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Thursday 23 June 2011

Arctic Monkeys - Suck it and See

The Arctic Monkeys are a band who are pivotal in my argument about how fickle the music buying public are.
I use them all the time to bolster my point of view that regardless of the talent that a band possesses that what they really need more than anything else is a huge dollop of luck, and to be in the right place at the right time.
I genuinely believe that if they had arrived six months earlier, or six months later, we wouldn't have heard of them on the scale that we did.
They would have remained the big fish in a small pond until the day when they got fed up with trying to break big and split up.
This happens every single week with bands up and down the country.
Obviously people disagree with me, and point to how fantastic their début was, as they miss the point spectacularly.
Of course the début was fantastic.
Have I said otherwise?
The other view expressed is how can I use them as an example while they still enjoy a great deal of success and play large venues.
My response is to ask if they are really as popular as they were in the aftermath of their début, and do the play the same size of venues?
There (is) a downturn in their popularity and the point that I try to push home is that my saying so is not a criticism of the band, but of the record buying public with their consume and dispose, consume and dispose, mantra that is encouraged by the media.
In my opinion 2007's Favourite Worst Nightmare was a damn good album to, as was 2009's Humbug, but how many people bought these albums in comparison to Whatever people say I am, That's what I'm not?
There's that fickle record buying public at play.
The sheeple moved onto the next great white hopes of guitar rock and the wave partially crashed on the shore as less people cared.
Now that's the past and here we are in a present that is giving us Suck It and See and what do we have.
Quite simply put, just another brilliant release from the band.
It's sickeningly good.
While the Arctic Monkeys do have a signature sound due to the familiar vocal delivery, musically they are well placed to to experiment with sounds and forge forward into areas that may not be expected.
There is no pandering to trends, just an artistic need to carve a niche of their own, and this is what will ultimately serve them well.
This will be why the band, unlike others who were thrust into the media spotlight, will survive and continue to move forward.
They may not be playing stadiums in the years to come, but they are not going to disappear only to return in a 'where are they now' article.
Instead if they keep releasing albums of this standard then sometime in the future there will be a critical reappraisal of their work and it will dawn on people that in our midst, beyond the boom and bust of an initial release, we have a band who consistently deliver the goods.
A band who could well be considered a 'great'. A band who don't need the greater public's approval to act as a catalyst for them to make classic albums that will stand the test of time.
Vive le Arctic Monkeys now that the bandwagon has rolled out of town.

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