Hear Me Out: Arctic Monkeys have earned the right to play their songs how they please
Before Arctic Monkeys headlined Glastonbury Festival 2023, there was a sense of great apprehension growing across the week, which, as festival goers woke up on the morning of the scheduled performance, was starting to be felt more intensely. Only a few days earlier, the band had cancelled their Dublin show on June 20th due to frontman Alex Turner grappling with acute laryngitis.
Luckily for everyone involved, the storm passed when one of the Sheffield group’s stage props, an oversized mirrorball with ‘Monkeys’ shining across it, was spotted moving past the Pyramid Stage. Fans also heard tracks such as ‘AM’ and ‘Snap Out Of It’ being soundchecked in the morning. This evidence was then put to Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis by BBC Radio 2’s Zoe Ball, who confirmed there was nothing to worry about. “That’s a very good spot,” Eavis responded. “He’s definitely – they’re on”.
After the stage was sufficiently warmed by the Brighton duo Royal Blood, Arctic Monkeys performed in the final slot on the Pyramid Stage from 22:15 to 23:45. Playing a mix of songs from their latest album, The Car, as well as older cuts, it was an adroit blend of the past, present and future, with the Sheffield band resoundingly demonstrating that there is still a long road ahead of them.
Arctic Monkeys’ headline set at Glastonbury Festival 2023 will be remembered as their best by those who witnessed it up close and personal. It saw the band take to the stage more well-rounded than they’ve ever been, returning to the spiritual home of British music like a modern Odysseus setting foot on his home of Ithaca after years of globe-trotting. Given their long history of success, it was confounding that many felt the need to criticise the band for playing a set that was stylistically distinct from the treble-heavy indie of their early days.
Arctic Monkeys are no longer the newcomers that so sharply captured a period in British history, despite the weight of the nostalgia attached to those days and their music. They’re veterans of the scene that have conquered America, expanded their horizons in the mystical Californian desert with Josh Homme, and released more number-one albums than most rock outfits could ever dream of.
As alluded to, a great deal has taken place since their formative days as kings of British indie. Accordingly, in a bid to reflect themselves as the artists they are today, the band reworked their set to mostly fit in with the spacey stylistic paradigm of their two most recent albums, Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino and The Car. To give an example of the type of criticism they faced, ‘Mardy Bum’ – a fan-favourite song taken from their 2006 debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not – was met with a mix of negative emotions ranging from disdain to outright ridicule. The group played a version of the song separate from the plinky indie of the original, one that was altogether more languid, mature, and suave. Let’s be clear about this matter: Arctic Monkeys have earned the right to play their songs how they please. This comes regardless of the base-level fact that they are their songs and not that armchair critic’s lurking in the pits of the internet.
Regarding ‘Mardy Bum’, the song still featured the sing-along of the riff and main vocal line, but it had what you could call a glam-rock edge, featuring keys and jazz-inflected ghost notes from drummer Matt Helders. In many ways, it oozed a panache that seemed at odds with the more immediate approach of the group’s early years, which is the kind of thing many people took issue with, ultimately slamming the band for being, well, grown men. I’ll say it again, this is not the same Arctic Monkeys that those with fluorescent teenage nostalgia sunglasses remember. The people criticising them for doing what any act worth their salt does, moving forward, need to give their heads a wobble.
Not only have Arctic Monkeys touched on a wide variety of genres since they broke out, but Alex Turner has also released swooning orchestral moments with his spin-off outfit, The Last Shadow Puppets, as well as the melancholic solo triumph that is the soundtrack of 2011’s Submarine. These factors have undoubtedly made their way into his later work with his main project. Do I need to mention that the band are now so far away from their early days that they’ve been donning suits for longer than they did those Adidas tracksuits? Time has moved on, people have grown, and Arctic Monkeys have matured.
Indeed, the most contentious talking point of Arctic Monkeys at Glastonbury 2023 was Turner’s voice. Vocalising lines such as the iconic “now then mardy bum” in the form of near-crooning that he has been utilising for the better part of a decade, too, was far removed from the young croak of his voice featured on the original. People mocked his singing voice for displaying signs of, let’s be honest, evolved improvement in ability. “Butchered” was one term used to describe this particular re-work, with others like “dire” utilised when reacting to how the quartet approached other early hits such as ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’.
It can be easy to forget that, in only three years, Arctic Monkey’s debut album will be 20 years in the past, and Turner will be in his 40s. This is not a Blair’s Britain grappling with the Iraq War, the broader post-9/11 malaise and a general feeling that maybe the dream of the 1990s has failed. Gone are the days of Arctic Monkeys touring Britain in a transit van and taking Myspace by storm; hell, even the need to file-share CD demos is just an ever-distant memory. Arctic Monkeys stand at the top of rock music, a global behemoth, something that even their most unyielding fans would have thought improbable when they broke out all those years ago.
Arctic Monkeys have conquered the world, and naturally, they’ve metamorphosed far beyond their teenage years. This history has seen them become a completely different creative force from the one that captured the hearts and minds of the youth in the 2000s, with a wealth of experience behind them. They’re such accomplished artists and performers that they are perhaps now even worthy of being called one of the all-time greats – and, because of that, Arctic Monkeys have earned the right to play their songs how they please.
