The AM

THE

Anisha Bhujbal

Copyright Š 2018 Student document publication, meant for Private Circulation only. All rights reserved.

Visual Communication 2016-2020, Unitedworld Institute of Design, Gandhinagar, India.

No part of this document will be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, xerography and videography recording without written permission from the publisher, Anisha Bhujbal of Unitedworld Institute of Design, India.

Trademark names are used throughout this document. Rather than putting a trademark symbol in every occurence of a trademarking, it is stated that the names are used only in an editorial manner and to the benefit of the trademark holder with no infringement of the trademark.

All illustrations and photography in this document are copyright Š 2018-19 by resepctive people/ organizations.

Disclaimer: This book is intended solely for acadamic purposes,and no commercial use in any form is intended. While every care is taken to credit all sources,any exception to it is not intentional and is regretted.

All textual, illustrated, and photographic content is original unless stated otherwise.

Printed digitally in Ahmedabad, India August,2018.

Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to the many people who saw me through this book; to all those who provided, talked things over, read, wrote, offered comments, allowed me to quote their remarks and assisted in the editing, proofreading and design.

I would like to thank my faculty for enabling me to choose something so wonderful as my topic . Above all I want to thank my mother and father, who supported and encouraged me inspite of all the time it took me away from them.

Content INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................

THE MONKEYS AND DOMINO................................................................................

WHATEVER PEOPLE SAY, THATS WHAT I AM NOT..............................................

FAVOURITE WORST NIGHTMARE .........................................................................

HUMBUG.................................................................................................................

SUCK IT AND SEE ...................................................................................................

AM ..........................................................................................................................

TRANQULITY BASE HOTELS + CASINO.................................................................

3 5 9 11 15 19 23 27

Preface The four amazing people called Alex, Matt , Jamie and Nick who form the band -The Arctic Monkeys have been with me through all my happy, sad, angry and especially heart broken times. The magic they create has never failed to support me. This book is therefore a brief about the band and how they produce their music and how it would help a lot of people discover the unique world that they have created.

Introduction Arctic Monkeys is a band that earned their fame even before that had released their first album.

They experimented with heavy garage- rock, pop rock, punk and many more, while still keeping their songs congruent and they have also managed to stay relevant in the mainstream music despite of the fall in rock music’s popularity over the years.

Formed in the year 2002 teenage neighbours Alex Tuner and Matt Helders were inspired by local peers play music. The Sheffiled music scene was filled by other bands with guitar music at that time.

The guys decided to start their own. They eventually started practicing in the Yellow Arch studios in Neepsand and played their first ever gig in 2003 at a local Pub- The Grapes. Later that year they revealed their demo CD with 18 songs. It was demo that they gave away for free at their gigs initially, so as to spread more awareness about them. Many of them got uploaded on the internet by their early fans and ever since their music continued to be shared and spread all around the world.

Their demo came to be known by the name ‘Beneath the Boardwalk’ because when they gave it away for free the first uploader received it he did not have any name to classify them with, so he simply named them after the place he received them ‘ Under the Boardwalk’ People false labelled it believing ‘Beneath the Boardwalk’ was the actual title. Some times people even tend to believe that is was their first original album.

But before their debut album they released a single at a famous gig at the Leeds festival on a very small stage called the crawling stage and because their reputation had grown immensely during the past years, an unusually large crowd came to watch them.

The Monkeys & Domino The band signed to Domino Records in June of the year 2005 and began working on their first ever official album. Soon they were offered some pretty good deals by other record labels such as the EMI and the Epic Records, but the band decided to stay true to Domino because they liked Laurenz Bell- the owner of Domino label and his down to earth approach to running the business. They have thereafter released all of their 6 albums with with the same label.

Whatever people say I am, thats what I am not On 23rd of January 2006 released their first official album ever. It was released to a huge number of fans all over the world and it turned out to be one of the fastest selling debut album in the British music history, wit a sale of 360,000 copies during its first week.

In retrospect a lot of people referred to it as a concept album. Many of the songs are about ‘being young’ , ‘going out’, ‘getting drunk’ and living all those experiences surrounding that lifestyle. All the songs play out as observations made by the lead singer- Alex Turner .

