Popular Music Blog 

William Vessey

Over the years there has been a huge change in the music industry. I believe it's simply because everyone has improved, we're all better at what we do. The musicians have improved and the engineers have improved making the sound we hear in general even stronger. Acts after Elvis such as 'The Beatles' when you listen to it you can hear buried within that it's simply rock and roll or gospel or rhythm and blues, the genres of the time. The trick is with bands now is that we keep adding to what already exists, adding instruments or techniques to different genres, experimenting with it. 

AM, Arctic Monkeys - 2013

They say Rock and Roll will never die but to me it seems to have half a foot or so in the grave and this is why I enjoy this album. It gave me a shimmer of hope that popular music, the so called 'rock and roll' was still heading in a good direction, guitar bands were still around. 

Alex Turner in many ways is the Elvis of our time but for where Turner lacked vocal range he made up with instrumental ability and for where Presley lacked in guitar skills he made up with his vocal quality. Not only does this album entice people with its music but it changed our culture. Leather jackets were popular again as well as the classic slicked back hair. It made me want to improve my guitar skills. This album turned back time and created a 1960's again, which to me is amazing. 

Musical Features

Song Structure

V C V C - Do I Wanna Know

V C V C B S C - R U Mine

V C V C B S C - One for the Road

V C V C B S C - Arabella 

Here are the first four songs on the album and again this same verse chorus pattern is noticeable, the hit 'Do I Wanna Know' is only made up of a verse and chorus which is repeated with slightly different elements and added instrumental content. Due to commercial reasons songs in this century had to be longer, the song on 'Elvis' Golden records' would average at somewhere between two and two and a half minutes where as on 'AM' they all lie between three to four minutes (with one exception) which has become the standard pop song length. 

What's astonishing is that the following three songs have exactly the same structure which is how most Rock songs are now written. The verse chorus structure has been adapted and experimented with to now having often including a bridge(working as a build) into a guitar solo, to fit into the typical song length. Elvis did sometimes include a bridge and a solo but again due to commercial and production reasons of his time his songs typically stuck to the short upbeat standard verse chorus structure. 

Use of Harmony

The large majority of songs on this album are written in a minor key, fondly preferred by guitar players. This leads me to explaining my findings for the chord progressions on this album. Looking back at Rock and Roll we have the 3 chord structure of chords 1 4 5, arctic monkeys have in ways followed in the footsteps of the blues by using mainly 3 chords too, but they've turned them into minor key, swapping chord 4 for chord 7. So where in Elvis you'd hear chords E major, A major and B major. In 'AM' you'd hear E minor, C major and A minor. Tracks 'Do I Wanna Know' and 'One for the Road' give good examples of this psychedelic sounding rock progression.  

The evidence of the song structures answer my question to why this album runs so smoothly, sounding similar throughout yet having the ability to not bore the listener. That ability is because of the harmonic content. This album is an incredible sounding studio album and you know it's been recorded each track at time, multi-track recording. Starting with the drums and bass, the evidence for this point lies within the emphasised groove. 'Do I Wanna Know' and 'R U Mine' both have similar layout, with the first verse including all instruments then for the second verse it's just drums bass and vocals. Making the guitar sound bigger for when it later arrives.  

Texture and Instrumentation

Elvis Presley had what seems to be the first successful 'band' and this layout consisted of four members, and this has become the most common and stereotypical rock band set up. Consisting of the main instruments; drums, bass, guitar and vocals. 

Matt Helders - Drums

Nick O'Malley - Bass

Jamie Cook - Electric Guitar

Alex Turner - Vocals, Electric Guitar

These are the well known ingredients to create rock sounding music, and has been for many decades. An interesting thought is that if Elvis' band had been any different would the rock bands today be different. For example if Elvis never used a drummer, would as many bands today still use one? 

