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Post by mhynson27 on Nov 15, 2019 15:57:46 GMT
Only really started listening to them about a year ago but they're most likely already my favourite band.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 15, 2019 16:36:27 GMT
First two albums were best of each year level stuff - and album 5 was a pretty terrific as well and different too........not a fan of albums 3,4 and 6 much though. When they emerged they reminded me of a lot of the greatest British bands especially........The Jam.........The Libertines.... My favorite track of theirs - and my favorite performance of it is this one - he cleverly repeats the same opening lyric but adds the curse word to drive his point home the 2nd time - one of the 2000s very best put-down songs - about internet and soulless "list" culture. Very mean.......and very funny too.
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Post by DeepArcher on Nov 15, 2019 17:22:29 GMT
They were one of my absolute favorite bands in high school and I still love to listen to them from time to time.
My "hot take" on this bad is that Tranquility Base is an under-appreciated masterpiece. It'd easily be on my shortlist for best albums of the decade, and I'm hard-pressed to think of a comparable concept album from the last few years. The amount of imagination they showcase on that record both musically and lyrically is off the charts while also not losing an ounce of their early cleverness. It's an album where you have to like its specific sound to like the album, and if you're not into it by the opening of the first track you're not gonna like the rest of it, but it's a sound that I adore and would even say prefer to their "usual" sound so it works wonders for me. I find that I enjoy it the more and more I revisit it, there's so much world-building on it and humor that's easy to miss the first few times that it's just a really fun record to continuously revisit. I hate to make the generic Kid A comparison that people like to make about every artist whenever they show even the slightest reinvention, but this album is a dramatic reinvention than most and it's that some narrative of doing that bold reinvention right after the burnout of peak commercial success and exposure. A lot like Radiohead post-OK Computer this band had a lot on their place following-up the success of AM and instead of trying to do more of the same to recapture that glory they do something wildly different and it paid off immensely well. It's an encouraging sign that they have far more tricks up their sleeve than what we've seen thus far and I'd like to see more invention from their future work.
That said I'm not sure it beats out Favourite Worst Nightmare as their magnum opus which to me is one of the definitive rock albums of the 2000s -- and, like, true rock albums at that -- up there with Is This It and Elephant to me even though it normally doesn't get talked about in the same breath as those albums, and even if I would personally rank it slightly below those two it certainly deserves to be mentioned in the same ballpark. It's one of the most purely energetic albums that I've ever listened to and showcases Turner's songwriting at its peak, his funniest and most tongue-in-cheek lyrics on practically every track, capturing the beautiful and brutal physicality and drunken confusion of modern life as a twenty-something while the delightful tongue-twisting style Turner is known for is at its peak. It's an album that's not boring for a second and in terms of pure rock music accomplishments I don't think they'll ever top it. I feel that their debut often gets more praise and it is a great album itself, but I think Favourite Worst Nightmare really built upon it in the best possible way, more concise and to-the-point and ultimately much more complete.
Humbug and Suck It and See are the two "weak" ones and they definitely lack the personality of their better records at least in terms of consistency, but there are classic tracks on both of those albums that redeem then in my eyes, they're just less re-playable in their entirety than all the others. AM of course is the album that I think got many people turned on to them and it definitely did for me, and while I think it's their album that has aged the worst in my eyes I do still enjoy it as the boisterous, poppy delight that it is. A lot of other rock bands who try to go in the AM direction don't do so nearly as well and Monkeys really pulled it off I thought, even if it's a sound that normally appeals to me less. And for better or worse that album and "Do I Wanna Know?" in particular sort of shaped the popular alt. rock music for the rest of the decade, that percussion/bassline based sound with the chanted lyrics ... the influence that album has had is pretty clear and it's evident that most artists just don't do it that well. AM may seem like a basic album and in a lot of ways it is, but it's also an infectiously catchy one and you can't deny that.
