The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Arctic Monkeys · produced by Jim Abbiss · Domino · thirteen tracks
Mode
Guitar-band rock of the revival years, fast and dry, observational song in a regional vernacular; wit and judgment in one voice
Mythos
The night out as a descent and return evoked by the sequence; the working-class rebel of the title summoned as a stance; local types given a face
Phase
Thirteen tracks from the afternoon before a night to the morning’s verdict; a loose middle; one long song to close
Presentation
Album; thirteen tracks, released by Domino in Britain on 23 January 2006; the band’s first
Register
Two interlocking guitars, bass and fast exact drums; one young voice, very quick, in its own Sheffield speech and dialect
Scale
One observer, one town and its class on a weekend night: couples, bouncers, the police, a red-light street and the trade in music
Governing Proposition
Four young men from Sheffield play the revived guitar idiom of their moment with exceptional tightness, and their singer fills it with his own speech at speed: a weekend night in a provincial English town, its display policed by threat, seen by a voice that holds the town in contempt and affection at once and cannot separate the two. The record runs from the afternoon’s anticipation to the morning’s verdict, and its last song refuses to stand outside what it has mocked.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
The record begins before the night does. The View from the Afternoon opens on the drums alone, already running, and the guitars and the voice arrive into a pulse that has started without them: the evening anticipated in the afternoon, the body ready before the plans are made. The song is about waiting for a night out, and it is built so that the waiting is already fast. From its first bars the record announces its time signature in the larger sense: this is a night lived at speed, and the songs that follow will keep the pace the drums set here.
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not was released by Domino in Britain on 23 January 2006, thirteen tracks, the first album of four young men from Sheffield: Alex Turner, who sings, plays guitar and wrote all the words; Jamie Cook on guitar; Andy Nicholson on bass, who left the band within months of the release; and Matt Helders on drums and backing voice. Jim Abbiss produced it. At its release it was the fastest-selling debut album in British chart history, and it won the Mercury Prize that year. Those are facts of presence and reach, and they are weighed there and nowhere else.
The title is Arthur Seaton’s line, from Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958): the working-class rebel who refuses every name the world gives him. The borrowing sets a record about what people say a town is under the sign of a man who will not be told what he is. It summons a stance more than a figure. Seaton does not appear in the songs, and no one in them carries his part; the title frames the record’s voice, which is fond of its town and contemptuous of it, and will not let anyone else describe it.
Movement II
Fake Tales of San Francisco is the record’s manifesto. It watches a local band dressed in borrowed glamour, singing of a city it has never seen, and answers it with a plain sentence: “you’re from Rotherham”. The joke is the argument. A guitar idiom revived from New York and London could be worn as a costume, and this record refuses the costume: every song is sung in Turner’s Sheffield speech, not an American or a London accent, and the dialect words of the town are part of its lexicon. The song states what the whole record does, and states it against the thing it most resembles.
The inheritance is close and plain. The guitar-band revival of 2001 to 2005, the Strokes, the Libertines and Franz Ferdinand, had cleared the ground; behind it stand the Jam and post-punk; and for the words, the observational English song that runs from Ray Davies through the Smiths and Pulp, Sheffield’s own, to the spoken vernacular of the Streets. Is This It, at 8.4 here, is the record whose idiom this one inherits, and it stands above this one on every axis. That is the expected shape of the relation: the earlier record turned the field, and this one entered the field it had turned.
The turn is in the voice. A teenager sings very fast in his own regional speech, with a density of local particular, Rotherham, the Ritz, the riot van, that the guitar records of the moment did not attempt. That is real, and it is the record’s distinction. The stake was small. The music is a proven form played very well, at a moment when the British market was hungry for exactly such a band, and the departure is in degree and in diction, not in what a record could be. A wager on a proven path is not a swerve, and the record is held there, at 7.0, however fresh the voice sounded in 2006.
Movement III
When the Sun Goes Down begins quietly, a slow verse sung almost tenderly, and then breaks into double time. The turn is the record’s best physical arrival, and it carries meaning: the song looks at street prostitution at night and names the man who profits by it, the “scummy man” on the corner, and the surge comes as the scene is seen whole. It is one of two songs that use an abrupt change of tempo as a structure, and it is one of the few places where the record’s drive becomes something higher than drive.
