My Top Twenty Records of the Year: Number 17:Arctic Monkeys-Suck It And See

I'm pretty sure the only person left with a MySpace might be Tila Tequila. Poor thing. The Monkeys are far ahead of the MySpace nowadays, well, at least in England. Which is a shame since somewhere between "Brainstorm" and Humbug, Alex Turner has become this generation's answer to Jarvis Cocker. Suck It and See takes the formula from the brilliant "Cornerstone", the highlight of Humbug, and stretches it across eleven songs (I would say twelve but "Brick by Brick" is basically unlistenable). Check out this little nugget: "that's not a skirt girl/that's a sawn off shotgun/and I can only hope that you got it aimed at me." Or how about this one, "do you look in the mirror to remind yourself that you're there/or have someone's goodnight kisses got that covered/Well I'm not being honest, I'll pretend you're just some lover." Or better yet: "I took the batteries out of my mysticism/and put them in my thinking cap." The album bristles with Turner's new found confidence in the pop form. One needs not reinvent the wheel, they only need to excel in it. Tila would agree I think.