Here we go! Arriving with a jolting, ascending guitar intro, an intro that conveys the sensation of sticking a fork in a toaster, comes British rock’s last hurrah.
I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, by Arctic Monkeys (their 1st of two #1s)
1 week, from 23rd – 30th October 2005
We’ve heard hints of the arrival of a mid-‘00s indie rock revival in number ones from Stereophonics and Oasis. But both those bands pre-dated the movement by several years. By 2005, indie rock had been a rising force for a while, since bands like the Strokes and Libertines appeared circa 2002, but the genre’s biggest act – the one band from this time who became properly, globally famous and remain a huge deal to this day – took their time in coming along.
That is probably down to the fact that they were still teenagers when this, their debut single proper, made number one. Arctic Monkeys are, famously, from Sheffield, and Alex Turner sings in an accent so thick that it makes the Gallaghers sound posh. That’s one of the things that makes this record great, and allows me to call it British rock’s last hurrah. It takes elements from everything that went before – the Beatles’ tight harmonies, the Jam’s melodic punk, the Sex Pistols’ spit and vinegar, Oasis’s working class schtick – and still turns out something new. You can tell that the Monkeys grew up listening to rap, in the way that they lyrics are delivered, and were influenced by that very northern British, kitchen sink realism, in the way the song tells its story of an unglamorous dancefloor encounter.
Mid-‘00s indie was a very modern musical movement in general, in that it grew organically on early social media sites like MySpace, and through illegal file sharing services. To the uninitiated, it might have felt like ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ arrived out of nowhere to debut at #1 in October 2005, with the band having just been signed to a label that June, but in truth their reputation had been growing steadily ever since they’d first released music on bootleg CDs in 2003.
And, in a sign of what pop music was to become, the Arctic Monkeys brought their fans along with them. Their debut album was full of very specifically teenage lyrics, and specifically Yorkshire references. (One of my favourite lyrics of all time is from ‘Fake Tales of San Francisco’, taking aim at poseurs: You’re not from New York City, You’re from Rotherham…!) ‘I Bet You Look…’ doesn’t have a line as good as that, but No there ain’t no love no, No Montagues or Capulets, Just banging tunes and DJ sets… is up there for its clever gaucheness. And, at the end of the day, like all great rock ‘n’ roll, it’s a very horny song at heart.
Having said all that, and having given this track a deservedly glowing write-up, Arctic Monkeys are a band I struggle with. I bought the debut album, and the follow-up, and thought they chose their singles very well. But after that I struggled to love their music, and their last two albums have been a slog to listen to. On the one hand I admire their desire to move between genres, on the other I do think that there’s an element of them disappearing up their own arses. But we’ll have time to consider that after their second #1, coming up soon as part two of a quick fire chart double.
I absolutely love Arctic Monkeys. I used to be a bit more mixed on them, but over time I’ve grown to really love the band, and this song is absolutely fantastic. It’s basically dance-punk colliding with garage rock, punk, indie rock and post-punk, with this relentless energy and a great rock-and-roll feel. And I mean actual rock and roll, not simply “rock.” It captures that youthful, reckless energy that I think a lot of rock music started losing after the mid-2000s. Alex Turner’s lyrics and vocals are excellent, the production sounds great, and the whole thing is incredibly tight and well constructed. It’s just a little banger.
As much as I love Arctic Monkeys, I’m still sometimes shocked by just how massive they are. Along with Linkin Park and Coldplay, they’re among the biggest bands to emerge in the 21st century, and their streaming numbers are ridiculous. AM is my favourite album of theirs, partly because I love how they blended indie rock, hard rock and blues rock with R&B, pop and hip hop, even though a lot of their 2000s fans didn’t like it (I was the right age to experience it being in my early-teens when it came out). The Black Keys were going in that direction with Brothers and El Camino, but Arctic Monkeys took it even further. In hindsight, I think that was a really smart direction for rock music: bringing in contemporary sounds without losing the fundamental rock-and-roll character. That probably explains a lot of its enormous streaming success too. It’s hazy, nocturnal and incredibly vibey while still very clearly being a rock record. Surprisingly more bands did not follow it.
Even before streaming, Arctic Monkeys were already huge internationally, particularly in Europe, but AM was what finally pushed them into the American mainstream. I remember it being very popular in the mid-2010s, but its second life during the 2020s has been even crazier. Songs like “I Wanna Be Yours” have become absolutely gigantic with younger listeners, and it’s remarkable that an album released in 2013 has only become more culturally dominant with time.
And it’s definitely not just AM. Plenty of songs from Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, Favourite Worst Nightmare and Humbug also have enormous streaming numbers. It’s genuinely wild how popular Arctic Monkeys are with younger millennials and especially Gen Z. My younger sisters are in high school, and both they and a lot of their friends love them. There aren’t many rock bands in the 21st century that have managed to stay this culturally relevant with teenagers twenty years later.
Regardless, awesome song. One of the best rock songs of the 2000s. Glad to see it at the top. Their other No. 1 is also excellent too.
Forgot to mention, AM is currently the 13th-most streamed album on Spotify and “I Wanna Be Yours” – that song is totally going to be a first dance wedding song for a lot of zoomers – is currently the 12th-most streamed song on Spotify. Absolute insane numbers.
I only know Arctic Monkeys by name. This is a pretty decent song. Many moons ago, I generally stopped paying attention to the charts in the UK, US and elsewhere.