Elsewhere the force is speed, wit and bite. I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, Riot Van and From the Ritz to the Rubble are exciting, not elevated, and Mardy Bum is sweet. The record is right about itself in this: its mode is drive, and it rises only three or four times in thirteen tracks, in the turn of this song, in the drum opening of the first, and twice in the last. None of the rises is high by the measure of the medium. A record about a night at full tilt has little room for the kind of height that needs stillness, and it takes that room only at the end.
The making is the playing. Matt Helders’s drumming is fast, exact and inventive, carrying the stops, the tempo changes and the fills on which Dancefloor and The View from the Afternoon turn. The two guitars interlock in short figures rather than strumming chords, and the band turns on a beat as one. Abbiss keeps the sound dry and close, a band in a room, and Turner’s diction at speed is a real instrumental skill. The faults weigh on a share of the record: a narrow palette of guitar tones across thirteen tracks, a mix compressed loud with little dynamic range, and arrangements in the middle that are competent rather than distinct.
Movement IV
Mardy Bum is a bright domestic pop song about a couple’s quarrel, its title in the town’s own dialect. It stands at the farthest point from When the Sun Goes Down, and the two obey one law: one voice, one town, one eye for the telling detail. The quarrel is the night’s morning after. That is the record’s coherence, and it holds through a small span. The range is a guitar band at two or three tempos with one register of wit, and narrowness is not coherence. The law binds what it covers tightly, but it covers little ground.
The middle of the record is where the subtractive test bites. Dancing Shoes, You Probably Couldn’t See for the Lights but You Were Staring Straight at Me and Still Take You Home work the same ground as Dancefloor, the pull and the eye across the club, and one of the three could go with little loss. Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But... is an answer to critics and the trade, and it steps out of the night the rest inhabits: it keeps the voice but leaves the world. It is the most permitted thing on the record, and the one breach of its law.
The night out can be read as a frame: afternoon, dancefloor, the club’s glances, the police and the taxi, the red-light street, the bouncers at the door, the verdict. That is the old shape of descent and return, and the sequence carries it. But the frame is loose. Mardy Bum and Perhaps Vampires sit where they do by contrast, most of the songs could stand in another order or alone without the record knowing less, and no figure carries the passage from start to finish. The bouncer at the Ritz, the lads, the girl who is mardy are types given a local face. The myth is evoked, and the sequence half builds it.
Movement V
A Certain Romance closes the record and has to. It is the only track that runs past five minutes, and it opens with drums and a ringing guitar figure that clear the floor before the voice arrives. Then it mocks the lads of the town, their tracksuits and their ringtones, and turns: “there’s friends of mine”. The singer refuses to stand outside the people he has mocked. The disclosure of the whole record is stated here most plainly: the young of a provincial town hold it in contempt and affection at once, and cannot separate the two. After the words stop, the guitars play on, the one passage on the record that lets feeling exceed its occasion.
The song gives the record the distance it needs to see itself, and its slow opening and wordless close are the form’s last argument: a record built of short, fast songs ends on a long one that steps back. Its final position reads differently on each hearing, and that ambivalence is where the record repays return most. Elsewhere much of the yield is taken at once: the jokes land on first hearing, the scenes are fully lit, and the record observes more than it articulates. A Certain Romance articulates a condition; Fake Tales and When the Sun Goes Down approach one; the rest are sharp sketches of a scene.
The record’s life has been long and its reach real. It has stayed in print; Dancefloor, Mardy Bum and A Certain Romance are still played on radio, in clubs and by the band; the way the band reached its public, through demos shared online before any major label, became the decade’s model, and regional speech became a common manner of British guitar bands for years after. It sits beside A Hard Day’s Night at 7.7 and High Violet at 7.8 a little below them, and above It’s My Life at 7.3. What holds it in Tier III is plain: a voice carried into a form that already had one, a frame laid loosely, and a span close to one town on one night.
Act III · The Twelve
Thirteen songs, and the songs are lean: almost none has an idle bar, a chorus repeated beyond its need or a solo for display. The frame is compelled at both ends. The View from the Afternoon has to open, the night anticipated with the drums already running, and A Certain Romance has to close, the one song that steps back from the night and judges it. When the Sun Goes Down and Fake Tales of San Francisco say what nothing else says. The test bites in the middle: three songs work the same ground as Dancefloor, and one could go with little loss, and Perhaps Vampires steps out of the night altogether.
