or the !*$%head?" Still a decent album, this third release from the band just feels a distant cousin of their other work.