This week ten years ago Arctic Monkey’s debut single ‘I bet you look good on
the dancefloor’ was released and thus indie was born. Okay, well it wasn’t really. Maybe it wasn’t even ‘reborn’ but it was certainly brought fully into the
mainstream. I mean having your first single as a bunch of 19 year olds go
straight to number 1 is no easy feat.
So when a shy, scrawny, baby faced Alex Turner walked up to the microphone
introduced his band and instructed the audience to not believe the hype,
someone who is now long extinct, no one could have fathomed what was to become
of these four teenagers from Sheffield.
What they
have achieved as a band on a whole is very impressive. Listen to almost any
typical guitar indie rock band around today and you’ll hear elements of their
early material – all stemming from this one song. It was just so different and
beautifully frank with itself, in truth it is not a ‘masterpiece’ but it has
paved the way for so many bands with this two minutes and fifty-three seconds
of furious riffs and witty anecdotes.
Though not
long before had Oasis reached number one with ‘the importance of being idle’
they were living off the fan base from their only two good albums. They hadn’t been
at their top for the best part of a decade but who else was around? Franz
Ferdinand had released their disappointing second album just weeks before and
exploding onto the music scene in the manner which they did breathed new life into
the alternative genre with lyrics everyone could relate to. Maybe not through
being in their exact shoes but it’s something everyone has seen on a night out.
And that’s what made this band so universally loved, there was no fantasy world; it
was relatable, true and not half bad either.
As for the
track itself it’s a storming piece of work, no messing around. What is
essentially a modern love song – albeit about the lack of true love - opening
with such furiosity and high energy and bustling Turner vocals crooning over. Lyrically
unusually confident for a teenager with quick wit in the form of trademark Sheffield
poetry. But the best moment comes 30 seconds from the end, with a slow build up
just for the whole thing to break down in what would become the most chantable
moment of any song in the past ten years. Not that I really needed to tell you
how good it is, everyone’s heard it, everyone knows.
Definitely the
most important Arctic Monkeys song from their huge back catalogue and possibly
even of the last decade, it really was a true anthem that made them the pioneers
they are seen as today.
(Even
though AM was shit but I’ll let that slide because this really is a fucking banger.)