Score: 7.6 / 10
The disclosure can be stated, and it holds: in a provincial English town of the 2000s the weekend night is a ritual of display policed by threat, and the young who live it hold their town in contempt and affection at once and cannot separate the two. A Certain Romance states it most plainly, mocking the lads and then turning, “there’s friends of mine”, to refuse to stand outside them. Fake Tales states the other half, borrowed glamour answered by “you’re from Rotherham”. The record’s speed is the night’s adrenaline. Held below the high figures because the record observes more than it articulates: much of it is sharp report of a scene.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The record’s mode is drive, not elevation, and it is right about itself. There is height in places. When the Sun Goes Down turns from a quiet, almost tender first verse into a surge, the record’s best physical arrival. A Certain Romance lifts twice: in its long opening, drums and a ringing figure clearing the floor, and in the guitar outro after the words stop, the one passage that lets feeling exceed its occasion. The drum opening of The View from the Afternoon is an arrival of a kind. Elsewhere the force is speed, wit and bite: exciting, not elevated. Three or four real rises in thirteen tracks.
Score: 7.3 / 10
Myth is evoked and lightly built in one frame. The night is a passage, from the afternoon through the dancefloor and the club’s glances to the police, the taxi, the red-light street and the bouncers at the door, and then the morning’s verdict: the old shape of descent and return, carried by the sequence. The title summons Arthur Seaton, Sillitoe’s rebel who refuses what others call him. The figures are types given a local face, the bouncer at the Ritz, the “scummy man”, the lads in tracksuits. But the frame is loose, two songs step out of it, no figure carries the passage, and Seaton is borrowed as a stance, not built.
Score: 7.0 / 10
The inheritance is plain and near: the guitar-band revival of 2001 to 2005, the Strokes, the Libertines and Franz Ferdinand; behind it the Jam and post-punk; for the words the observational English song from Ray Davies through the Smiths and Pulp to the spoken vernacular of the Streets. The turn is in the voice: a teenager singing very fast in his own regional speech, with a density of local particular that the guitar records of the moment did not attempt, against the borrowed transatlantic cool that Fake Tales mocks. The stake was small. A proven form played very well, to a market hungry for it: the departure is in degree and diction.
Score: 7.0 / 10
The sequence is counted here, once. The form serves the knowledge in two ways. The songs are short, fast and full of stops and changes of tempo, so the record has the nervous, sped-up time of a night out, and Dancefloor and Riot Van are the evening’s pulse made audible. And the sequence runs from afternoon to small hours to the next day’s judgment, ending on the one long track, whose slow opening and wordless close give the record the distance it needs to see itself. Longer, more spacious songs would lose the argument about speed and display. What holds the figure is that most songs could stand in another order, or alone.
Score: 7.4 / 10
Twenty years supply evidence, real but bounded. The record is still returned to and ranked high whenever its decade is counted, and the band’s later turns have sent listeners back to hear where the writer began. Return repays in the words: internal rhymes, a scene compressed into a line, and the ambivalence of A Certain Romance, whose final position reads differently on each hearing. Matt Helders’s drumming yields detail on close listening. Against that, much of the yield is taken on first hearing: the jokes land once, the scenes are fully lit, and the formal depth is narrow. Some of the return is nostalgia for 2006, which is presence, not depth.
Score: 7.2 / 10
The field is the British and American guitar album of the 2000s. The intrinsic force is modest: the record reorganised no possibility of the form; it played a revived idiom with exceptional tightness and gave it a voice of local, vernacular exactness. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: the way the band reached its public, through demos passed hand to hand and shared online before any major label, became the decade’s model of how a band could arrive, and the record’s commercial scale made regional speech and close local observation a common manner of British guitar bands for years after. What it redirected was a manner and a market more than a practice, and its reach abroad was narrower. It stands three tenths below Turn On the Bright Lights and Elephant, the first wave of the revival whose field it entered, and below Is This It, the record whose idiom it took; and three tenths above Boxer, whose reach is the band’s rather than the album’s, where this record’s reach is its own.