My album rankings: 1. Favourite Worst Nightmare 2. Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino 3. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I Am Not 4. AM 5. Humbug 6. Suck It and See
And for the hell of it, an off-the-cuff list of some of my favorite tracks: 1. "Fluorescent Adolescent" (their masterpiece, signature song, and like the album it's on kind of impossible to top) 2. "Brianstorm" 3. "505" 4. "Star Treatment" 5. "Four Out of Five" 6. "A Certain Romance" 7. "Black Treacle" 8. "Teddy Picker" 9. "Do Me a Favour" 10. "Cornerstone" 11. "Fireside" 12. "Arabella" 13. "Science Fiction"/ "Batphone"/"The Ultracheese"
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Post by themoviesinner on Nov 15, 2019 17:39:00 GMT
They're a good band, but nothing special. I enjoy their first two albums quite a bit and several songs from their other works as well, but they haven't relesed anything I'd call great. They certainly are one of the better indie rock bands of this century, but that doesn't say much.
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Post by mhynson27 on Nov 16, 2019 0:41:45 GMT
They were one of my absolute favorite bands in high school and I still love to listen to them from time to time. My "hot take" on this bad is that Tranquility Base is an under-appreciated masterpiece. It'd easily be on my shortlist for best albums of the decade, and I'm hard-pressed to think of a comparable concept album from the last few years. The amount of imagination they showcase on that record both musically and lyrically is off the charts while also not losing an ounce of their early cleverness. It's an album where you have to like its specific sound to like the album, and if you're not into it by the opening of the first track you're not gonna like the rest of it, but it's a sound that I adore and would even say prefer to their "usual" sound so it works wonders for me. I find that I enjoy it the more and more I revisit it, there's so much world-building on it and humor that's easy to miss the first few times that it's just a really fun record to continuously revisit. I hate to make the generic Kid A comparison that people like to make about every artist whenever they show even the slightest reinvention, but this album is a dramatic reinvention than most and it's that some narrative of doing that bold reinvention right after the burnout of peak commercial success and exposure. A lot like Radiohead post- OK Computer this band had a lot on their place following-up the success of AM and instead of trying to do more of the same to recapture that glory they do something wildly different and it paid off immensely well. It's an encouraging sign that they have far more tricks up their sleeve than what we've seen thus far and I'd like to see more invention from their future work. That said I'm not sure it beats out Favourite Worst Nightmare as their magnum opus which to me is one of the definitive rock albums of the 2000s -- and, like, true rock albums at that -- up there with Is This It and Elephant to me even though it normally doesn't get talked about in the same breath as those albums, and even if I would personally rank it slightly below those two it certainly deserves to be mentioned in the same ballpark. It's one of the most purely energetic albums that I've ever listened to and showcases Turner's songwriting at its peak, his funniest and most tongue-in-cheek lyrics on practically every track, capturing the beautiful and brutal physicality and drunken confusion of modern life as a twenty-something while the delightful tongue-twisting style Turner is known for is at its peak. It's an album that's not boring for a second and in terms of pure rock music accomplishments I don't think they'll ever top it. I feel that their debut often gets more praise and it is a great album itself, but I think Favourite Worst Nightmare really built upon it in the best possible way, more concise and to-the-point and ultimately much more complete. Humbug and Suck It and See are the two "weak" ones and they definitely lack the personality of their better records at least in terms of consistency, but there are classic tracks on both of those albums that redeem then in my eyes, they're just less re-playable in their entirety than all the others. AM of course is the album that I think got many people turned on to them and it definitely did for me, and while I think it's their album that has aged the worst in my eyes I do still enjoy it as the boisterous, poppy delight that it is. A lot of other rock bands who try to go in the AM direction don't do so nearly as well and Monkeys really pulled it off I thought, even if it's a sound that normally appeals to me less. And for better or worse that album and "Do I Wanna Know?" in particular sort of shaped the popular alt. rock music for the rest of the decade, that percussion/bassline based sound with the chanted lyrics ... the influence that album has had is pretty clear and it's evident that most artists just don't do it that well. AM may seem like a basic album and in a lot of ways it is, but it's also an infectiously catchy one and you can't deny that. My album rankings: 1. Favourite Worst Nightmare 2. Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino 3. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I Am Not 4. AM 5. Humbug 6. Suck It and See And for the hell of it, an off-the-cuff list of some of my favorite tracks: 1. "Fluorescent Adolescent" (their masterpiece, signature song, and like the album it's on kind of impossible to top) 2. "Brianstorm" 3. "505" 4. "Star Treatment" 5. "Four Out of Five" 6. "A Certain Romance" 7. "Black Treacle" 8. "Teddy Picker" 9. "Do Me a Favour" 10. "Cornerstone" 11. "Fireside" 12. "Arabella" 13. "Science Fiction"/ "Batphone"/"The Ultracheese" AM is still my favourite but the more I listen to Favourite Worst Nightmare the closer it gets to taking that #1 spot. Ending with the 1, 2, 3 punch of "The Bad Thing", "Old Yellow Bricks" and "505" is just perfection to me.
