Arctic Monkeys - "Plastic Tramp"

After my scheduled recent post on the three new Arctic Monkeys b-sides accidentally degenerated into a more conspicuously basic discussion of "Fluorescent Adolescent" itself, I rather put off the idea of continuing to write about said tracks - "The Bakery", "Plastic Tramp" and "Too Much To Ask", respectively - until they either gained some kind of greater recognition, or I managed to run out of anything else to ask about. Thankfully, in the week or so I've been away ('or so' meaning something along the lines of 'and two days spent not wanting to come anywhere near this blog'), both of these have happened; the two most interesting newly-released singles and leaks have come from Hard-Fi and the Foo Fighters, and the Monkeys themselves gave "Plastic Tramp" a considerably higher profile when they chose it to open the encore of their reportedly career-defining Old Trafford mega-gig last week. And, I suppose, rightly so; "Plastic Tramp" is in essence a "Brianstorm" uniquely devoid of the polish James Ford infamously bestows on every single song he produces - that is, a fast-paced, aggressive and possibly slightly insane number in which Alex Turner puts his considerable lyrical talents to good use and spits out a long trail of abuse at someone who may or may not be the elusive titular character.

And despite the many who'll attest to the strength of Turner's lyrics - indeed, upon the release of Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not the number of reviewers touting the man as the voice of a generation was surely in the thousands - as with I suppose most of their Favourite Worst Nightmare-era material, this is all about the delivery. In other words, as much as young Alex may spit out the many faults of his subject (and I bid you my apologies for the repeated use of the word 'spit' - I merely want to emphasise the fact that you really can almost feel his saliva coming into contact with your face by the time this song reaches it's middle eight), his venomous words would never quite work if presented in, for example, the world-weary mellowness of "The Bakery" or the semi-Strokes-ish NYC groove of "Old Yellow Bricks". Those possibly unique and definitely quite disconcerting haunted-house guitar sounds, the absolutely relentless undertone of the bass drum which almost seems to be peering over the shoulder of the bassline at times, the wonderful and completely unexpected moment when everything fucks off but the backing vocals and they belt out a verse alone (in much the same spirit of the end of Bright Eyes' "Make War", just without the Nebraska accents), and the second or so afterwards when the music cascades back in and sounds something like the aural equivalent of a house being demolished.

[MP3] Arctic Monkeys - Plastic Tramp