The first albums that Alex Turner and Miles Kane bought
Alex Turner brought new life to the Sheffield music scene in the early 2000s with his indie group Arctic Monkeys. The band’s early success owes thanks to the advent of internet download websites, which allowed them a platform to share their first EP, Five Minutes With Arctic Monkeys, with the world. Quickly snapped up by Domino Records, Arctic Monkeys set about recording their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, which changed the game upon its release in January 2006.
Over their six studio albums (soon to be seven), Arctic Monkeys have developed their sound from a chaotic guitar-driven frenzy toward something increasingly refined and textured. Perhaps the only constant has been Turner’s unique way with words.
With such a changeable and varied sound, the band has influences spanning many years and genres. At first, Arctic Monkeys seemed to come as a hangover, or rejuvenation, of the 1990s Britpop era but with a punky twist.
In a 2016 interview with Face Culture alongside The Last Shadow Puppets bandmate Miles Kane, Turner was asked what his first album was. Kane answered, “Oooh, I think the first album was probably an Oasis album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?”
As the question was redirected to Turner, the Arctic Monkeys frontman said: “Yep, it’s probably an Oasis record as well, the same one, in fact. Or perhaps even the one after that, Be Here Now.”
Later in the conversation, the pair were asked if Oasis’ second and third albums still have the same impact on them as they did back in the 1990s. “We’re still singing in the hairbrush, to that one. Who doesn’t?”
This wasn’t the first time Turner has mentioned the impact of Oasis’ early music on Arctic Monkeys. In a conversation with Pitchfork in 2012, the singer revealed that he and drummer Matt Helders once turned up to school dressed up like the Gallagher brothers to perform during assembly.
“In the UK, you go from primary school to secondary school at age 11,” he told Pitchfork. “And when we left primary school, all the kids would form groups and do a performance, like the girls would do a dance to the Spice Girls, or whatever”.
Adding: “So me and Matt and some of our friends put on ‘Morning Glory’ – we ‘played’ some tennis racquets and pretended to be Oasis. Matt was Liam Gallagher, he had the bucket hat on. I was the bass player. We were just standing there, doing what Oasis did onstage. Which was not a great deal. I don’t think we got as good a reaction as the Spice Girls.”
Continuing, Turner discussed the influence of Oasis’ 1995 sophomore album. “With Oasis, it’s just that attitude, like it’s resistant against everything else that’s going on in music. I don’t know if you can fully understand that, it’s like an impulse, isn’t it? Especially at that age, you don’t rationalise, you’re just like, ‘That looks cool’.
“And I feel like that’s the fucking way it should be now, in a way. Guitar music or rock’n’roll or whatever you want to call it sort of goes away with trends, but it’ll never go away completely. It can’t die because it’s so fundamentally attractive.”
Listen to Miles Kane’s cover of Oasis’ ‘Hey Now’ below.
