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arctic monkeys Fluorescent Adolescent
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by Sean Adams
  • Type: Single
  • Release date: 04/07/2007

Round our way there’s this little dead-end lane, things get righ’ dangerous down there all the time. You may have seen the scene in the local paper where some smugfuck no-name journo proudly purports to “know where your children are!” The trouble is, as soon as he thought he had them pegged, they’d picked up the girls' Lambrinis and scarpered like leaves in the breeze.

They now hang around in the park - saves all that running in the shadows and there’s no old-lady neighbours, only toddlers to disturb. Boys and girls sit on swings, shivering a little but maybe it’s just shaky nerves as they try to hold hands and talk about bands as they willow back and forth. They sit around hating themselves, wishing they were older (and rich and famous), totally unaware that at some point, a few years from now, they’ll no longer wannabe older and tearfully wish they were young again. There’s a transitional tipping point when the hangovers become too much; the shopping trolley filled with fireworks and stolen biscuits and the prams full of sun-cooked cider begin to become warm wanton memories.

Despite not being the very finest moment of Favourite Worst Nightmare (that’s clearly the undeniably incredible ‘505’), ’Fluorescent Adolescent’ has a lot and little to do with all the above. It has even less to do with the nu neon rave 'movement'. It’s simply a great choon and proper great single we'll all be sick of in three months' time (but still singing at 3am in the chip shop on the way home) from that-juggernaut-band-from-oop-norf with one of their chirpiest chunks of scuffed-knee sentimentality, until the next one. It skitters perfectly in a funfair of colours, making dizzying lurches, which is as near as they’ll ever get to croon-some. In fact it's so affecting that it’s sure to make The View throw those stinking jeans away and get their Gregg’s overalls back on.

In conclusion, this easily wins the award for best use of the word TABASCO in a pop song, ever.

Click here to watch the video.

  • Arctic Monkeys 9 / 10
Words: Sean Adams

Review the song next time please

Regards, your A-Level English teacher.


Great song

Awful review.


is this...

the one that sounds like the fratellis?


Good heavens that was an annoying read.

Do try to use legitimate words and phrases in the future please to at least bring them closer to being plausable.


Fuck it,

it's my birthday.. i don't have to make sense.


sorry to complain about another DiS article

but this review is complete wank. Next time you might want to try this thing called "music journalism" rather than retarded social commentary


or rry genuine social commentary

rather than just sticking a load of supposed choice quotables together.


What a couple of dicks.

And not a testicle between them.


Worst Arctic Monkeys single

By FAR. It's throwaway pop nonsense and will get tiring.

It is a single though.

6/10.


Could well be Babyshambles

albeit with Yorkshire accents...


this^

i dont like this song, after their first single you'd think they wouldnt put out some boring indie nonsense


Cover art

I've not heard the song and don't intend to, but this is some of the most hideous cover art I've seen in a long time. Please tell me the band designed this themselves, I can't bear to think that someone was paid to come up with that. It looks like someone has typed "free fonts" into Google, grabbed the first one and plonked it on a blank page in MSPaint. An affront to design.


haha

twat. and rubbish review.


the artwork is

sort of a bit different but not groundbreakingly so, supposedly a bit edgy but totally here and now and will look crap in a few years. All in all, a forgettable, clumsy and amateurish stab at individuality that people will look back at with more than a hint of embarrassment before too long.

Pretty appropriate for this band I'd say...


therapyrock has hit the nail on the head

Thats what the Arctic monkeys essentially are...Babyshambles hailing from Yorkshire, i.e. complete fucking dross.


Babyshambles from Yorkshire

Oh dear. I doubt they could write a song this tight.


I like the review and song

it is just a style of writing.

It is better than what you get from the NME and all that jazz,

oh and all those people who make music reviews sound like a scientific disection.

Which i suppose is appropriate for animal collective.

Not the arctic monkeys.


well i actually very much enjoyed this review

I thought it was nice. well done.


Terrible song/Terrible review

I can't wait for inide music like this to die out.

Artshit monkeys.


I can't wait for Muse fans to die out.

That's why I've bought an arsenal of ex-Soviet weaponry to hurry the process along.


In that case...

...don't you think you've missed the boat slightly, considering there was a large gathering of them for two days only a week and a half ago?


Average song...

but good choice of single.


Brilliant pop song.

A young Jarvis would have been proud of this tune.

