Tag Archives: arctic monkeys

#1342: Arctic Monkeys – Teddy Picker

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Imagine it. It’s 2007, you’re a young 12-year-old picking up the new Arctic Monkeys album from Woolworths after a day in school. Then you spin around a few times and 18 damn years have passed. It’s maddening putting a number to that amount of time. Woolworths is long gone. World has changed, for the better or worse is up for argument. But Favourite Worst Nightmare is still that 12-song packaged burst of energy created by that young band from Sheffield who made it big only a year prior and were now the indie kings in the country. That album is still my favourite by them. A large, large majority will do a 21-gun salute for Whatever People Say I Am… for understandable reasons. But I’ve always thought Favourite Worst Nightmare is where the band sounded their most tight, in the pocket, and slickest without the carry on they’d incorporate from about AM onwards. Plus, the songs are damn good too.

‘Teddy Picker’ is the second song on Favourite Worst… To tell the truth, I can’t remember how I felt about the song the first time I heard it. It’s sandwiched between opener ‘Brianstorm’, which was released as the exciting, anticipation build-up single and played on the television constantly. Knew it like the back of my hand before I had the CD in my hand. And with third song ‘D Is for Dangerous’ I have a very clear memory of thinking the CD was skipping during a particular moment. I’m sure I thought ‘Teddy Picker’ was just all right initially. But it wouldn’t have been until I’d listened a few more times to really appreciate it. And once you do, it’s pretty hard to forget. It’s got even more listens on ‘Brianstorm’ on Spotify, which I find surprising. But I can I guess why, and I’ll suggest it’s because it sounds pretty damn cool. The riff, Alex Turner in general with that kind of speakerphone effect on his vocal. I think it has some of his best lyrics. The overall tone of it all. I don’t know what producers James Ford and Mike Crossey did to make the track sound so good, but they got the job done.

What’s the song about? It’s about people wanting fame, getting that fame, and not having a great time once that fame’s obtained. A ‘teddy picker’ is a crane game/claw machine, that being the metaphor for grabbing what you want in order to get that success. So there you go. Hope you can listen to the track with new ears if you’d never considered that before. The track was released as the third and final single from the album in December 2007. The music video is of them performing the song live at RAK Studios in Northwest London. As I usually try to put live performances at the end of these, so I that can count in this case. By that time, I’m sure I’d grown to like the song a lot, but I don’t think I ever considered it as a single. But there the video was playing on MTV2. I wasn’t complaining. The single didn’t do as well in the charts as the two that came before it. Hype for the album had certainly died down as 2007 was getting to 2008. The band were doing just fine. It would take a little while for the next album to come, though.

#992: Arctic Monkeys – Only Ones Who Know

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I can recall really not caring for this track at all upon first listen in 2007. I was 12, all pepped up/full of energy, and I didn’t have time for slow songs. But as the years have passed and the hands of time have gripped on my shoulders, ‘Only Ones Who Know’ has slowly revealed itself to become one of my favourites from Favourite Worst Nightmare. Sometimes you need the slower songs just to release the tension. To wallow in and absorb the moments. And ‘Only Ones…’ does both those things, arriving right in the middle of the record as the sort of soothing interlude to close out the album’s first half.

The two main instruments utilised throughout are Alex Turner and Jamie Cook’s reverb-drenched guitars, one being the rhythm that provides the song’s chord progression and the other providing an almost weeping, violin-like tone to accentuate the intro’s melody. Turner comes in with the vocal eventually, crooning about a couple who, somehow, against all odds, seem to have really got it down and are perfect for one another. At least from what he sees anyway. They appear to have the inside jokes and small subtle ticks that only they can relate to, the sentiment of which I believe lends the track its title. Other people just won’t understand.

Fair to say, Alex Turners whole M.O. was writing observational tracks about couples and people in love and out of it in those times that people may consider to be the best years of Arctic Monkeys. Is it possible that he didn’t get more sincere and emotionally earnest than in this song? I think so. Show me another one of theirs. It’s good to discuss. To me, some of Arctic Monkeys earlier stuff I can’t listen to in the same way. They remind me of being way younger and the whole indie rock music scene of those times. But it’s tunes like this one that showed why they were considered to be head-and-shoulders above the rest during that period.

#970: Arctic Monkeys – Old Yellow Bricks

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Looking back to 2007, I would consider myself to have been a fully functioning human being. I was 12 years old, so not all there just yet, but I had a sense of what was going on. One thing I remember clearly was the buzz around Favourite Worst Nightmare, Arctic Monkeys’ second album, released not too long after the ground-breaking debut the previous year. ‘Brianstorm’ was the first single. It was a bop, got to number two in the charts (beaten by Shakira and Beyoncé), and I got that album from my nearest Woolworth store not too soon after it was out.

