Alex Turner in the wpsiatwin era, 2005

📸: Hedi Slimane

Alex Turner - La Zona Rosa nightclub, Austin, TX

17/03/2005

📸: Tim Mosenfolder (on Getty Images)

Definition of adorable

Happy birthday to The Car, which was released on 21st October, 2022.

"We could very well still have made a loud guitar record after all. If the music had asked for it, I think I would have obediently followed. When we finished touring in 2019, everything pointed in that direction. Much louder than Tranquility Hotel, in any case. But that started to shift towards a different direction and that's why we took a break from it at the time. I was afraid I would start forcing things. And sometimes you just have to accept the fact you can't go back to the riffs from ten years ago. At the end of the tour I knew what kind of songs I wanted to do, with the lights of the stage still in my eyes and the thundering roars of the audience in my ears. Big, loud guitars should have been part of that. That's what I'm gonna do! I even put on my motorcycle boots to get a hold of that mood. But that didn't feel right in the end, as said. You're not that person anymore, your music wants to go in a different direction. Then I can only follow that. The only reason we now can not make a loud guitar record in all peace and comfort, is because we're still Arctic Monkeys. Everyone has grown up, the essence of the band has grown with us. The faces are a bit more round, the boys call their children instead of their parents, but the feeling remains the same. Life itself happened – and not in an unpleasant way. It's all good, everything."

The car tour has sadly come to an end. It has been one of my favourite eras to live through and will be remembered. Glad I got to go to at least one concert. Going to be waiting ages for the boys again though. It has taken me multiple days to get over it 💔, now its just a memory.

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, Arctic Monkeys' debut album. A great album. A 2000's Strokes-sounding album. A very British sounding album.

This album reminds me of cigarettes, late-night taxi rides home from the pub, loud music, raves, flashing lights, alcohol, dirty shoes, ripped clothes, CD's, cell phones, waiting at dirty bus stops with your mates, helping walk your friends home on a night out.

What does this album look like/ remind you of in your eyes?

Intriguing continuity alert: explaining ‘Humbug’’s title, Alex Turner said it was named after the hard boiled sweet. He said, “You’ve got to suck it and see”. Two years on, ‘Suck It And See’ is also the name of their fourth studio album.

Source: NME Photo: NME/?

Sorry to anyone who say Arctic Monkeys in Minneapolis (25/8/23) last night, I saw a video of the concert during Snap Out Of It and, to my surprise, the crowd seemed very dead. It was almost as if Alex Turner was standing directly in front of the camera.

The View from the Afternoon by Arctic Monkeys highlights the excitement and anticipation that someone feels before a night out. The lyrics talk about the thrill of experiencing things that have been seen before, yet still wanting to witness them again, 'Tonight there'll be a ruckus, yeah, regardless of what's gone before'. The song emphasizes the unpredictability of a night out and how it can lead to love or chaos regardless of previous events, 'Tonight there'll be some love, Tonight there'll be a ruckus, yeah, regardless of what's gone before, I want to see all of the things that we've already seen'.

The chorus refers to a girl being unsurprised and unshocked to receive a message from someone who has been drinking. This emphasizes the theme of the unpredictability of a night out and how it can lead to unexpected outcomes, 'And she won't be surprised and she won't be shocked, When she's pressed the star after she's pressed unlock, And there's verse and chapter sat in her inbox, And all that is said is that you've drank a lot...'

The post-chorus urges the listener to be cautious and aware of the consequences of their actions, specifically when trying to communicate with someone late at night, 'And you should bear that in mind tonight, Bear that in mind, yeah'.

GIF Source: ??

another set of (rare-ish?) humbug alex pics that make me go feral part 2

seriously though, how was this creature real?

he's just in a bad mood, sorry for him

Alex knocking over the mic stand (Madrid, July 11 2023)

alex turner definetly brings good weather to the uk. while he was here, it was well sunny and as soon as he went to italy and greece, etc., it's been rubbish.

right, can we please take a moment to talk about the bridge sequence in bad habits because oh my god the SUBTEXT??

at the start of the video, the distance between miles and alex is really highlighted, e.g. opposing colour palettes, the kind of divided imagery above, alex standing several paces behind miles etc. they're constantly in each other's eyeline, but also constantly apart. throughout the video, they gradually get closer, and the biggest catalyst for this is miles's guitar solo at the bridge of the song, where they start off at opposite ends of the room and miles moves backwards to alex as he's playing; by the end of the solo, they're finally properly side by side for the first time.

this is then immediately followed by shots like this of the two of them together:

in the earlier stages of the video, miles's singing was just intercut with sexual imagery of either women, or him and women - now, in the build up to the song's climax (and as the sexual imagery gets more heated), his singing is intercut more vividly and more frequently with clips of him and alex; the images of women become fainter and more infrequent, outnumbered by moments of him and alex wrapped around each other, while the women remain hazy and separate from miles.

this is then followed by a full on physical altercation between them; throughout the video, alex has been this silent, imposing presence behind miles, and at the bridge of the song here, miles finally turns around and confronts him in a way that has distinctly sexual undertones - and idk, this just feels so much like a metaphor for being followed around by desire and finally grappling with it (i.e. alex is the desire that's following miles around)

we then this gorgeous shot of miles's gaze and the fantasies behind it where (unlike earlier in the video) the images interposed behind it aren’t of abstracted female bodies, but of a woman walking up the stairs to him and alex lying entangled with each other, and then some fleeting imagery that clearly shows the three of them engaged in sexual acts together.

then - and this is the part that really gets me. the undertone of lust and fantasy laced through the video is finally being played out explicitly (in the scenario we get a glimpse of between miles and alex and the woman), and then is then IMMEDIATELY followed by a sequence of imagery that is ONLY OF ALEX AND MILES. and not just only of them, but of them being increasingly close to each other; they're no longer at opposite ends of the room, they're lying on each other and their faces are pressed together and they look utterly blissed out. all the shots of proximity are of them; the intercutting imagery of women has completely disappeared at this key point of the song and it's just them. them together in a situation that has been established as explicitly sexual.

the fact that throughout the song, alex and the two of them being together is inextricably linked with the fulfilment of desire and fantasy is just - it makes me a little bit insane, actually.

because it’s only once the two of them come together that the sex behind the images of fantasy interspersing miles’s singing actually come to fruition. it’s only once they’ve touched each other that others touch them, only after they come together that the sexual images that have been chasing them come into focus and become anything other than hazy, fleeting fantasies. in a music video so explicitly about sex and desire, it’s all about them.

In 2005, NME ran a Radar piece on the Arctic Monkeys, a new band at the time, giving them their first major bit of national press. Photo: Dean Chalkley/NME