Arctic Monkeys - great or greatly overrated?

No matter your opinion on them, I can almost guarantee that you have at least one friend who adores Arctic Monkeys. Equally, you probably also have at least one friend who despises Alex Turner and thinks NME need to get their heads out of his perk behind. Maybe you know someone whose opinion is a bit of both, like mine.

I don't think there can be any denying that the Monkeys' debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, is one of the greatest albums of the 21st century. Raw and subtly poetic, the Sheffield boys stuck to their roots and sang about things that affect us all - the bands in the shabby clubs that think they're from America when in reality they're from humble Yorkshire in Fake Tales Of San Fransico, for example. 

Second album Favourite Worst Nightmare is riper; more refined, and although has some flashes of brilliance on it, such as the beautiful 505, it will never quite edge their debut for me. 

After that came Humbug, an album which I consider as their worst overall effort, but which gave us, in my opinion, some of their best singles. Pretty Visitors, for example, is dark and dreamy and has the line "What came first? The chicken or the dickhead?" which is great fun to shout (more than sing) along to. 

Fourth album Suck It And See is the one that they seem to have put the least amount of effort into. It's not actually a bad album, but the music itself is almost as bland as the artwork, which they clearly put no effort into at all. It's a bit of a "mostly-filler-some-killer" album, like Humbug, only better.

Despite the ups and downs of their career during these first albums, the only real controversy started with the release of latest record AM. They've gone all LA on us with their leather jackets and quiffs and sunglasses indoors, and despite Turner's famously egotistical speech at the BRIT awards, their music has become less rock n roll, more hip-hop. And now he's been accused of tax dodging. In light of all this, people who have been fans for a while are all of a sudden not fans anymore. This hasn't phased the Monkeys though, because after the recent huge success of single Do I Wanna Know (which, by the way, I adore), the number of new fans has increased massively. I'm sure they'll still be selling out stadium tours for many years to come. So tell that friend that you have, the one who's a massive fan, that they needn't worry... though I doubt they were anyway.

Written by Molly McGrath. All opinions are mine, not FIBLAR's as a collective.