Did Alex take a Turn-er for the Worse?

Did Alex take a Turn-er for the Worse?

               
                Let’s talk about something very important within today’s society; Alex Turner’s metamorphosis within the music industry.
           Ok, it’s not that important but cast your mind back to 2006, young Alex Turner with his guitar questionably high, singing about  “dreams of naughtiness” soon matured into a lyrical genius with his, majorly overlooked, friend Miles Kane in 2008, putting what can only be described as poetic beauty over the top of Scott Walker-esque chord combinations.
            After years of providing Monkey’s fans with 5 albums, each differing from each other in creative ways, why did it come as such a shock when their latest album AM sounded so different to what fans expected?
           What were the fans expecting anyway?
           For Turner not to change his style slightly?
           For the band to go back to their garage-style ways?
           For them to not mature musically and as a band?
            Yes, at Reading Festival his hair contained a questionable amount of gel and he may have put on a slight American accent on stage. But who gives a shit? As a band they are expected to provide us with good music and a good time. Did they do that? Yes they did. So let’s not slate them for that.
            What we should slate Arctic Monkeys for is their repetitive shows and lack of enthusiasm to make every performance individual from the last one. Mario Cuomo, lead singer of The Orwells who supported Arctic Monkeys on a US tour, stated that “in moving to bigger venues they (Arctic Monkeys) have stopped being spontaneous”. Cuomo claimed that each show was identical to the previous, filled with “the same ad libs” and if “you saw them once” then “you'd pretty much seen every date that they'd played".
            Yes there is the argument that when a band reaches such high levels in fame that they may not have enough time to make each show spectacularly different however, as Cuomo rightly pointed out, “Nirvana played bigger shit than that” and they received reviews such as “it was a truly remarkable night”.
            But how many of us can honestly say, hand on heart, that we wouldn’t modify ourselves to fit the demands of the music industry so we could be raking in the money at the end of the day?
            However, credit where credit is due to Arctic Monkeys as they helped push vinyl sales back into the millions in 2013. With their album AM, teenagers gained a sudden interest in owning it on vinyl. Admittedly, with the hype that lingered with this album, even I was tempted to buy it on vinyl when I saw it sat there with its simple yet endearing album artwork in HMV. But then even I had to “snap out of it” (pun intended) because liking Arctic Monkeys is apparently social suicide.
         Surely the last thing I want is to advertise my admiration for them by owning their vinyl because, apparently, liking their latest album and sudden musical maturity is the crime of the year.