Arctic Monkeys “Cornerstone”
We wouldn’t be too far off from the general consensus in the regretful admittance that most of our excitement over A NEW ARCTIC MONKEYS ALBUM quickly dissipated the first time we actually laid our ears on the thing. Like grumpy old folk who like things to always be the way they were, it was just too much of an extreme switch-up to find the usually lively Sheffield blokes attempting to sound “all growed up” with the collection’s sludgy, dark rock boogie atmospherics and Alex Turner’s sudden over-leaning on elongated vocal croons.
But we also wouldn’t be alone in truly believing that after a few spins, Humbug‘s initial inaccessibility eventually melts into being a solid enough third trip out, successfully re-formatting the Monkeys’ sound to keep the band from sounding like they’re only regurgitating past glories while igniting a flicker of promise for the routes to be taken on successive releases, where these maturing kinks are hopefully ironed out and the band grasp a better way to balance their earlier appeal with their understandable yearn to traverse different terrains.
If there was any one track presented on Humbug to target as THE stepping stone from the Arctic’s past to their future, it would have to be “Cornerstone”, the collection’s most immediately pleasing offering and the one that’ll likely warrant reason to keep re-visiting Humbug the most in the long run.
Bearing both a melodic pop catchiness and Turner’s beloved grasping of keen-eyed lyrical detailing (“I thought I saw you in the Parrots Beak/ Messing with a smoke alarm/ It was too loud for me to hear her speak/ And she had a broken arm…”), two elements that made the band’s first two albums must-haves, “Cornerstone” is grounded enough by it’s slowly churning arrangement to stay in line sonically with it’s Humbug trackmates, and arguably ends up standing as one of their best creations yet.
Here, Turner Morrissey-ly mopes around town all hours of the night, so hung up on an old love he starts “seeing” her at every pirate-themed pub he enters (The Battle Ship, Rusty Hook, Parrots Beak). But every time he gets close enough to one of these “ghosts” to spark their intrigue, he quickly ruins any shot at a new romance by requesting to call her the name of his ex. Which is kinda creepy.
Even more creepy? His chorus’ decision to take the scenic route home while in a taxi, all so he can spend more time smelling his boo’s “scent on the seat belt” or the bizarre ending verse that finds him finally getting the girl: his former love’s sister!! “She was close/
Well you couldn’t get much closer,” Turner sings matter-of-factly. We guess.
It’s kind of odd that a couple of days after their
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