Things changed for Arctic Monkeys in between the release of their first and second albums. Their logo for one, which I remember thinking “Why’d they have to go and do that for?” Didn’t think it fit at all. I learned not too care so much about it pretty quickly. But probably more importantly, original bassist Andy Nicholson had left the band and was replaced by Nick O’Malley. He was only meant to be a temporary replacement, but when it became clear that Nicholson wasn’t coming back, O’Malley was in it for the long haul. And this has been the Arctic Monkeys that a lot of people have grown accustomed to. It’s long been a rumour that ‘Old Yellow Bricks’ is about the whole Nicholson situation. I don’t think it’s ever been confirmed by anyone in the band. But at the very least it addresses a situation where someone wants to leave home for someone that’s supposed to be better, but then realises that that somewhere better isn’t all it’s meant to be and there is truly no place like home. A lot like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

There was a brief moment when this track was considered to be the fourth single from Favourite Worst Nightmare. At least I remember that the Wikipedia page had been changed to show that it would be an upcoming release, so it may not have been true at all. It was actually that Wikipedia edit that made me listen to ‘Old Yellow…’ a few more times. That, and I think my sister thought it was good too. I sort of remember that first listen of the album and don’t think it made a huge impact initially. But after hearing it again and again, yeah, sure, I don’t see why it couldn’t have been a single. Stomping intro with a memorable riff is a bit of an Arctic Monkeys standard, and that’s here. But I especially like the sort of weeping, swelling guitars that enter the frame during the choruses. Kinda makes things sound sad just for those moments before going into the busier verses. And then there’s the breakdown where things get a bit manic. Slotted in that penultimate placement on the album, it could be one that new listeners may gloss over that first time. But like me, you’ve just got to give it a few more chances. It might just be my favourite on there.

#722: Arctic Monkeys – Leave Before the Lights Come On

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I don’t think there wasn’t a time in 2006 when Arctic Monkeys weren’t on everyone’s lips. The band released Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not in January of that year after months of online hype, remarkable live performances and two #1 singles to their name. It became the fastest selling debut album in UK chart history. Everyone loved them. They released an EP a few months later which didn’t chart but included some songs that they had recorded in the meantime. Then their original bassist Andy Nicholson left and was replaced by Nick O’Malley who still plays with them today.

Their first single with O’Malley on board was ‘Leave Before the Lights Come On’, a track recorded way after the band’s debut album was done but one that Alex Turner stated could have been on the record because it followed similar themes that many of the album tracks had. I was eleven years old when this track was released. 2006 was one of the greatest times of my life. World Cup ’06, last year of primary school, it was a good summer. I remember ‘Leave Before the Lights” video making its rounds on MTV2 UK on the daily. That’s how I got to know the song. A woman gets a man’s attention by looking like she’s about to jump off a building. The man ‘saves’ her, she gets a bit too attached to him, he gets angry at her, and then she runs back to the building where she sees drummer Matt Helders walking past. The cycle continues. It’s more a little film accompanying the music than your standard band performance.

Very similar to the songs on Whatever People Say, particularly ‘From Ritz to the Rubble’, ‘Leave Before the Lights’ is the song that exploring the mix of feelings that may arise the morning after a one night stand. “How did I get here?” “She didn’t look like that last night…” “I should probably get out of here quickly.” Among others. It’s classic Alex Turner observational lyricism that he was especially good at in that early era of the band. I also feel it’s one of the group’s best musical performances from that time too. Both Turner and Jamie Cook’s guitars interlock with one another, Turner will play some guitar fills while Cook plays rhythm and vice versa, Matt Helders keeps a strong hold on the drums and O’Malley fits into the group dynamic like a glove straight away. The song’s ending instrumental breakdown is one of the best musical moments by the band in their discography, I think.

It was the first single of theirs that didn’t get to #1 in the UK charts. It peaked at #4. And for a song that doesn’t appear on an album of theirs, I think it still holds up very well today.

#614: Arctic Monkeys – If You Were There, Beware

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‘If You Were There, Beware’ was always a highlight of mine from Favourite Worst Nightmare. Bought that album from Woolworth’s in about the first or second week it was released in April 2007. It was a big deal. A year and a bit had just passed and the biggest UK band of 2006 had come back with their second record. I think it’s always been my favourite album by the group. It was a bit like their first album but very beefy in its production. And the songs are good too.

Anyway, ‘This House Is a Circus’ seamlessly transitions into ‘If You Were There’ – one of the best moments on Nightmare – and the latter begins with an unforgettable riff that drew 12 year old me to it immediately. All the other instruments join in for the emphatic introduction which eventually give way to Alex Turner’s vocals for the first verse. All this time I’ve never put any thought into what the song was about; the vocal melody is so infectious that it just never came to mind. Though reading up on the lyrics (and just seeing fan interpretations) it’s somewhat agreed that it’s about the British tabloid press and the vulture-like manner in which they gather information from celebrities or the people they’re involved with.

Looking back on Arctic Monkeys’ discography now, it’s not so surprising that the band followed this up with Humbug a couple years later. I have a vague memory of people being slightly put off by the change in sound they undertook. Though evidence of what was to come was in this song all along. Matt Helders carries the track with some fantastic drum work, really leading the track’s rhythm when the song slows down just over a minute in. And overall the song’s direction changes so many times it’s as if there are four songs in one. It’s a mammoth of a song and maybe, just maybe, one of their most ambitious at that point.