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Top easy listening songs 20136/17/2023 ![]() Turner began his career imitating the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas before realising that singing the way he spoke – with a Yorkshire accent – was infinitely more original and effective. Performing at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston in 2006. Star Treatment (2018)īlessed with the most striking opening line on Tranquility Base – “I just wanted to be one of the Strokes,” sings Turner, presumably autobiographically, “now look at the mess you made me make” – Star Treatment’s music and arrangement offers up a homage to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds that’s ambitious and entirely successful. The brilliance of I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor may lie in the disparity between the tone of the lyrics – wryly detached, even as they’re ogling a girl at a local indie club – and the tone of the music, which sounds like said club night at its frenzied peak. I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor (2006) “You’re rarer than a can of dandelion and burdock / And those other girls are just post-mix lemonade,” Turner sings winningly on a song that, equally winningly, matches the kind of melody you would find on a late-60s easy-listening pop hit to a mass of trebly, echoing guitars. Unlikely inspiration maybe, but it works. The most coherent and powerful Arctic Monkeys album since their debut, AM attracted attention for its heavy guitar sound, but the primary influence on Why’d You Only Call Me … is clearly R&B – there’s a distinct hint of early 00s Destiny’s Child about its staccato riff. ![]() Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High? (2013) Social media is a topic well worn to the point of weariness but – backed by what sounds like the AM-era Arctic Monkeys sound falling to pieces – Turner’s take is funny, original and packs one of the great aphorisms of the Instagram age: “Dance as if somebody’s watching, ’cause they are”. But they sometimes succeed in style: Only Ones Who Know is a gentle, fond drawing of a couple in love, with a beautiful melody. Only Ones Who Know (2007)įavourite Worst Nightmare is by far Arctic Monkeys’ most uneven album you can hear the effort involved in trying to move on from their record-breaking debut. The shorter, more lyrically pointed version from their much-fileshared collection of early demos, Beneath the Boardwalk, is the one to hear. ![]() Riot Van offers a brilliant framing of adolescent ennui, setting the tale of a gobby teenager’s run-in with the police to music that sounds like a sigh or a diffident shrug. The chorus’s Black Sabbath-y guitar stabs (specifically reminiscent of War Pigs) are magnificent. Arabella is a supreme example of him in bedazzled lover man mode – he somehow gets away with referring to the object of his attentions as his “little lady”. ![]() Turner’s writing became wracked with lust towards the end of the 00s. ![]()
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