It doesn’t matter if it is about a limousine or dressed up girls or some romance.In every circumstance the band makes you feel like whatever that Alex Turner sings, he has a thing for putting things up straight.

He simply sings about how he feels or thinks and the experience has had. Also he comes across as a very transparent and smart singer and lyricist.

“The lairy girls hung out the window of the limousine

Of course it’s fancy dress

And they’re all

looking quite forlorn in bunny ears and

devil horns and how” -The

view from the afternoon

Favourite Worst Nightmare On the 23rd of April 2007 , the Arctic Monkeys released their second full length album. It was yet another major success for the band, but in terms of sound it was different compared to their debut.

The music publication Uncut said that the album was more ambitious, heavier with a fiercely bright production. One can certainly hear the weight in this album during the opening track ‘Brainstorm’.

Drummer Matt Helders said “ James was DJing loads in the evening... so we’d go out and have a dance . As a result of being inspired by the DJing the drum rhythm of Helders have drawn comparison to 80’s funk band ESG. Apparently a lot of fans think drumming on this album was one of the more outstanding things to it. But it is not the only thing, for example the bands love for classic films also influenced their new style album too. Like the origin at the beginning of the bands final track 505 is directly taken from the movie ‘The goods, the bads and the ugly’.

“Old yellow bricks Love’s a risk

Quite the little ‘escapologist’

Looked so miffed When you wished For a thousand

places better than this”

-Old Yellow Bricks

Humbug, 2009

Humbug and percussion instruments such as the xylophone and the shakers. You can also find the keyboard on almost every song on the album. And once again this an album where the band has expanded in terms of what instrument they wanted to use. Statistically speaking, Humbug has been noted to have some of the heaviest music on it. Pretty visitors is a good example of a very heavy song. Alex Turner has also later confessed that he was inspired by rap music and it also sounds like he is dropping a few bars near On clash music.com writer Simon Harper placed the end end of that song.

Alex’s song writing skill by writing ‘ Turner is his usual eloquent self, but has definitely graduated into The album is comparatively slower in tempo as an incomparable writer whose themes twist and compared to their previous albums and utilises turn through stories and allegories so potent and guitar effects that make them sound quite different from what they made before. profound it actually leaves one breathless’.

In a NME article Mike Williams wrote “ If the Arctic Humbug went straight to the UK top charts. Just Monkeys had never walkiiuiied into the desert with like the bands previous albums and advancement of Josh Home to record ‘Humbug’ in 2009, they would drum based music on their second album was just have never made AM, Humbug was as much about one of many styles they would take forward. On subverting people’s impressions of who the band Humbug, they made use of the baritone, sly guitar were, as it was an album in it’s own right.”

After releasing and touring their second album the band went on a short hiatus, but they quickly went back to writing new material in 2008. 24 new songs made of the bass were recorded, out of which 12 were recorded in Rancho, Deleluna LA with the help of the front man of Queens of the Stoneage - Josh Homme and the next year they recorded the next 12 songs in NYC together witBut only 10 of all of these songs made it onto the album.

“Your pastimes

consisted of the strange

And twisted and deranged

And I love that little game

You had called

Crying Lightning

And how you’d like to aggravate the Ice-cream man on rainy afternoon”

-Crying Lightning

Suck it and see After the Humbug tour the band was once again ready to craft another record. Again they decided to go with James Ford as their producer and recorded the album in the famous sound city studios in Los Angeles in 2010 and 2011.

The album was named Suck it and See and was released during the summer of 2011, this was yet another historical movement for the band because it was their 4th record in a row to reach #1 on the album charts.

and relying on over dubbing after the material was reversed and finishe it before recording it. The band recorded many of the songs live and focused on using as little over dubs as possible.

About the albums sound, drummer Matt Helder said “Some of the songs are bit more instantly explained, bit more poppy. Certainly than Humbug was. It is enjoyable for us and the listner and its a bit more easy going, not easy listening but with a few popular tunes but in an interesting way” According to the band the album takes in Johnny Cash,George Jones and Patsy Cline amongst others.

Their recording and creative process for this album was quite different from some of their previous ones, instead of going to the studio with unfinished songs

Fun Fact: In some stores in the US the title on the front of the album was covered with a big sticker, this was a censorship that was applied because many Americans interpreted the expression Suck it and see in a much more vulgar way. Its actually an English expression that means that you should try something out before judging it.

