Arctic Monkeys
Favourite Worst Nightmare

THE REVIEW

My profile picture is not random, I chose it not because it turned out particularly well (even though... it does its job...), but because the Arctic Monkeys are what most represents me in the world.

Generally, they are loved by my generation for a few simple and understandable reasons:

Alex Turner is cool, and this generally works (I don't feel like I fit into this category).

They are that blend between rock and indie, very evocative, direct, and at the same time powerful.

Then they somewhat represent the classic adolescent moment where melancholy and the (false) awareness of being able to conquer the world alternate... and maybe in this, I ultimately identify.

However, with me, the Arctics went beyond, they overdid it without being aware of it (and you'd say: "thanksars..." understandable!).

They arrived in the classic period of the first major heartbreak, which coincided with being eighteen, the most complex age by far.

In a few days, due to a series of events that all coincided on a single date, November 29 (unforgettable), I found myself going from being the social hub of the entire school to being alone, deliberately relegated to a corner.

You know... during those times, you can have all the friends in the world, but you'll always want to be alone with yourself and no one else, not even the most important people.

Only one person could access my heart and mind: my friend music.

Of course, I was already familiar with Alex and company, mainly due to AM... that album is iconic from its cover alone.

However, behind it lives a masterpiece, a marvel of the universe, or rather, a marvel of the heart: "Favourite Worst Nightmare".

The approach was brutal with "Only Ones Who Know".

Imagine a boy, freshly heartbroken, in the middle of an adolescent crisis, who hears a simple melancholic guitar chord and a sad voice saying "in a foreign land, what saved her was a feeling, that what he was stealing was her very heart"... I felt involved, there was Alex Turner talking about me, whispering it to my ear, to me...

Then it continues: "People make it too easy to believe that, This real romance can't exist anymore, these days".

It was a shock, it kidnapped me.

At that point, I decided to listen to the entire album, as it should be, and the first 4 tracks, from "Brianstorm" to "D is for dangerous" gave me an incredible boost... it's like they lifted me out of bed, raised me, and forced me to run, run and run, not knowing where to, but to run, even just to return to see the world, to tell me "Look, you can do it, you're just an eighteen-year-old who got dumped, life doesn't end here, get up and run".

Then comes "Fluorescent Adolescent"... it’s hard to explain what this track represented, you’d have to know the story behind this moment and it would take 15 reviews to explain... (anyway, it's a cheerful piece, in a certain carefree sense but, also straightforward like a sword)

The other tracks are still energetic, fast, lively, almost children of Garage Rock but with the Delicacy of indie. They all contribute to the idea I had of the world at that time: everything’s a bit yellow, muffled, like being in a 40’s English pub... but an unsaturated yellow, quite gray and sad, with, instead of the moon, a 50’s microphone (I think it was called Shure or something like that).

Among these, however, there is the track that more than any other tightened every part of my body:

"Do me a favour"... I would tell you the whole story, but you need to listen to it while reading the lyrics and let yourself be captivated by its images. It's angry, sad, bold, but also delicate... it's everything that song, it’s me at that time, a volcano of contrasting emotions... but the beautiful thing is always that damn veil of melancholy, that accompanies the whole album, but this track in particular... and then comes the line that more than any other changed my way of reading a text:

"She walked away, well, her shoes were untied

and her eyes were all red,

you could see that we had cried, and I watched and waited

Until she was inside

Forcing a smile and waving goodbye"

I get chills just imagining those brief but endless seconds in which it's whispered, with pain but also with a sort of compassion... I mean, it really tells you with red eyes and forcing a goodbye, almost not a look of love but also resignation.... and then It told of a goodbye, nothing better at that moment.

"505" I’m not even capable of recounting... even more than "Do me a favour" it's the exact combination of sadness and anger, like when kids cry because you take their toy away but meanwhile, they're looking at you with all the hate they have in their body, ready to scream at you tearing their vocal cords apart. In the end, they don’t do it, it stays inside, and this internal mix is precisely "505"... indeed Alex goes from the calm and velvety organ, to all the power of the guitar and his voice, in a few seconds, just like I did.

In short, "Favourite Worst Nightmare" is not just an album for me... it tells a period where emotions were very mixed together and I primarily needed to organize them, and also to have a friend nearby who wasn’t really my friend, but who physically let me, alone, take the space I needed.

For me, it will always remain this Favourite, it will forever be my personality translated into music, as well as my first adolescent rebirth.