A Certain Romance: A Love Letter To Arctic Monkeys
"Over there there's friends of mine What can I say, I known 'em for a long long time" Long before sitting in the Penn State College of Comm building and switching to a Music Journalism tailored track of studies, there was just me, and Arctic Monkeys. Before I knew anything else, 12 year old Nadia was baptized by I Bet That You Look Good On The Dance Floor and awakened by Leave Before The Lights Come On. I learned to drive to Suck It And See and crashed my car to AM. Few things could summarize my spiritual connection to the sleazy British boy band, but to my mind and ears, Arctic Monkeys are the closest thing we have to perfection in this modern climate of feel-good/please-kill-me indie rock. For years, Arctic Monkeys were my secret to hold, like buried treasure I reveled in whenever I could get to YouTube or Pandora radio on our family's PC. I heard Alex Turner's digging voice through the most precise drumming I've ever heard directly in my ear. At 12 years old I was hearing "Last night/what we talked about/it made so much sense/But now the haze is ascended/it don't make much sense anymore" when the closest I'd gotten to a crazy night was a middle school dance with Mountain Dew. In each case -or song- Turner was singing to me. And not romantically, I was not his "muse". He was telling me a story, as a friend. "From the Ritz to the Rubble"
I matured with these boys; Carrying with me "She thinks she's the one, but she's just one in twenty-four" throughout middle and high school, into college I weaved through hallways with headphones in, unimpressed. As their skills as musicians grew, as did mine with viola. I wrote lyrics scribbled on notebooks hoping to one day reach Turner's ability to paint a narrative in three minutes as we here in "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High" in which he so artfully sings the chorus from the woman's perspective. Hearing them stretch from awkward Humbug discomfort to the ballads of Suck it And See into the confident and sexy AM album paralleled my own growth and maturity, despite them being a decade my senior.
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"You said you got to be up in the morning, Gonna have an early night, And you starting to bore me, baby, Why'd you only call me when you're high?" --
My relationship with Arctic Monkeys and more specifically, Alex Turner and his lyrics went from a deep vibing to fully dependent one night, when at around 15 years old I was having a panic attack (normal, with my anxiety, but not at all fun or easy) and discovered movie on Netflix called Submarine. Richard Ayoade's masterpiece with soft colors and a soundtrack done entirely by my favorite lead singer was the perfect pairing to my panic. From then on, and still now, the film and it's soundtrack pull me out of panic attacks faster than any other technique.
For years I rejected invitations to concerts and refused to plan on attending any others until I lost my concert virginity to Arctic Monkeys. It was my 16th birthday when tickets went on sale for their concert in Philadelphia at the Mann. Lunging across the halls to my parents I begged for the credit card to buy the $35 GA ticket and watched every Arctic Monkeys concert I could find on YouTube. My favorite video being one in which Alex grabs a fan's go-pro camera and hands it to Matt Helders, the drummer. The view from the Mann Stage is stunning. I looked up at Alex Turner engaging the audience with pride, dancing around the stage and yelling "R U MINE MOTHERFUCKA" a little too-often. Basking in the second-hand high from the smoke cloud above me I jumped and danced to I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor and hoped to God I would catch Matt's drumstick. At this point the AM album had just been released the day before and I fell in love with Turner's lyrical skill all over again listening to it on the way to the show. "Her steady hands may well have done The devil's pedicure" Whether or not this was a very feminist act, AM provided the framework for my confidence in my own powerful womanhood. An album entirely about women, loving women, messing up with women, and nervously navigating women fell right in line with who I wanted to grow into. Turners lyrics- no matter how changing - always illustrate powerful and captivating women he may or may not be infatuated with, without objectifying them. No matter how many artists I listen to as I grow and my tastes grow with maturity, I will never outgrow this band. From the eleven year old who burns "Flourescent Adolescent" onto mix CD's and an original iPod to college student listening to No. 1 Party Anthem and writing something so gushing for Arctic Monkeys that NME may as well post it, no band has been more fitting to be by my side into adulthood than the boys from Sheffield.
