By Jamie-Paige Tucker
Tranquillity Base Hotel and CasiNO!
If you’ve been an Arctic Monkey’s fan from the beginning you automatically think of classics such as Mardy Bum, when the sun goes down and I bet you look good on the dance floor. And even if you joined the fandom later in time, during the R U Mine phase of 2012, you’ll be expecting the familiar Yorkshire accent of Alex Turner accompanied by the tuneful instrumentals rest of the band.
This is where you’ll be left disappointed. People of all ages will have been excited by the release of Arctic Monkey’s eighth studio album, Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino. The hype didn’t last long.
TBHC was released in 2018 and followed a very different style to all of the prior discographies by the beloved band. Arguably, this album came six years after the previous one and fourteen years after their first track list. So, there is likely to have been some musical growth within this time period. But when you love something to such a degree, you don’t expect it to have changed so drastically.
The music style featured in the latest release feels like Turner and co have been sucked into the LA lifestyle that they had been living in, before the album hit the headlines. They’ve lost that raw British charm that they used to have and that the supporters loved. Now feels like this is not even an Arctic Monkey’s album at all, and their ability to connect with what the fans want has been well and truly misguided.
It understandably must be hard for a band to only ever perform the same style, especially over the duration of fourteen years. Many artists have been known to ‘reinvent’ themselves as time passes, so it’s not like this hasn’t happened before. But most fans thought the release of AM in 2012 was this reinvention, and then a second attempt came in the later years to the point where the band is so far from who they used to be, that they risk losing long term supporters.
The album itself isn’t bad. It’s well written, it’s well composed, and it is an interesting compilation of tracks, however it is not what you’d be expecting the Arctic Monkey’s to have produced. And I think that really is the downfall of this release. If another band had published this artistry, then the support behind it would likely have been very different. But unfortunately, this is just not what the fans wanted.