Music Review - Arctic Monkeys “Favourite Worst Nightmare”
The Arctic Monkeys follow up their hit debut CD with Favourite Worst Nightmare. The high points of Whatever I Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not were off-kilter hooks, subtle pop culture references, and an decidedly snarky attitude mixed with energetic hooks and catchy rhythms. Unfortunately, these are the kinds of things that are difficult to reproduce while still feeling fresh, and Favourite Worst Nightmare’s fatal flaw is that it has to follow such a solid first effort.
When I first listened to Whatever I Say… I didn’t really like it too much. Much of the humor went over my head initially as I focused on the musical side of it, and the energy behind it distracted me from that. Granted, a lot of Whatever I Say… translated to dance floor hits, which meant the music was catchy and easy to dance to and not a lot of attention was destined to be paid to the other aspects. The critics seemed to catch on to a lot of the CD’s subtlety, though, and eventually the Arctic Monkeys seemed to get the respect they deserved. And as I forced myself to listen to the album repeatedly, it really grew on me.
The thing that makes Favourite Worst Nightmare difficult to appreciate is that it faces some of the debut’s first problems: it’s easy to let the subtleties of the lyrics and music drift over your head, but the subdued energy of this second effort means that focusing on the music often fails to pay off in the same way it did for tracks like The View From The Afternoon or From the Ritz to the Rubble. Favourite Worst Nightmare has a few moments of the high-energy brilliance that highlighted the first CD, on tracks like Do Me A Favour and The Bad Thing, but they are few. The main issue is that the debut CD didn’t have anything before it- it was the only representation that the Arctic Monkeys had. Now, if you don’t enjoy Favourite Worst Nightmare, you can go back to their older stuff, and it’s easy to give up on Favourite Worst Nightmare and return to your favorite tracks off the first album, even though it’s not really fair to refuse this album the same chance given to Whatever I Say…
Favourite Worst Nightmare succeeds in the lyrics department, with the same style of pithy phrases scattered around like “Who’d want to be men of the people, When there are people like you?” Frontman Alex Turner spits out potential tongue-twisters with ease, and if you don’t pay attention, a whole verse will speed by you before you even noticed it was a cohesive sentence and not just babble. In that respect, Favourite Worst Nightmare deserves repeated listens. Musically, the band sounds largely the same, and aside from a good number of slower tracks, they don’t venture too far from what made Whatever I Say… successful. The slow tracks are unremarkable at best, boring at worst, especially when you’re hoping for the same kind of consistent energy that is prevalent throughout Whatever I Say… The lack of any memorable guitar riffs compared to the numerous ones from Whatever I Say… is also disheartening.
In the end, Favourite Worst Nightmare turns out to be my own worst nightmare: a great band that falls short of duplicating their inital brilliance. Granted, it took time for Whatever I Say… to emerge from its shell, and I found myself enjoying the last half of Favourite Worst Nightmare much more than the first half. Regardless, six or so tracks from the first album stood out to me on the first listen, which eventually gave way to me loving the entire album. The fact that only two or three strike me the same way on Favourite Worst Nightmare gives me only a glimmer of hope that the seed of brilliance is still there, and it’s difficult to say whether or not it will sprout over time in the same way it did on the band’s first effort.
Final Verdict: Meh.
(edit: This review is worthless, and wrong)
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