A Certain Romance // Arctic Monkeys
Probably my first post-Coldplay phase of music that really cemented my interest in British indie. Again, Arctics weren’t known or heard of in America until much, much later after they broke out into the scene in the UK, but a subscription to decent dial-up Internet kept me in the loop. I’d managed to get a hold of an Arctic Monkeys demo that was put up on their MySpace around 2005 or so.This was during my post-wannabe emo phase that included the likes of blink-182 and Green Day; Arctic Monkeys’ rough, scratchy sounds weren’t like anything I’d listened to. It scared me at first; the rough, talky voice of the lead singer paired with distorted guitars and an overall itchy sound.
I’d turned it off after the second play and treated my ears to a playback of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket while I recovered. Eventually I did, and managed to regain enough courage to listen to the demo again. And again. And again, and again, and again. By the tenth play of it, I was in love. I was in love with the jarring riffs and shouty verses, shy melodies hidden sweetly within angsty guitars. Arctic Monkeys were the first modern British band to really fortify the bridge between England and my heart, the band that got me into the England I’m hopelessly in love with now. With them, I discovered the England of pints, of real football, English breakfasts, red-bricked houses, fish and chips… and learnt that bad weather was the best possible weather.
I didn’t understand any of the lyrics at the time, or had any sort of clue of what Mr. Turner was singing about, but I didn’t care. I was desperate for more, with ‘A Certain Romance’ quickly being my favourite; a tune about a sense of disillusionment in modern society that manages to combine a delicate tenderness with their signature biting tone (“and over there there’s broken bones / there’s only music so that there’s new ringtones”). I am in love with English culture, and Arctics are the ones who really woke that passion in me. A band of a generation, provoking a change of taste, style, direction…