A Certain Romance
The five-and-a-half-minute closer that critics singled out from the debut.
Arctic Monkeys, from Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006)
- Written by
- Alex Turner
- Released
- 2006
- Album
- Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
The longest track on the debut closes the record. Its subject is local youth subcultures. Alexis Petridis called it an insightful, oddly moving dissection of the chav phenomenon, with a narrator torn between contempt and class solidarity. Barry Walters in Rolling Stone heard a nuanced mix of sympathy for the local bad boys and sorrow for what they have wrought. NME's Tim Jonze quoted its closing line, "the point's that there ain't no romance around here", and its jab that there is only music so there are new ringtones.
Pitchfork placed it at number 90 on its list of the top 100 tracks of 2006, and NME ranked it tenth on its tracks of the decade. Pitchfork's review suggested it as a possible next single.
More songs by Arctic Monkeys
I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, When the Sun Goes Down, Mardy Bum, Fluorescent Adolescent, Do I Wanna Know?
Sources
- Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, Wikipedia
- Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not review, NME (2006-01-12)
- Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, Rolling Stone (2006-02-21)