Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair
Okay, you got me—I’m a bad fan. It’s flashback time.
Way back in late 2008, this guy had just started getting into music. A hatred of the Chicago Top-40 stations that remained permanently tuned in during every early-morning commute to school propelled me to search for something better. With an IQ just a tad too high for the “Alternative” station, I thought I was out of luck. Fortunately, I stumbled upon the Pandora Internet Radio iPhone App, and my life was forever changed. I set up a station using The White Stripes and Franz Ferdinand as my guidelines (a little strange in retrospect, but they were all I knew), and was able to spend car rides in beautiful, antisocial, indie bliss. A band that kept coming up on my station was this weird little English group called Arctic Monkeys. I loved the raw, angst-fueled energy that poured out of both of their full-lengths at the time, and was thrilled to hear that a new record was in the works.
Then, Humbug came out. It was okay. The band had lost a bunch of their energy, but I let the album grow on me. Their shows were still tight, and frontman Alex Turner still looked like this.
Then, about a year ago, the cycle for this newest record began. Right from the start, its title annoyed the hell out of me—it’s like they’re trying to show that they haven’t lost that teenage attitude, when every fan had already accepted that it was long gone. I figured that I’d give the album a listen when it came out anyway, until I saw a picture of the new Alex Turner. Arctic Monkeys were as good as dead to me at that point.
But, when you maintain a blog that requires a new record every day, sometimes you’ve got to throw your principles out the window in order to get things done.
Don’t let its childish name fool you—Suck It and See is clearly a record devoid of any teenage influence whatsoever. Is it good? I don’t really know. It’s by no means bad, but it is very low on energy. There’s absolutely no reason to ever listen to this album over Whatever People Say I Am or even Favorite Worst Nightmare. Suck It may be a little more polished and pretty than previous Arctic Monkey releases, but is that really what anyone wants out of these guys?
Swole Ear 
They’re evolving. I’m not going to write them off just yet (although I agree that the rockstar makeover is painful). They aren’t what they were, but even the bad songs they write are better than what a lot of bands do. They get it in a way that a lot of bands never will and now they just have to find the next step or level.
Suck it and see what?
Age and previous albums are no excuse for failing to be juvenile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8y0JLPQl94; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMyyFFVzD8Q&feature=related
Correct Yuanny Dollar (great name, incidentally). They are experimenting and changing directions. How boring would it be if a band kept pumping out the same stuff over and over?
Being a musician is about being creative, not repetitive. Considering Turner has also got Last Shadow Puppets album on his CV at his age, it’s quite remarkable. Humbug was pretty much constructed and aimed at America, courtesy of Josh Homme. I’m surprised it lost so many fans.
Suck It And See full stop “Chops” my friend. It’s a tempter, a lure, a clever continuation from Humbug.