AM

AM was produced by James Ford and co-produced by Ross Orton at Sage & Sound Recording in Los Angeles and Rancho De La Luna in Joshua Tree, California. Ford said that, unlike the live approach of the previous album, bass and drums were laid down first with an emphasis on groove. The band added a Hohner Guitaret, celeste and a vintage drum machine. Josh Homme, Pete Thomas and Bill Ryder-Jones guested. Turner called Homme's part on Knee Socks his favourite moment of the album. The closing I Wanna Be Yours sets words from a poem by John Cooper Clarke.

The title was taken from the Velvet Underground's VU, which Turner confessed to stealing. He told NME the album sounded like a Dr. Dre beat given an Ike Turner bowl-cut and sent galloping across the desert on a Stratocaster.

Reception

AM sold 157,329 copies in its first week to reach number one in the UK, making the band the first independent-label act with five consecutive number-one albums there. In the United States it entered at number six on the Billboard 200 and was later certified four-times platinum. Metacritic gives it 81 out of 100. At the 2014 Brit Awards it won British Album of the Year, and the band took British Group, becoming the first to win both categories three times.

Ryan Dombal at Pitchfork called it paranoid and haunted, and wrote that it moves beyond sweaty clubs into hotel rooms and after parties. The Guardian said it connected the muscular riffs of Humbug and the wistful pop of Suck It and See with the energy of the early records. NME made it its album of the decade for 2010 to 2019.