Reid + Hotch

“I’m rambling, aren’t I?” “Yes.”

Listening to Humbug and Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino on a snowy afternoon

My favorite Arctic Monkeys albums are the ones that follow Last Shadow Puppets albums. These albums are my gems. My weird ones, the ones that people didn't understand, the ones where we get at least 50% lovesick Alex trying to navigate his situationship with Miles Kane after coming down from the rush of tour. These are the dreamy albums, packed with songs are about escaping and being haunted and being far away. These are the albums where the music lifts the words in ways we hadn't heard them play previously.

Humbug, with few song exceptions (Cornerstone I love you forever but you feel like you belong somewhere else), sounds like it was recorded underwater. The drums thud. The rough edges are smoothed off Alex’s voice and the songs are sinking into an unknown.

And nine years later Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino flips the narrative. It's the sound of a place that doesn't exist and can't exist. It's the mirror of Humbug, where Alex's lyrics float in a galaxy of shimmering reverb. The production is polished and layered and he's crooning high above the Earth.

I think as a fandom we spend a lot of time having fun with the conversations betwen Alex and Miles via their songs and albums. But I haven't spent as much time thinking about how Alex’s songs and albums are a conversation with himself.

I think I really fell in love with Miles’s songwriting because I saw it thru Alex’s eyes. I also had a lot of fun playing around with THEIR shared influences as songwriters (Marc Bolan, we love you). But I suspect I grew to love Miles’s work because I see the traces of him in Arctic Monkeys songs. This is ESPECIALLY SO on the post TLSP projects.

I'm going to have some fun, and I'd love your thoughts. I've intertwined portions of AM3 and AM6 albums and b sides in this playlist. Are these songs from 2009 / 2018 having a conversation? How would we as a fan community arrange this list?