A collection of Alex Turner’s favourite songs
Arctic Monkeys are back on top. The Sheffield rose to fame in the early ’00s with their breakthrough hit ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’, the lead single from their decade-defining album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Since then, Alex Turner and co. have remained one of the most revered UK bands on the scene, outlasting so many of their indie contemporaries.
Listening to their new single, ‘There’d Better Be A Mirrorball’, Arctic Monkeys’ upcoming studio effort looks set to be the most novel to date. However, it is also deeply nostalgic. With its lush string arrangments and cocktail-jazz drums, the track evokes a certain old-world glamour. And yet, Turner’s influences remain imperceptible. If like me you’re interested in tracing the origins of AM’s newly velvet-lined sound, you’d do no better than this collection of the frontman’s go-to tracks.
The first track on Turner’s list, ‘Is This What You Wanted’ by Leonard Cohen, was actually covered by Alex and his Last Shadow Puppets bandmate Miles Kane back in 2016. Featured on Cohen’s New Skin For Old Ceremony album, the track simmers with the psychological complexity of a Shirley Jackson novel.
“Is this what you wanted?” Cohen sings, his gravelly monotone wreathed by female backing vocals, “to live in a house that is haunted / by the ghost of me and you”. Here, romance is a spectre haunting the domestic sphere; Cohen’s off-kilter, melodically sophisticated work on ‘Is This What You Wanted’ is the exorcism.
Turner also gives pride of place to a sultry cut from Serge Gainsbourg’s erotic Magnificat L’histoire de Melody Nelson, an album which traces the speaker’s relationship with the titular Melody. Perhaps one of the most intoxicating cult albums of all time, Gainsbourg’s work on L’historie is a masterclass in limitation. This expansive album features very few ingredients, but they’re all employed expertly. Guitar, drums, bass, vocals, strings: all are perfectly honed. Indeed, you’re unlikely to hear more scintillating string arrangments than those crafted by Jean-Claude Vannier’s for tracks like ‘l’hotel particulier’.
Strings are an essential aspect of the final track on this slim collection of favourites: Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘I Can’t Go To Sleep’, which loops uses the sweeping orchestral arrangements from Isaac Hayes’ ‘Walk On By’. If you’d like to listen to Turner’s full selection, you can find it below. Go forth and listen, my friends.
Alex Turner’s favourite songs:
- ‘Is This What You Wanted’ – Leonard Cohen
- ‘I Want You’ Marvin Gaye
- ‘The Hurt’ – Yusuf
- ‘L’hôtel particulier’ – Serge Gainsbourg
- ‘Ain’t Had No Lovin” – Connie Smith
- ‘In my Room’ – Nancy Sinatra
- ‘It Didn’t Matter’ – Style Council
- ‘Main Title’ – John Carpenter
- ‘New England Crows’ – Hamilton Leithauser
- ‘This Is Your Life’ – Glaxo Babies
- ‘Waiting for an Inivtiation’ – Benji Hughes
- ‘I Can’t Go To Sleep’ – Wu-Tang Clan
