Arctic Monkeys – Suck It and See
“Hi. We have a video budget, and you do not.”
[Video][Website]
[6.62]
Anthony Easton: The referents here are way too English for me to comment with any authority, but I do enjoy dandelion and Braddock soda.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Their moment gone, perhaps forever, the boys turn up the jangle and Alex Turner stretches vowels, adds do-do-dos, and savors “dandelion” like a twentysomething who just discovered Bona Drag-era Morrissey. I wish more bands followed their lead. But Turner is wrong: he poured his aching brain into pop songs. “Hearts” are a commodity these boy shave proudly done without.
[7]
Hazel Robinson: I like the version of Alex Turner that made the Submarine soundtrack, and I’m very confident that by this point in their career the Arctic Monkeys aren’t making a banal chorus in a Killers style by accident, so I’m predisposed towards this and “I poured my aching heart into a pop song” offsets even the following “that ain’t a skirt girl, that’s a sawn-off shot gun” into a bitter, dreamy mess.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: There’s a wonderfully jagged, louche song here that you really shouldn’t like, but it shrouds itself in so much jangle and blah that the issue never arises.
[5]
Brad Shoup: I always heard the Monkeys could write, but I have to give it up for this louche, offhandedly clever pop text. Perhaps they’ve thrown in their lot with the Loudon Wainwrights and Jarvis Cockers of the world. If so, they can expect forgiveness for the sun-drenched California banality of the track; even better, we’ll call it the best part of the joke.
[8]
Sally O’Rourke: The swoony romance of “Suck It and See” is a pleasant surprise, given its inauspicious title and the band’s recent spate of haze-by-numbers singles. Alex Turner’s at his best writing forthright ballads, which highlight his aptitude for classic pop melodies and song construction. “Suck It and See” has got the music part down; shame, then, that Alex’s typically sharp observational lyrics are dulled by so many clunky metaphors.
[7]
Andy Hutchins: I’m just dropping in for the first time in far too long to say that as someone who wore out <i>Whatever You Say…</i> and enjoyed <i>Favourite</i> and had all but given up by the third album, I’m glad, at least, that Alex Turner’s pen and voice are still sort of appealing, but that the boys in the band should probably forget how to properly play their instruments and go back to the slapdash hurricane aesthetic because it is far less boring.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: The Arctic Monkeys’ journey towards sophistication happened so gradually I went past being shocked and straight on to finding it delightful. “Suck It and See” hides its whip-smart lyrics in a sea of cloudy jangle, but the hooks are as clear as day. If Alex Turner keeps up this sort of trajectory, he’s going to end up as Richard Hawley and that would be a fine thing indeed.
[8]