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The 30 Best Arctic Monkeys Songs

Celebrating the Sheffield band’s finest moments, from dirty dance floors to the Information-Action Ratio, and everywhere in between

Arctic Monkeys

ANY BAND THAT hits as hard as Arctic Monkeys hit in 2005 runs the risk of forever being trapped in rock ’n’ roll amber, doomed to push the same four-chord boulder up a hill, or fall into a nostalgic abyss. Arctic Monkeys not only avoided that fate, they thrived in the face of it. In the 18 years since their debut single (“Fake Tales of San Francisco” b/w “From the Ritz to the Rubble,” still both among their best), they’ve crafted one of the most compelling catalogs in contemporary music, and Alex Turner has solidified his place as one of this generation’s great songwriters and frontmen.

Arctic Monkeys achieved this not through pandering or “playing the hits,” but by regularly confounding expectations: enlisting Josh Homme to gunk up their jitteriness with some desert sludge, or trading in their guitars for pianos as they embarked on a full-blown space odyssey. And through his lyrics, Turner crafted a language and style all his own. He’s a yarn weaver, as quick with a quip or a clever bit of wordplay as he is with some stark, sincere, sage distillation of the ways we live and love. Even as his metaphors have grown more oblique, his imagery a touch phantasmagorical and deliciously ludicrous, his words remain grounded in the kind of kitchen sink realism that made Arctic Monkeys’ earliest recordings so thrilling and immediate.

So here are 30 great Arctic Monkeys songs that celebrate and showcase that creativity and breadth. Like any best of list, think of this as just a best of list, not the best of list (in other words, please don’t @ us). Hopefully, though, this list expresses what’s so great about those lovable lads from Sheffield — the way they got us to stop asking, who the fuck are Arctic Monkeys?, and start wondering, who the fuck are Arctic Monkeys going to be next?

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From Rolling Stone US

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‘Cornerstone’

Leave it to Alex Turner to have the only song on Humbug written in a major key also be the album’s most incisive and heartbreaking. The track’s narrative sees Turner looking for an old lover at her old haunts, and in the faces of new lovers. Over three verses, these romantic distractions turn down the singer and his odd request to call them by his ex’s name. Then in the perfect songwriting twist, he finds someone who’ll oblige in the final verse — his ex’s sister. Turner has often spoken about how proud he is of “Cornerstone,” which was inspired by Patsy Cline. “I was listening to a lot of country music when I wrote it, and it had that formula where the verses always end the same way,” he told Vulture in 2018. “Not to sound like a wanker, but with that song, I had an idea and it wrote itself. I’m not sure how I ended up with the girl’s sister in the last verse, though. When I was in school, I think I probably fancied my girlfriend’s sister or something.” “Cornerstone” is as much a favorite of Turner’s as it is of Arctic Monkeys fans; the track has become a staple on their setlist in the 14 years since its release. —B.S.

1

‘No. 1 Party Anthem’

This isn’t just for the bit. If you want to pinpoint the “where are you going, where have you been” fulcrum for Arctic Monkeys, it’s hard to do better than “No. 1 Party Anthem.” It’s the piano ballad outlier on 2013’s AM, otherwise one of the best rock guitar albums of the last 20-odd years, and it points to the far out spaces the band would explore on their next two records. Yet it’s also vintage Arctic Monkeys, one of the best late-night tales Turner has ever told (and he’s told tons). “To me, that song is about a kind of midnight where you feel like you’re in this parallel universe,” he put it to Rolling Stone in 2013.On “No. 1 Party Anthem,” Turner is no longer navigating the dingy debauchery of Sheffield nightclubs; he’s on the prowl at some high-end spot, lonely and rakish. But while the setting is different, the stakes remain the same. There’s yearning and self-consciousness, intoxicated posturing and sober disillusionment, lingering adolescent anxiety and a particular proclivity for poor decisions: “It’s not like I’m falling in love, I just want you/To do me no good/And you look like you could.”The one thing that can cut through all that noise, or at least help someone make sense of it? Music. An obvious answer, and also a kind of cheesy, slightly embarrassing one. Turner gets that, deeply and sincerely. Which is why “No. 1 Party Anthem” culminates around a rousing call — at once a genuine plea and a drunken request shouted at an uninterested DJ — for some nameless, ideal song. Because the song always has the answer. No matter what it is, even if it changes from one night to the next. That’s why it’s the best one ever. —J.B.