Score: 8.2 / 10
Survival is weighed over twenty years and nine months, on form, presence and fabric. The form is whole: the recording survives as issued and has stayed in print. Presence in Britain is wide and continuous: Dancefloor, Mardy Bum and A Certain Romance are still played on radio, in clubs and by the band, and the record is heard whole by listeners born after it. That places it at the top of the step for its span. Two charges hold it there: a surface fixed by design to its moment, the ringtones, tracksuits and town of the mid-2000s, though it has begun to be heard as record rather than as dated; and a presence wider in Britain than beyond.
Score: 8.3 / 10
Command of the recorded medium, with the words weighed elsewhere. The playing is the craft. Matt Helders’s drumming is fast, exact and inventive, carrying the stops, the tempo changes and the fills that make Dancefloor and The View from the Afternoon. The two guitars interlock in short figures rather than strum chords, and the band turns on a beat as one. Jim Abbiss keeps the sound dry and close, a band in a room, which suits a record about the night as lived, and Turner’s diction at speed is a real instrumental skill. The faults weigh on a share of the record: a narrow palette of guitar tones, a loud, compressed mix and middle arrangements competent rather than distinct.
Score: 7.8 / 10
One law governs the record: the night in a northern town seen by a sharp young observer, contemptuous and fond in one breath, at speed. Take the two most distant elements, Mardy Bum, a bright domestic pop song about a couple’s quarrel, and When the Sun Goes Down, the red-light street at night and a predator named. They obey the same law: one voice, one town, one eye for the telling detail, and the quarrel is the night’s morning after. The breach is Perhaps Vampires, whose subject is the trade and the press, not the town; it keeps the voice but leaves the world. The range is narrow, and narrowness is not coherence.
Score: 7.6 / 10
Judged on what the record holds, with no discount for the album form. Consciousness is held, a young observer’s, sharp and divided. The couple is held in Mardy Bum and Still Take You Home. The town and its class are held across the record with real precision. The law and its force enter with the riot van and the bouncers; the economy of sex with When the Sun Goes Down; the music trade with Perhaps Vampires. What holds the figure is the span: labour is glimpsed only in those who police and serve the night, and the family, history, the state beyond the police, the sacred and the natural order are absent. Several orders, joined by one voice in one town.
Score: 6.7 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
7.5 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier III · Major
Strongest Dimensions
The Imperishable at 8.3, then Pressure on Tradition at 8.2 and The Unconcealment at 7.9. A recording whole and in print after twenty years and nine months, with three of its songs still in wide use in Britain and the whole heard by listeners born after it; a reach of its own, the decade’s model of how a band could arrive, and regional speech made a common manner of British guitar bands; and a disclosure that holds, of a town held in contempt and affection at once, stated most plainly in A Certain Romance.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 6.7: consciousness, the couple, the town and its class, the police, the sex trade and the music trade held in one voice in one town, with labour only glimpsed and the family, history, the state beyond the police, the sacred and the natural order absent. Then The Archetypal Deep and The Swerve at 7.0: a night’s descent and return evoked by a loose sequence and carried by no figure, and a fresh voice placed on a proven path with little at stake.
The Necessity Cap clears at 7.6 against a threshold of 7.5, by a tenth. The Coherence Floor clears: The Living Form at 7.4, The Made at 7.8, The Inner Law at 7.6, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet on all five: The Imperishable at 8.3, Pressure on Tradition at 8.2, The Unconcealment at 7.9, The Archetypal Deep at 7.0 and The Swerve at 7.0 each fall short of the bar of 8.5. The Universal Minimum is unmet at The Archetypal Deep, 7.0, The Swerve, 7.0, The Bottomless Well, 7.2, The Sublime, 7.3, and The Living Form, 7.4, all below 7.5; The Encompassed, which it exempts, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 6.7. Three of the five summit conditions are met. The work stands where its aggregate places it: 7.5, in the band of Tier III, short of the 8.0 at which Tier IV begins and of the 9.0 that the summit requires.
Basis · the album as first released by Domino in Britain on 23 January 2006, thirteen tracks in their original sequence, produced by Jim Abbiss; judged from knowledge of the recording, its words and its history. No recording or lyric sheet was in hand. The album is the unit; no later edition is scored. Alex Turner sings, plays guitar and wrote the words; Jamie Cook plays guitar, Andy Nicholson bass and Matt Helders drums. The title is from Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958). Songs are cited by title, and no lyric is quoted beyond a fragment of four words. Facts that could not be verified, among them the share of earlier recordings in the finished album, the running time and the lengths of the tracks, are not given.