On their 2018 album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, Arctic Monkeys took a dramatic turn for the cosmic. The band’s sixth album, Tranquility Base saw singer and songwriter Alex Turner, drummer Matt Helders, bass player Nick O’Malley and guitarist Jamie Cook ditch the muscular arena-rock sound of 2013’s AM in favour of sleazy, absurdist lounge pop. On each song, Turner sang from the perspective of some kind of rakish, wine-drunk loser, becoming a lounge lizard singing at the album’s titular casino and a property developer ranting about his gentrification of the moon’s surface. Released without any advance singles, it was Arctic Monkeys’ most obtuse record yet – an artistic triumph that, nonetheless, seemed to alienate fans more accustomed to their booming, riff-heavy earlier work.
Four years later, Turner and co are preparing to release The Car – their seventh album, due on 21 October. Fans praying for an album with a little less bong-head philosophy seem to be in luck: Speaking to the Big Issue earlier this month, Turner promised that “sci-fi is off the table. We are back to earth.” There’d Better Be a Mirrorball, the album’s first single, makes good on that promise. This is not just a return to more accessible lyricism post-Tranquility Base, it’s one of the purest, most clear-cut breakup songs Turner has written in years. Over lush strings repeating the same simple, mournful chord progression, Turner sings about the dying days of a relationship without any of his usual brio. Instead, this song’s refrain almost feels like a plea: “If you wanna walk me to the car / You oughta know I’ll have a heavy heart / So can we please be absolutely sure that there’s a mirrorball?”
It’s the oldest trick in the pop songbook: Survey your broken heart and describe how the fragments catch the light. This is no disco track, though. There’d Better Be a Mirrorball draws its pastoral mood from Bacharach and David classics – the Walker Brothers’ Make It Easy on Yourself is a clear antecedent here – and captures the elegant slow build possessed by so many 60s Bond themes. The sound of this song may be far less zany than anything on Tranquility Base, but Arctic Monkeys are clearly still invested in writing ballads that move with the slowness and smoothness of treacle dripping from a spoon. There’d Better Be a Mirrorball seems slight at first – but by the time it’s over, there’s no doubting its power.
