We move into 2006, with a classic January #1…
When the Sun Goes Down, by Arctic Monkeys (their 2nd and final #1)
1 week, from 22nd – 29th January 2006
A ‘January #1’ being a low-selling one-weeker, making it due to the general sleepiness of the market after the new year, potentially indie in leaning, or alternative in sound. Think ‘Sadeness Part 1’, or ‘Professional Widow’, or ‘The Masses Against the Classes’. Or indeed ‘When the Sun Goes Down’, Arctic Monkeys second #1.
Following their first appearance on this blog, there was some discussion of how Arctic Monkeys’ career can be split into two parts. Pre and post-‘AM’, their hugely successful 2013 album. To Gen Z, and therefore to streaming services and social media, that album is Arctic Monkeys. Which means their first four albums get overshadowed, forgotten even, in some quarters. It means you don’t hear ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ as much as you might expect, and you almost never hear their second and final chart-topper.
Which is a shame. Okay, it might not be the most commercial of their hits. It might not be as light-hearted, or as danceable as its predecessor. I mean, it might feel strange dancing to a song about prostitutes, and the ‘scummy’ men that surround them. It’s musically bold, too, starting with an extendedly slow, almost jazzy intro, in which the scene is set (with a lyrical nod to another big hit about hookers, the Police’s ‘Roxanne’).
A minute in, and we snap into a much more trademark, sharp as a tack riff. It’s even heavier than ‘…Dancefloor’, the heaviest riff we’ve heard at number one for a good long while. Like ‘…Dancefloor’ too, the lyrics go from brazenly teenage – They’re all infected, But he’ll be alright – to sharply observant. And Alex Turner’s delivery remains unashamedly South Yorkshire – we get a ‘summat’, and a ‘fookin’ freezing’, while the second verse has an all-time rhyming couplet: ‘Ford Mondeo’ with and he don’t even have to say ‘owt…
The slow, solitary guitar returns for the outro – the song only really comes to life for a minute and a half – and ends on an almost comical, music hall riff. I don’t like this record as much as ‘…Dancefloor’, but I am glad that the band chose something as deliberately uncommercial – both musically and lyrically – for their second single, knowing that there was an excellent chance of it making number one. The video is worth a watch too, perhaps one of the most unglamorous music videos of all time, featuring a young Stephen Graham as a pimp.
Maybe surprisingly, after two #1s straight out the blocks, Arctic Monkeys managed no further chart-toppers. They had plenty of hits from their second album, before their fortunes slowly slipped with albums three and four. Then, as we mentioned above, they returned with the hugely successful ‘AM’ and seemed to become a completely different band. Since then they’ve long since stopped chasing chart hits.
Meanwhile rock music in general has all but disappeared from the Top 40 in the streaming age (‘Mr Brightside’ excepted…) So, once again, we can call Arctic Monkey’s British rock’s last hurrah, bid them farewell, and prepare ourselves for a future that neither rocks nor rolls…
