Is Damon Albarn right about Arctic Monkeys being “the last great guitar band”?
During a recent instalment of the Broken Record podcast, Damon Albarn boldly declared Arctic Monkeys as “the last great guitar band”, affirming that nothing has quite matched their calibre in recent times. With a discerning perspective on the trajectory of guitar music, the Blur frontman candidly reflected on its turbulent evolution while remaining cautiously optimistic about the potential for future bands to rise to similar heights.
His statement makes for an interesting one in the navigation of the genre’s prevalence, particularly whether other facets of the industry have overshadowed its once dominant presence in the limelight. What’s more, considering the meteoric ascent of Arctic Monkeys’ reputation during their current world tour, it is undeniable that they have solidified their status as a paramount guitar band. However, categorising them as the sole torchbearers of the genre, marking the end of an era, runs the risk of completely disregarding some of the most prominent rising talents in the space.
Albarn recognises this himself, as he goes on to say that “there’s a bit more excitement about guitar music again” and reflects that “now there are bands with a huge amount of potential”. Now, it’s indisputable that very few outfits that function as a definitive four-piece now register on the scale of certified headliners the way Arctic Monkeys have. There have been some great debut albums and live performances from guitar bands of late, but it is incredulous to imagine any of them headlining the main stage at Glastonbury any time soon.
We live in an era where youth culture largely runs separate from mainstream culture. This is also largely due to societal changes and the cultural zeitgeist being more fractured in the digital age so that the limelight is shared more and ‘hype’ is somewhat diffused by shear content quantity – a band both pushing the boundaries of a genre and simultaneously registering on the radar of the public at large seems almost bygone.
Conversely, we find ourselves in an immensely captivating era for guitar bands. While the genre naturally experiences its ebbs and flows, it is precisely during its apparent downturns that formidable figures emerge. Drawing from the vibrant landscape of the 1980s, when the guitar genre faced a deflationary period, a wave of visionary artists like the Pixies emerged and etched their names into history as prominent influencers of their time in spite of defying mainstream standards.
Hence, it would be overly simplistic to propose that guitar bands have encountered a consistently tumultuous trajectory in recent years. Rather, it is more accurate to acknowledge that the genre perpetually reinvents itself, building upon the foundation laid by its predecessors. In an era where the foundations have been less lofty in a popularity sense, bands have subverted the fact that headlining Glastonbury after only two albums is a thing of the past and journey towards a more avant-garde angle—achieving perhaps a less immediately impactful greatness, but a greatness no less.
After all, popularity might be a potent force when it comes to societal transcendence, but you only have to look as far as The Velvet Underground to gauge that this isn’t always the case. As Brian Eno famously said: “I was talking to Lou Reed the other day, and he said that the first Velvet Underground record sold only 30,000 copies in its first five years. Yet, that was an enormously important record for so many people. I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band! So I console myself in thinking that some things generate their rewards in second-hand ways.” This seems more in keeping with the current, cultish guitar scene, indicative of the fact that the genre might have lost mainstream prominence, but that is far from a reflection of its billowing quality.
Every major movement begins with a handful of courageous and innovative individuals. The sheer magnitude of bands like Arctic Monkeys follow eras led by preceding connoisseurs, in this case, the likes of The Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who revitalised rock ‘n’ roll and opened the gates for Turner and his cronies. Following this comes the ‘movement’, which, if we’re to take the current landscape as an example, exists in the form of experimentalism and, well, postmodernity. The rising talents of today – including Albarn’s mentions of Wu-Lu and Yard Act – are garnering rapid momentum by relishing the more cult-like status of guitar music through a modern lens.
In keeping with the Arctic Monkeys example, let’s take a look at the legacy of Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not. Its success lends itself to being equal parts a departure as the arrival of a new generation. Perhaps this is telling of guitar music in that its magnum opus is that of future-gazing more so than gripping onto trends of the past. If this is the case, the genre doesn’t fall flaccid at the hands of new, definitive waves, but instead runs with them, reinventing itself and marking the first major iteration of mainstream resurgence.
To dub any band ostensibly as the last remaining great guitar band would be to overtly dismiss paralleling talent. At the same time, while the semantics of Albarn’s proclaimed “great” relates to quality alone, it would certainly be difficult for a band to replicate the same magnitude of impact that Arctic Monkeys had. In essence, they are the last of their kind rather than being the last to achieve greatness.
As Turner rather awkwardly but accurately said himself at the Brit Awards: “That rock ‘n’ roll, eh? That rock ’n’ roll, it just won’t go away. It might hibernate from time to time, sink back into the swamp. I think the cyclical nature of the universe in which it exists demands that acquiesce to some of its rules. But it’s always waiting there, just around the corner, ready to make its way back through the sludge and smash through the glass ceiling, looking better than ever. Yeah, that rock ’n’ roll, it seems like it’s faded away sometimes, but it will never die. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
The sludge is producing some glorious specimens at the moment, and one day soon, they might propel it to ceiling-smashing heights once more, and even Arctic Monkeys will no longer be the last of their kind.