But again like Elvis the Arctic Monkeys classic four had expanded through their career incorporating instruments using keyboards to create; piano, organ, celesta and a 'Horner Guitaret' making their sound less heavy. Elvis didn't have the opportunity to use these instruments but maybe now due to the huge success of 'AM' more rock bands will start using these  new instruments. The texture of 'AM' shows clear signs of the ever adding and molding to what was once, Rock and Roll. 

Stylistic Quality 

Alex Turner is a style icon, inspiring many to imitate the 1960's, myself being guilty. This album was an indication that guitar bands weren't dead and this Rock and Roll persona was still going strong. Turners vocals lack the range that Elvis had but he could sing the deeper notes and the way he slurred his lyrics in an almost provocative fashion must like the King. 

I saw the Arctic Monkeys at their first show of the 'AM' tour and the way Alex Turner grooved to the music, predominately using his hips had everyone screaming, and with the slicked hair and sparkly jacket there was only one man to compare him to.      

This very exploratory album took in a lot of different genres and styles of music to once again to create it's own unnamed style. 'AM' took in Rhythm and blues, psychedelia, blues, soul with even a hint of slow ballroom themes. The album sounds very 'Ziggy Stardust but with a Dr Dre drum beat'. Due to this album being recorded in LA there's noticeable american themes within songs such as 'R U Mine' and 'Arabella' where you want to put on a leather jacket and ride across the desert in a Cadillac. Whereas tracks 'No.1 Party Anthem' and 'Mad Sounds' make you want to slow down the world and dance in a tuxedo, it truly is a 'Sexy after midnight album'.   

So many bands now are defined as 'indie', Arctic Monkeys being one of them, and if each band were truly individual from every other band that's ever existed, then round of applause. It means thousands of bands have created a new style, Elvis and Rock and Roll will of once been classed as 'indie' music but it grew to be universal and more distinctive, I believe 'AM' will have the same effect on the world.  

Musical Devices

Looking at the instrumentation there's all sorts going on musically both old and new. Starting with the old; this album is full of backing vocals much like 'Elvis' Golden Records'. Each track on 'AM' has the falsetto backing vocals presenting various 'oooos' and 'ahhhhs' as well as 'shewops', sometimes repeating lyrics and working as a call and response with lead vocals. Sounding very late 50s and 60s in tracks 'I Want It All' and 'Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High' but with the obvious modern twist. If the backing vocalists on Elvis' record sang in falsetto then it'd be extremely similar in sound. 

Alex Turner has adapted his own style of guitar play, where as most rock guitarists cram as many notes as they can, Turners style is much more laid back using various slides and pitch bends and sometimes playing off other instruments and copying the melody of his vocal line, perhaps inspired by Elvis' 'Heartbreak Hotel'. Compared to Scotty More, Alex turner had a much wider selection of guitars and amplifiers giving off different sounds much thicker and dirtier than More could ever achieve. 

The 12 bar blues bass riff gave songs a direction and kept everyone in time, this repetitiveness of the riff is something that's stuck through time. The bass is most often the most repetitive element of any track and in the song 'One for the Road' that bass riff remains almost throughout. Working as a modern representation of the 12 bar blues. 

As for drums there was a frequent use of drum machines, technology that hadn't even been imagined back in the 'Rock n Roll' era. Opening many doors for not just rock bands to follow.  

Lyrical Themes

Arctic Monkeys used to write about what was very apparent with a regular use of swearing to match the whole persona of Rock and Roll. But in this album they have shifted themselves from this mean grunge style of writing to a more mystic, soft rock romance. Telling the familiar tales of being in love with 'Do I Wanna Know' with the lyrics 'do i wanna know if this feeling flows both ways'. Hoping she loves him too, other songs with this theme include 'R U Mine' and 'I Wanna Be Yours' (i know it's a poem). They stick to their roots writing about wasted phone calls, drunken monologues and post break ups.
Tracks such as 'Arabella' portrait a different theme with very abstract lyrics, pushing their boat out further to catch more attention.