The 20 Best Arctic Monkeys Songs
With the release of (the highly polarizing) Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, we went through the entire catalogue of Arctic Monkeys' music to make a balance of what have been the best tracks that the band has ever released.
20. Fake Tales of San Francisco
(Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, 2006)
The first track properly recorded by the band, produced by themselves and released by the label created by the band after the huge success they found online, is the movement that eventually led to a revolution in the way that music is made and marketed, and that is slowly killing the labels. A critic to bands that try too hard to be cool giving themselves airs of cosmopolitan travelers, it was just a perfect screenshot of the irreverent beginnings of the band.
Best lyrics: "All that's left it's the proof that love's not only blind but deaf"
19. Brick by Brick
(Suck it and See, 2011)
This was the first tase we had from the "classic rock" era of the band. With amazing guitar riffs, and a sexy attitude, this could have very well been a 60s hit by The Kinks. One of the most simple lyrics in the band catalogue, but when they sound that good, we can almost forgive Turner for not treating us with more elaborated words.
Best lyrics: "I wanna build you up, brick by brick. I wanna break you down, brick by brick".
18. No. 1 Party Anthem
(AM, 2013)
With this one, the Monkeys show that they are also amazing with rock ballads. It's a reflective song with a hint of melancholy attached to it, with the passing of years, they just can't approach a girl the way they used to, and now they beg for the help of that "party anthem" that will ignite a fire that looks casual enough between him and the girl that just caught his attention.
Best lyrics: "It's not like I'm falling in love, I just want you to do me no good"
17. Four out of Five
(Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, 2018)
We're still processing the huge stylistic change that TBH&C represents for the band's sound, but we need to acknowledge that the piece work much better as a whole than it does in its individual parts. Still, the retro futurist vibe and the concept of the rooftop taqueria are quite catchy. It's early to know if these tracks will grow on us, but for the present moment, we can predict that none of them will be as big as their previous singles.
Best lyrics: "I put a taqueria in the moon, it got rave reviews, four out of five".
16. A Certain Romance
(Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, 2006)
Just like the other most famous Sheffield band ever, Pulp, did in the 90s, A Certain Romance is a storytelling exploration of the youth working class of their city. But besides being a harsh critique of the chav subculture, it is all about the great musical structure, where the riffs keep evolving and Matt Helders states, right there at the beginnig of their career, that he is one of the best drum players in the world.
Best lyrics: "And if you could only see 'em, then you would agree that there ain't no romance around there".
15. Mardy Bum
(Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, 2006)
This is one showed the most human side of Turner on their first album, beside of a party animal and a witty young man, he was also a normal guy who had basic relationship problems (yet, he manages to use the word "mardy", and even make it popular). At a slower pace thatn the rest of the album, it could almost be described as cute, specially when Turner recalls the cuddles in the kitchen and the good times that oppose the current disagreement he is having with his partner.
Best lyrics: "I've seen your frown and it's like looking down the barrel of a gun"
14. Snap out of it
(AM, 2013)
One of the most accessible tracks in AM, but still holding a lot of that rocker attitude that drove us crazy. With a bit of rockabilly influence, Snap Out of It has very catchy hooks and quite a few interesting verses that support the strength of the guitars. It's sexy, provocative and mysterious, definitely the attitude that has better suited Alex Turner in the whole story of the band.
Best lyrics: "I wanna grab both your shoulders and shake, baby, snap out of it".
13. Teddy Picker
(Favourite Worst Nightmare, 2007)
Having tasted the mass success, the Monkeys give a middle finger to the industry that is trying to make them more marketable and less themselves. Using a claw machine full of stuffed bears as a metaphor of the pains of the fame as a musician, Turner spits verses at high speed while Helders and his drums steal the show again, to arrive at a very sudden conclusion that is bitter and brilliant.
Best lyrics: "They've sped up to the point where they provoke you to tell the fucking punchline before you have told the joke".
12. Dancing Shoes
(Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, 2006)
This is the band at their most sultry and full of hormones, a call to get up, shake your body and get the attention from the girl you want. Dirty guitars and blunt lyrics that show the impudence of a band of teenagers that used their music as a weapon to flirt and get people frenetically dancing. Aggressive, harsh and impolite, it's the Monkeys at their most punk.
Best lyrics: "Get on your dancing shoes, you sexy little swine!"
11. The View From the Afternoon
(Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, 2006)
The opening track from their debut album just sets the tone for what it's about to come, a savage debauchery of teen spirit. They might be your average young men trying to get drunk and laid on a weekend night, but their way to describe that same feeling that every teen has, and imprint the energy through music, makes them a sort of contemporary hipster beatniks that know that art, pleasure and excess go hand in hand.
Best lyrics: "And you can pour your heart out around three o'clock when the two for one's undone the writer's block".
10. Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High
(AM, 2013)
Seven years after their debut, the Monkeys keep sending drunk texts to girls that are not in the mood for a booty-call, but comparing this track to any in their debut is like hearing two different bands talking about the same topic. Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High is pure retro rock, with hints to Elvis and crooners and R&B, and with that sexy attitude that Alex Turner had at its peak.
Best lyrics: "The mirror's image tell me it's home time, but I'm not finished 'cause you're not by my side".
9. Cornerstone (Humbug, 2009)
In the best case, Humbug is a transition album between the cheeky teens of the first two records and the mature rockers from the next two; in the worst case, it's plainly their worst album. But anyway, it contains this gem of a narrative song about a guy so obsessed with an ex that keeps asking girls if he can call them by her name. Turner is able to find the human side of a pathetic and pitiful charachter and closes with a quite eyebrow-rising finale.
Lyrics: "She was close and she held me very tightly, 'til I asked awfully politely: Please, can I call you her name?"
8. When the Sun Goes Down
(Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, 2006)
Starting as a rock ballad about a prostitute and her pimp, once we passed the first third of the track, they decide to re-ignite the frenetic motors of dirty garage rock and give us another furious, yet very danceable, indie hit. Quite narrative, exploring the darkest side of city life where addicts, thefts and hookers have quite a story to tell opposed to the ones that we normally hear in pop culture.
Best lyrics: "She don't do major credit cards, I doubt she does receipts".
7. Brianstorm
(Favourite Worst Nightmare, 2007)
Some critics claim that the best part of Arctic Monkeys is his drums player, Matt Helders, and probably no other song show his mad skills like Brianstorm. It is a savage hyper-quick rock track, that might be almost impossible to achieve by other musicians, but Helders is just so suave about it, that we're sure he has nothing to ask to that fictional character, Brian, that they depict in the songs and gets all the attention but also make us a little jealous.
Best lyrics: "There's not a net you couldn't slip through, or at least that's the impression I get because you're smooth and you're wet".
6. 505
(Favourite Worst Nightmare, 2007)
It was not until their second album that Alex Turner started writing about deep emotional states, and 505 was their first big success at tackling a love song. Sampling an Ennio Morricone organ, this track shows us that love is good, bad and ugly, and at times all at once, we never get to know what exactly is 505 (a flight? a hotel room?), but it works perfectly as a symbol of the happy place where a relationship can't go back, no matter how much we want it to.
Best lyrics: "I'd probably still adore you with your hands around my neck, or I did last time I checked".
5. Fluorescent Adolescent (Favourite Worst Nightmare, 2007)
Even if in the surface this one has a more happy ska vibe, the analysis it makes of a middle life-crisis from an ex-party woman's perspective is pretty accurate, especially knowing that it was a twenty year old man who wrote it. The imagery that it evokes is quite vivid as we can almost visualize this woman who has lost her looks and her sex appeal, and now is having to face an adult life where she's not as successful.
Best lyrics: "Now when she's told she's gonna get it, I'm guessing that she'd rather just forget it".
4. Suck it and See
(Suck it and See, 2011)
If the Monkeys have reminded us of very different bands (from The Clash to The Rolling Stones) at different point in their career, in Suck it and See, the immediate reference is The Smiths, not only in the moody post-punk, but also on the tragic-glam love story traced in the lyrics. If some bands beg for having two or three great lyric lines along an entire album, in Suck it and See, Turner manages to have one every 10 seconds.
Best lyrics: "You've got that face that just says: Baby, I was made to break your heart".
3. R U Mine?
(AM, 2013)
Pure hard rock, baby! In the purest style of 70's bands like AC/DC or Deep Purple, Arctic Monkeys let us feel the power of their riffs as they keep exploring how much can they stretch their own style in every possible rock direction. Alex Turner delivers a performance that exudes virility and vigor, that goes very well with that bad-boy look that he embraced, turning him in a contemporary rock sex symbol.
Best lyrics: "She's a silver lining, lone ranger riding through an open space in my mind".
2. I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
(Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, 2006)
The song that changed everything. It was bound to happen at one point, but the success of the first Arctic Monkeys single, a band that gained their momentum thanks to MySpace rather than being signed by a big label, catalyzed the change of the whole music industry where online hype is king. We're glad that historically the credit will go to this frenetic riffs about teenage mating rituals, rather to a silly pop tune.
Best lyrics: "There ain't no love, no Montagues or Capulets, just banging tunes and DJ sets and dirty dance floors and dreams of naughtiness".
1. Do I Wanna Know?
(AM, 2013)
Before AM, they were an important band, but with that album, and specially with Do I Wanna Know? they just moved to the stardom of rock legends. It is, at the same time, an stadium anthem and a personal drunkenness hymn. Adapting classic rock to their own garage indie style, the strength and consistency of the riffs, the power of Heldres' drums, the smart lyrics about unrequited love, and Turner's seductive performance, make this the track that dissipated any doubt on which was the biggest rock band of our generation.
Best lyrics: "Baby, we both know that the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day".
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