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Post by countjohn on Nov 17, 2019 7:43:06 GMT
The first one was a personal favorite of my youth but it has not aged well. The songs are great but it has that mid 2000's "loudness war" production. It's the kind of thing that could get a great remaster one day but I'm not sure if that kind of thing is entirely fixable.
Outside of that I enjoy some individual songs and their weirder "off" albums. Suck it and See and the new one are my other two favorite albums from them. I enjoyed a couple songs from AM but it was just too pop for me.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 17, 2019 9:20:38 GMT
I had this awful tendency to overplay bands when I was younger. Arctic Monkeys were a favorite for like seven months before I got tired of them. I remember my favorite albums were Favourite Worst Nightmare and Humbug, and my favorite tracks were "Fluorescent Adolescent," "Brianstorm" and "My Propeller." Really loved their angsty sound. And the songs were so fast, especially from those first two albums. Good times.
Never listened to the 2018 album. Is it any good?
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 17, 2019 9:24:01 GMT
I love that DeepArcher just up and wrote an essay
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Post by mhynson27 on Nov 17, 2019 10:11:50 GMT
I had this awful tendency to overplay bands when I was younger. Arctic Monkeys were a favorite for like seven months before I got tired of them. I remember my favorite albums were Favourite Worst Nightmare and Humbug, and my favorite tracks were "Fluorescent Adolescent," "Brianstorm" and "My Propeller." Really loved their angsty sound. And the songs were so fast, especially from those first two albums. Good times. Never listened to the 2018 album. Is it any good?It's definitely different but I really really like it.
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Post by DeepArcher on Nov 17, 2019 19:05:17 GMT
I love that DeepArcher just up and wrote an essay You say that like it’s the first time...
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Post by countjohn on Nov 17, 2019 19:12:27 GMT
I had this awful tendency to overplay bands when I was younger. Arctic Monkeys were a favorite for like seven months before I got tired of them. I remember my favorite albums were Favourite Worst Nightmare and Humbug, and my favorite tracks were "Fluorescent Adolescent," "Brianstorm" and "My Propeller." Really loved their angsty sound. And the songs were so fast, especially from those first two albums. Good times. Never listened to the 2018 album. Is it any good? I liked the new one a lot. The easiest way for me to describe it is Pet Sounds with synths. It's also been compared to Bowie's Berlin albums with Eno which I think makes sense.
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Post by bob-coppola on Nov 17, 2019 21:06:24 GMT
They were my absolute favorite band in my teens. I don't listen to them as much as I used to, but I still love 'em. Humbug is one of the records of my love.
I think what made them stand out is that, even though they were part of the new wave of indie bands for the internet generation, they didn't sound like Strokes-copycats. They never tried to sound like a band you'd hear in a dirty pub in London while doing heroin (I don't know if it makes sense, but it's an imagery I always associate with the Strokes and all those bands that tried to copy them back in the day). AM was so fresh that they'd even always bring something new to their game with each new album - they all had the Arctic Monkeys' DNA, but they sounded like something brand new.
