A second career peak that doubled as a lesson for how to grow without sacrificing what made you great.
AM
Arctic Monkeys
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AM feels like the record Arctic Monkeys had been building up to for the preceding half-decade. There was a willingness to move away from the sound of a band playing together in a room and combine ’70s, Black Sabbath-style riffs with the sleek production of the Dr. Dre records they had bonded over as teenagers. Out of that emerged the most forward-thinking record of their still-young career—a mesmerising blend of slick, rhythmic rock ’n’ roll with an R&B swing.
“It rebooted the whole thing.”
Alex Turner
Arctic Monkeys
Album opener and chief calling card “Do I Wanna Know?” is the blueprint for everything that AM was about: soulful hooks and spiky riffs set to a beat that sounded both brawny and minimalist. Arctic Monkeys had already made one of the most thrilling debut albums of all time in 2006’s Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not; their second masterpiece somehow eclipsed it, setting a template for how a band can grow and experiment without sacrificing what makes them special.