Hey Arctic Monkeys Fans!

What do you think of the Last Shadow Puppets?

I'm enjoying the hell out of it, but am curious as to what some of the more hardcore Monkeys fans think.

The Last Shadow Puppets may very well be the best album I've heard so far this year. Strange that I'm so enamored with a side project of a band that I'm not all that big a fan of to begin with (I like the Arctic Monkeys enough but don't see them as anything particularly special). Nevertheless, I really like the pervasive Scott Walker influence on this Puppets album. The Walkerish drama and tension gives many of the songs quite a bit of depth and power and while the 60's pop sound employed on the album does tend to give it a somewhat retro feel, it's still a direction I find far more interesting, fresh and original than the one taken by Alex Turner's main band.

I'm a fan of both - I thought the last Arctic Monkeys record was a spectacular success really brimming with smarts, hooks and all kinds of interesting little detours within the formula.

It might sound weird but Favourite Worst Nightmare evoked Astral Weeks to me in some ways ; well in ONE way actually, and that was that Alex Turner, at 20/21 seemed to know much more about the world and middle age malaise and how to express it than you would think possible. (I think Van Morrison was 22 or 23 at the time of Astral Weeks recording).

I was kind of shocked at his ability to write outside of himself on that record - insights into dream deferred and marriages on the rocks - he has a keen eye of observation and puts that into memorable details in the songs. He's quite a writer.

The Last Shadow Puppets record works in a lot of the same ways - it should sound contrived and over-thought, but instead seems to be entirely natural (at least while it's playing, maybe not when you're thinking about it).

Nowadays that's the hardest trick - making the conceptual seem organic.........

The Astral Weeks comparison is interesting...I would agree with that Turner has a poetical maturity beyond his years, as Morrison had. But I think a Pete Townshend comparison is more apt. He's the same age as Van Morrison, and wrote "A Quick One" at that same age.

And with Astral Weeks, producer Lew Merenstein and the group of well-heeled jazz musicians (Connie Kaye, Richard Davis) deserve more credit for the atmosphere of that album than they ever got. Van never really had much control over the arrangements and performances on that album. With every single subsequent album he would assume a draconian level of creative control, but with Astral Weeks he was signed to Merenstein's production company.

I think the Turner comparison flags though, when you consider the fact that Van Morrison never did anything approaching "rock" and had a phobia for anything but the most subtle electric guitar (just ask John Platania). And the Monkeys are wholly guitar-centered. So I see more of a Who/Townshend correlation.

"....Van Morrison never did anything approaching "rock" and had a phobia for anything but the most subtle electric guitar....."

Umm, I hate to rat out a fellow member o' the Nation, but I seem to remember a song that went G-L-O-RRRRRR, G-L-O-R-I-A!!!!, as well as a bunch of others done under the name of THEM (although you're right about his solo career).

Yeah, that comment was strictly based on his solo career...

Again, sorry about doing that, Erik, but I felt like Manny Ramierz seeing a nice juicy fastball coming his way. Otherwise, you were spot on. Anyway, it's pretty interesting how the stuff that Van did w/Them was so different from his solo stuff. Does he still do stuff like "Gloria" & "Here Comes the Night" live? I know he did so in the early 70s.

P.S.: Wasn't that a great game last night?

When he appeared on Austin City Limits a couple of years ago, he did indeed do "Gloria." In fact, he was out the door and in his limo before the band finished playing it.

I'm not really a fan of the Monkeys, but I was totally captivated by the Puppets song I've heard on YouTube. In fact, intend to go buy it today (Saturday).

I like it, but what's Miles Kane bringing to the party?

If you've heard anything of his group (the) Rascals, you might be aware that he doesn't seem to be, I dunno, very, um, good...? As they say, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

Yeah, Turner/Townshend is definitely an apt comparison - and a more clearly direct one for sure - there's also a touch of Costello in the detail he brings to the some of the best lyrics he writes.

I throw out the Van Morrison/Astral Weeks thing in the sense that I personally didn't see Turner writing those kind of songs on the 2nd Arctics album - he seemed to have an insight and worldliness outside of what I knew about him from the debut or from the press. It seems to come from an older, more wisened mind, even though the sensibility of the music is obviously quite different between Morrison and the Arctic Monkeys.

I suspect Astral Weeks must have caught many off-guard in '68 - that record doesn't have much precedent in the entire Rock culture vocabulary prior to it, much less in Morrison's work prior . There must have been lots of head scratching when that first came out based on Morrison's previously recorded output.

Townshend's great gift of course was to articulate what being a teenager/young man felt like probably better than anyone, especially in those great singles : arrogance & defiance (My Generation, Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere), raging hormones & gender confusion (Pictures of Lily, I'm A Boy), ecstatic longing (Can't Explain), generational fraternity (Kids Are Alright and, er, My Generation again).

That is clearly the same sort of thing Turner tapped into on the Arctics debut as well ; I like that he didn't continue to play that card though on the follow-up and went for something more panoramic.

Alright, I've taken two months to live with it, and I'm finding this album to be one of my favorites of the year. It seems evoke a somehow euro-retro feel while still standing outside of time or place. I like it.

I'd say it's like Cyrkle/Beau Brummels/Walker Brothers meets Arctic Monkeys. But then again like nothing else at all.



Post Edited (07-07-08 18:40)

I don't mind the Monkeys but I'm not what I'd call a hardcore fan but I brought the Last Shadow Puppets CD almost as soon as I heard it. Curiously I'd been listening to that Scott Walker sings Brel record recently. Imagine doing something that good as your side project.