Whatever People Say I Am...Arctic Monkeys
Domino, 2006
Numerical Feelings: 6.3
I swear, I fucking hate this internet album-info lookup shit. I don't want 'The' in front of my band names. I don't want the word 'over' capitalized in song titles like it was some German person's name or something, and not a GOD DAMN PREPOSITION. And shit, some fucker doesn't even know 'Arctic' has two 'c's, and he's STILL allowed to go writing whatever indexes these stupid programs work on, and now all my file tags for this band are FUCKED. I try to fix it before it records, and I just end up with, fucking, band names as the album names and all this other crazy shit. I fucking hate it!
Anyhow, this album isn't all as bad as it seems at first, actually. Arctic Monkeys -- as if the word 'monkeys' isn't enough of a tired old corpse anyway, smirking stupid white boys uttering it out all the time like a verbal fart, as if it encapsulates all and everything that would ever fit within their tiny little conception of absurdity and verbal subversion -- there was already a band called monkeys, though misspelled, and they were rather shitty and they were pretending to be British so why would you want to associate with that? And what the fuck, cigarette butts? Don't put that on your cd label. That's not acceptable. That's really unpleasant.
Anyhow, this album isn't all as bad as it seems at first, actually. Once that chuggy-chuggy guitar mojo they put in every song starts to reveal its subtler distinctions, it makes things a bit worthwhile, and then a fair minority of the songs have decently hot hooks -- and I really like the last track all around, shimmering treble melodies giving way to thumping bass and mid-tone funk -- but on the rest of the songs? Like, they are just resting on their sexy hooks, except actually the hooks aren't that sexy, they're kind of icky, especially with the singer just talking all the time? That, that's not so great.
-6.4.2006
Whatever People Say I Am, That Is What I Am Not is an album. Am I supposed to capitalize 'That's?
Track Listing:
01 The View from the Afternoon
02 I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
03 Fake Tales of San Francisco*
04 Dancing Shoes
05 You Probably Couldn't See for the Lights But You Were Looking Straight at Me
06 Still Take You Home
07 Riot Van
08 Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured
09 Mardy Bum
10 Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong but...
11 When the Sun Goes Down*
12 From Ritz to the Rubble
13 A Certain Romance*
(*: an asterik)
Track Listing:
01 The View from the Afternoon
02 I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
03 Fake Tales of San Francisco*
04 Dancing Shoes
05 You Probably Couldn't See for the Lights But You Were Looking Straight at Me
06 Still Take You Home
07 Riot Van
08 Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured
09 Mardy Bum
10 Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong but...
11 When the Sun Goes Down*
12 From Ritz to the Rubble
13 A Certain Romance*
(*: an asterik)