Pretty good review too. Shame this forum is full of moronic philistines incapable of lateral thinking though, hence the dissing.


wow, you've really got our number

we ARE incapable of lateral thinking. That explains it all

Thnkz


If a young Jarvis had written this

Pulp would never have got anywhere ever.

Jarvis = good
Artci Monkeys = shit


Oh dear. You're clueless.

Pulp never got anywhere till Jarvis started writing brilliant pop songs like Lipgloss. If a young Jarvis had written Fluorescent Adolescent then Pulp wouldn't have spent fifteen years playing toilets. And Jarvis likes Arctic Monkeys.

In the words of Tracey, the cheesy Quaver from Big Brother, deal wiv it.


I tried to read this review

And failed. It's about as unreadable as doctors handwriting.


crap

this article should be shot.


this is the kind of review

that gets written on the assumption that everyone already knows the song.

i don't, so this review fails me.


that is why

i put the youtube video in.


it's not a great review

but when you're the overlord and king-daddy of the playground, do you even have to be any good?

i think it is quite depressingly babyshamblish too.


I deny

That "505" is incredible. Please edit the review.


^

Seconded. Motion passed.


Ah yes

The old 'listen to it and judge for yourself whilst I wank in circles around the song' journo technique. Wonder why it isn't done more?


I was hoping

you'd explain who these monkeys were.

poor journalism


I don't like that review

Its really horribly written, soo Mark Beamont


^^^

There is SOME middle ground between dissecting a song in mind numbing detail and writing cod-literature that's so dense it becomes unreadable. This is truly horrible.


crap

review..worst review i've probably ever read...and the song is a pop song, you all need to chill out.


I really don't get...

...what's the fuss with these guys, they sound like the libertines but more tight, less exiting, not as inventive and with sheffield accents.

It's funny though whenever there's an iconic band (libs), there's always about 10 best bands ever that sound exactly the same but are supposed to sound completely different than anything ever before in the music industry.


Don't make me laugh.

The Libertines are about as iconic as Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits' less famous, less talented, less iconic brother David. He didn't even wear a fucking headband, the loser.


I'm beginning to think...

I'm beginning to think that DiS isn't the place for me. You lot are as bad as the NME readers I come hear to avoid. Don't slate the Arctic Monkeys just because they're popular and successful and nothing truly "indie" can ever be popular and successful. They've released two quality albums in a very short space of time, with heaps of catchy radio-friendly singles. They perform live regularly and from the reviews I've read over the past two years, they rarely give anything but a stellar performance. I saw them for the first time at Glasto on Friday night, chose them over Bjork. It was a really tough choice, but I'm convinced I made the right decision. They were truly sensational. Great musicians, great vocals, top lyrics, and definitely not deserving of all the stick they're getting in the comments.

The review was fairly rubbish though!


Obviously

"hear" should be "here" (in the second sentence). Still quite hungover and exhausted after Glasto.


You chose the Monkey's over Bjork?

Bad descision imo. i love Ash, Belle & Sebastian, Flaming lips etc so I have no qualms with popular bands having credibility. Just average bands having credibility.


Err, he actually said..

popular bands. As in the average Joe in the street actually having heard of them let alone buying their records. NONE of the bands you chose to prove your 'I'm not a music snob' theory would qualify. Factoid.


video remind me derek jarman's promos for the smiths.

arctic monkeys remind me a lot the smiths with this album.


??

a nine??


LMAO.

Dreadful, dreadful, dire song.

Review? Possibly slightly worse.

I can't believe how bad this review smells, even though it was written by the ultimate DiS overlord.

I think Sean should sack himself.


Georgeformbycore

is the future.


I've never heard...

A single Artic Monkey's song which struck me as new, interesting or even vaguely exciting.

It's a good job then that I've found this stellar review so I won't even have to hear the new song to know what it sounds like or whether I should try to listen to it based on past experiences. Oh.


it's only s bloody band!!

Listen up you lot, The Arctic Monkeys are a great band, with banging tunes, and dj sets..probably, furthermore, they have worked bloody hard and probably don't give a shister waht any of us think, they are selling by the bucket load and probably earning 100 times over what we are all on! So either quit moaning or listen to another great band, who are also worth millions....the German gods themselves...Rammstein!!!


It's okay

but there's no way in the world this song is a nine/ten.

Re: AM vs. Pete Doherty. Though much more consistent, AM never touch (well, 505 comes close) the Libertines best stuff... and they don't resemble each other *that* much. AM are all sweet and jangly while the Libs are... were shambolic.