Arctic Monkeys - AM (LP) Vinyl

AM is the fifth studio album by the English rock band Arctic Monkeys, released on 9 September 2013 through Domino Recording Company. It follows Suck It and See (2011) and precedes Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino (2018), and it is the record on which the band moved away from the guitar band template of their early work towards a darker, groove led sound drawing on hip hop and R&B.

The Album

AM was produced by longtime collaborator James Ford and co-produced by Ross Orton. Alex Turner wrote all of the lyrics except on "Mad Sounds", co-written with Alan Smyth, and "I Wanna Be Yours", adapted from the poem by John Cooper Clarke; the music is credited to the band. Three guests appear on the record: Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age sings backing vocals on "One for the Road" and "Knee Socks", Pete Thomas plays percussion on "Mad Sounds", and Bill Ryder-Jones adds guitar to "Fireside". The band widened its instrumentation for these sessions, bringing in keyboards including piano, organ and celeste, a Hohner Guitaret and a vintage drum machine. Turner took the album title from the Velvet Underground compilation VU, telling Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 that initialling the record simply felt right. Six singles were drawn from it: "R U Mine?", "Do I Wanna Know?", "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?", "One for the Road", "Arabella" and "Snap Out of It".

Recording

The album was recorded at Sage & Sound Recording in Los Angeles and at Rancho De La Luna in Joshua Tree, California, with keyboards cut at Vox Recording Studios in Los Angeles and "R U Mine?" produced and engineered at McCall Sound Studios. James Ford changed the working method from the largely live approach of Suck It and See, laying down bass and drums first and building each song around the groove. Tchad Blake mixed the record at Full Mongrel Studios in Wales and Brian Lucey mastered it at Magic Garden Mastering, with the LP cut by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Los Angeles. The sleeve was designed by Alex Turner and Matthew Cooper, with photography by Zackery Michael.

This Pressing

This is the single 12 inch LP pressed on 180 gram heavyweight vinyl and issued on Domino under catalogue number WIGLP317, made in the EU. The twelve tracks run six to a side in a gatefold sleeve carrying the band photograph across the inner spread, and the record sits in an anti-static inner sleeve. A double sided 12 inch lyric insert is included, together with a digital download card.

Reception

AM was met with critical acclaim, holding a score of 81 out of 100 on Metacritic from 36 reviews. NME gave it 10 out of 10 and called it "absolutely and unarguably the greatest record of their career", while Tim Jonze in The Guardian awarded four stars, writing that the album connects the muscular riffs of Humbug and the wistful pop of Suck It and See "with the bristling energy and sense of fun that propelled their initial recordings". It entered the UK Albums Chart at number one on 157,329 copies, the band's fifth consecutive album to do so, and reached number six on the Billboard 200, their highest placing in the United States. It won British Album of the Year at the 2014 BRIT Awards and was nominated for the 2013 Mercury Prize. NME later placed it first on its Greatest Albums of the Decade list for the 2010s, and Rolling Stone ranked it number 346 in the 2020 edition of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Track Listing

Side One
1. Do I Wanna Know?
2. R U Mine?
3. One For The Road
4. Arabella
5. I Want It All
6. No.1 Party Anthem

Side Two
1. Mad Sounds
2. Fireside
3. Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?
4. Snap Out Of It
5. Knee Socks
6. I Wanna Be Yours