Fan theory: Decoding Alex Turner’s secret playlist that inspired ‘The Car’
In a recent interview with the radio station 3FM, a question was posed to Arctic Monkeys’ frontman Alex Turner about whether a secret playlist unearthed by fans really belonged to him. His sheepish and amazed response only heightened the level of speculation among fans who felt that his astounded reaction was a smoking gun. We’re delving into the details to find out whether indie sleuths really do have him bang to rights.
First and foremost, whether it’s true matters not when it comes to the moral of this here tale: in the online world, even the slightest detail can give you away. Recently, those in the know were able to locate Shia LaBeouf’s secret location in little more than a day by analysing overhead flight patterns on his streaming video. Later, using the star positions to triangulate his exact location. It would seem that Arctic Monkeys fans are similarly scrupulous when it comes to little clues regarding Turner’s mystic online presence.
So, what is the playlist? When Arctic Monkeys released the tracklisting for their new album, The Car, fans were wondering how it would sound. Strangely, one of the track titles offered up a clue (if you believe the theory). The second last track is the luscious ‘Mr Schwartz’. This title proved to be a tasty nugget of information for fans who were busy testing the theory that they had unearthed Alex Turner’s private Spotify account.
The story goes that Turner’s long-term girlfriend, the musician Louise Verneuil, uploaded a screenshot of a Scott Walker song back when he passed away in 2019. This screenshot provided the chink in Turner’s uber-offline armour. At the top of the image, was the title of the playlist that the Scott Walker song was being played off. Thus, when fans searched this playlist title on Spotify, they were able to see the account that had curated it. The account was comically held under the name: Sabertooth Turner.
Not only had Turner’s other half been listening to playlists on this account, but Arctic Monkeys’ drummer Matt Helders had also had a gander. The Helders link leads to another detective rabbit hole; his account was apparently detected after a fan searched through the likes on Miles Kane’s public Spotify account.
But the sweetest twist for fans came when the album actually arrived, and the orchestral sound bore a striking resemblance to the curated soundscape of a Sabertooth Turner playlist titled ‘Del Schwarz’—far from a million miles away from ‘Mr Schwarz’. The music was largely French chansonnier stuff, which matches up very well with the chorus-less cinematic turn that the Arctic Monkeys have taken.
Further playlists were also found by the same account that featured tracks that Turner has mentioned in the past. And last but not least, since being pointed out, the account has switched to a private mode and changed its name from Sabertooth Turner to the enigmatic Evermont.
So, what is Evermont? Well, I got digging on this front, and it turns out it is a housing development springing up in South Los Angeles. This is where many of the Monkeys and their cohorts live, including Matt Helders’ brother, who works as a real estate agent in the area when he’s not in The Jaded Hearts Club. He will be aware of the Evermont development and may have offered it up to Turner as a phrase knowing it’s well within the Bond-like vernacular of his friend’s new songwriting vocabulary.
Further hints on this geographical front came to the fore, as there is another Evermont playlist called Clapton Club, perhaps after the area in East London next to Turner’s new house. All these clues, his sus reaction, and the fact it came long before The Car was even thought about seem to hint that, indeed, fans found Turner’s account and unearthed the playlist that inspired the new album.
Aside from all the evidence above, it simply wouldn’t be all that surprising. I mean, he obviously has a Spotify account somewhere. He’s enough of a Luddite to not know how to turn the private mode on. The playlists largely match his music tastes. All the titles and names are somewhat in-line with his irreverent humour. He’s crafted public inspiration-soundscapes playlists in the past when working with Miles Kane on The Last Shadow Puppets records, so this might be a habit of his album-making process.
So, with all that being said, why might it not be him? Will, first and foremost, the initial thread of the theory came from an apparent screenshot. Because this was uploaded to a story, it is irretrievable. Thus, there is no evidence that it ever existed. This could just be indicative of the ephemeral nature of Instagram stories, but if you’re putting this to court, then you’d certainly want some solid proof that any of this is real. After all, that is the factor that underpins this whole thing, and the same point can be put forth with the apparent listens from Helders’ account.
Also, when you’re looking for clues, confirmation bias tends to kick in. So, you pick up a head of steam, and suddenly some details that are generally nebulous get amplified and provided as proof. For instance, there are a lot of obscure songs and artists that Turner has mentioned in interviews like Ennio Morricone’s barely known ‘Una spiaggia a mezzogiorno’ in Evermont’s mix, and Turner’s niche French favourite Juniore also crop up a lot.
However, if I was reverse engineering this as a hoax, then filling playlists with obscure songs he is known to like is exactly what I would do. In fact, it is what I have done with Far Out in the past, only we never purported to be Alex Turner and offered them up as mere curated recommendation playlists from various interviews with him. Naturally, they have striking similarities with the mystery playlists in question.
Furthermore, while the Del Schwarz playlist does sound like The Car and was released before anyone had even heard the new album (even from the press release side), it also sounds like Tranquillity Base Hotel + Casino. And hugely influential tracks for the new album like Leon Russell’s ‘A Song for You’ with its wavering lyrical melody, focussing on the content of the words more so than the flow of them, are noticeable absentees from the list.
Also, why are so many of the playlist titles in French? Granted, he has a French girlfriend and has clearly been getting into a lot of French music, but would he reflect that in most of his titles? This leads us to the very start. Let’s say the Louise Verneuil screenshot really did land on Instagram, and it did reveal a playlist: why wasn’t it assumed that it belonged to her? This could explain the similar but not exact tastes. There is even a playlist called Na then mardy bum, which is the sort of thing you might name a playlist if you were going out with someone from the Arctic Monkeys, but would Turner really punt for that name?
So, from the sceptic’s point of view, you have the fact that it’s very hard to find any concrete evidence. And while a mere coincidence that someone called Evermont is just going about their business blissfully unaware that they have very similar tastes to Turner is highly unlikely, a manufactured hoax is fairly easy to do. In fact, you can even alter playlists at any time without changing the date and so on.
And for those certain that they have unearthed a treasure trove of Turner’s favourite tunes, I have saved perhaps the finest nugget of evidence until last. Here’s a quote from the man himself with the exact playlist title leaving his lips: “I saw the name on the back of an Alfa Romeo, underneath the taillight. I’d love to know the name of the typeface, but I don’t. I’d describe it as ’90s, surfy, and it said Del Schwartz on the back of it. So we had a song called that for a while that didn’t make the record. And that led to Mr Schwartz.” At last, we’ve been expecting you, Mr Turner.
However, there is one final point to be made. While all of this is a lot of fun, let’s just all make sure that the potentially invasive digging is kept to harmless things like Spotify playlists and that any unearthed private details are rightfully kept private.