Actually, I think they still do. I'm not Tranquility's biggest fan - the album is good, but not my cup of tea, and a tad forgettable -, but I reckon it has something interesting going on, it doesn't sound like their previous work. So yeah, I'm probably more cool nowadays on them just because the last record was a bit of a lackluster, and the previous one has been out since forever. It's quite probable that they'll release something I really love and I'll go back to being completely crazy over them.
Also, I need to talk about how great of a songwriter Alex Turner is. I particularly love the lyrics to his romantic songs: they're not cheesy, they're clever but without trying too hard to be quirky.
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Apr 29, 2021 18:51:31 GMT
They were the last band I loved before I stopped caring about new music. I guess there's a compliment in that statement.
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Post by DaleCooper on Apr 29, 2021 23:22:14 GMT
Another one of those bands I like particular songs quite a lot but don't quite like to listen through full albums. Saw them live a few years back, decent live act.
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chris3
Badass
I just ordered a slice of pumpkin pie...
Posts: 1,050
Likes: 1,045
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Post by chris3 on Apr 30, 2021 0:58:38 GMT
Huge fan, although I enjoy some albums more than others. Favourite Worst Nightmare is one of my top five favorite albums of all time. I'm so mad I missed all opportunities to see them live back in '07-'09.
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not 8.5 Favourite Worst Nightmare 10 Humbug 9.5 Suck It and See 6 AM 8 Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino 7
Favorite Tracks: "Star Treatment" "Dance Little Liar" "A Certain Romance" "One for the Road" "What If You Were Right the First Time?" "Brianstorm" "RU Mine?" "This House in a Circus" "The View From the Afternoon" "Crying Lightning" "If You Found This It's Probably Too Late" "Do Me a Favour" "That's Where You're Wrong"
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Post by Viced on Aug 24, 2022 11:19:13 GMT
giddyup
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Post by mhynson27 on Aug 24, 2022 11:43:52 GMT
Yeah boiiiiiiiiii.
That's actually the day I get back from America.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 30, 2022 9:06:10 GMT
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Post by DeepArcher on Aug 30, 2022 17:20:42 GMT
Can't believe three years ago I was in write-an-essay mode about this band. Don't think I've really listened to 'em since my age started with a 1.
That said, revisited Tranquility Base last night and, man, I forgot that Turner is just a really clever lyricist. New single feels like a more low-energy version of that sound, but I'm looking forward to the album nonetheless.
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 5, 2022 9:58:00 GMT
The tour of 2023 in North America? Two bands on our best band in the world poll - and they've got at least 6 great albums between them ........"Special Guest" indeed .....hmmmmm
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Post by mhynson27 on Oct 5, 2022 16:32:25 GMT
I'll be seeing them in Sydney in Jan
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 23, 2022 21:28:28 GMT
mhynson27 who is a fan of the band & countjohn who is a big fan of the new record and reviewed it today......new full show made available today:
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Post by DeepArcher on Oct 23, 2022 21:36:28 GMT
The new record is pretty good but feels like a lesser, too relaxed and less adventurous variation on the vibe of their previous album (which is still their best in my eyes). "Body Paint" is the only track that immediately strikes me as a true classic in their discography. But I'm excited to listen to it more and see if it reveals more the more I listen to it.
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Post by mhynson27 on Oct 23, 2022 22:33:18 GMT
On first listen I agree that it's not as good as TBHAC, but I still like it. Immediate favourites are I Ain't Quite Where I Think I Am, Sculptures of Anything Goes, Big Ideas and Perfect Sense.
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Post by countjohn on Oct 24, 2022 23:24:31 GMT
I still don't think it's as good as the last one which is so cohesive but some of the songs here are so good. Was into Perfect Sense over the weekend and can't stop listening to Body Paint today, no idea what it's about but the sound is just so interesting, so much going on. This is one of those things where the album is a bit less than the sum of its parts but the songs are fantastic and they're at their absolute peak on that level.
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