Alex Turner said “ So this time we we tried to take a bit of time. Before we actually went into like a studio to record, so everyone knew what we were doing so this mostly was like if at all you would have been in the corner, it would have just been like live takes”

“Break a mirror Roll the dice

Run with scissors

through a chip and fryer fight

Go into business with a grizzly bear

But just don’t sit down ‘cause I’ve

moved your chair”

-Don’t Sit down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair

AM Their 5th studio album AM was massively about the band taking the sound in a new direction once again.

This album too peaked in thee UK music charts and had a huge commercial success, helping the band to conquer new grounds in mainstream music.

About the title of the album, Alex Turner said “ I actually stole it from the Velvet Underground, I’ll just confess that now and get it out of the way. The ‘VU’, obviously.” It was later revealed that the band had originally planned to call the album ‘The New Black’ after a guitar amplifier that they used during their recording process. But since they felt like AM would stand for Arctic Monkeys, it would fit better for the occasion so they went for that instead.

When starting to create ideas for AM, they would set up rehearsals in LA’s Sage and Sound studios and use a 4 track cassette recorder to record their idea song to begin with. When producer James Ford hit the studio they dropped the cassette recorder and used some of the ideas that they had already recorded as they were and made modifications to others. For a long time the band lived by the ethos that they should easily be able to play the songs live

right after recording them and therefore recorded the songs similarly to how they would perform the them. But as for their production for the AM, they threw away that mentality.

They said” We thought it more important make a good sounding record, than hold to the idea that we should have to be able to play it live.”

As a result there was more overdubbing involved and they would usually start recording the bass and drums to begin with to get the groove and rhythm just right. They would also experiment with the set up- Helder’s drum kit. By setting it up in unconventional ways.

Matt Helder’s said “ ON other songs, I would play kick drum for a take, then add the snare to try and get an isolated sound. I found the challenge of playing an effect on a drum kit interesting. I didn’t understand the apple of trying to sound like a machine, like Ques tlove from The Roots, when I first started playing drums, but get it a bit more now”.

Queens of the stoneage front man Josh Home once again collaborated with the band for the song Knee Socks. The album also featured guest appearances from Peat Thomas who is known for being the drummer for Elvis Costello and also Bill Joans th co founder of the Coral. In this album you can find traces from psychedelic rock, blues rock, RnB, soul and even some hiphop.

When the zeros line up on the 24 hour clock

When you know

who’s calling even

though the number is blocked

When you walked

around your house

wearing my sky blue Lacoste

And your knee socks

-Knee Socks

26

Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino Alex Turner wrote the bands 6th studio album in Los Angeles an upright piano in his spare room. He then moved to the studio- Lunar Surface. This is where Alex finally assembled his bandmates alarming them about his literal concept of the album’s name.

The album is a song suit documenting a futuristic moon colony and the exodus that spawns it. It is narrated by an assortment of unreliable narrators who sometimes sting sentences together . The bands mission was of producing an alluring retro-futuristc back drop. The music is inspired from the mid 70s moments, resembling avant-garde Funeral band. To round off the lunar alienation , the band spiced the studio renditions with raw, eccentric vocal demos.

Perhaps the great mystery of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is not its knotty themes or cryptic lyrics but what’s motivating Turner. With the keys to the most

lucrative and well-oiled indie-rock band around, he’s regenerated Arctic Monkeys in service of a delirious and artful satire directed at the foundations of modern society. This is not an act of protest: Implicated in its sprawl are gentrification, consumerism, and media consumption, but rather than address these meaty topics, he strafes around them, admiring their transformation in the laboratory of his word tricks.

In the end, his helpless struggle for meaning is what makes him relatable. For all this record’s hubris, the long-touted “generational voice” that is Alex Turner has never sounded more real, or more himself.

Look, you could

meet someone you like

During the meteor strike

It is that easy

Lunar surface on a Saturday night

Dressed up in silver and white

With coloured old grey whistle test lights

-Four Out of Five

Appendix

https://pitchfork.com/search/?query=arctic%20 monkeys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FPkz0m2WOs&t=174s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp_aqycbJZ4 https://www.arcticmonkeys.com/ https://www.nme.com/artists/arctic-monkeys https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/arctic-monkeys