A clinic in how to grow without sacrificing what made you great.
AM
Arctic Monkeys
59
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 mesmerizing 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.