THE SECOND ICE AGE IS COMING
The rave reviews for The Arctic Monkeys comeback live show are in and the inevitable universal thumbs up for their second album Favourite Worst Nightmare are starting to pile up.
And no wonder..
No-one, not even Michael Jackson, has managed to pull off the trick of staying eternally young in pop.
Youth is a precious commodity, too often squandered on giddy popsters behaving like bunnies blinded by oncoming headlights.
Thankfully Alex Turner’s mob, one unfortunate bass playing casualty aside, have both managed to enjoy the champagne supernova that greeted their first album AND produce a corking follow up.
One thing is certain - age will come to The Arctic Monkeys, as it comes to us all.
When it does “time will take care of time, so leave time alone,” as that whiskery old sage Willie Nelson says.
But right now The Monkeys new single Brianstorm and the soon to be unleashed album serve a great time honoured pop function.
They make nearly all the homegrown competition - the increasingly pompous Johnny Borrell, the post rehab Keane, the character free zone that is Snow Patrol - seem old before their time, dutiful but decrepid careerists pedalling a formula.
The Monkeys are different - a wiry and explosive force, the sound of youthful intelligence - free of the dread hand of Simon Cowell and the deathly marketing men that rule pop.
This is still a rare and precious thing - the sort of Nightmare that will save pop from a safe, slippers and cocoa, death by dullness.
