Slogan of a presidential hopeful who once told his audience to “please clap”

The definitive guide in preparation for The Car

BY ANNETTE HASNAS

On Oct. 21, Arctic Monkeys are releasing The Car, their seventh studio album, making this fall the perfect time to get into the staple alternative rock band. Here’s everything you need to know about their previous albums if you want to become a certified fan of my favorite little band from Sheffield.

Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006)

The one you probably know: “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor” The second on the album, this song’s focus on dancing and club culture expertly taps into the 2000s teen zeitgeist that characterizes this whole album. It’s no wonder I still see people wearing T-shirts with reference to its lyrics at Arctic Monkeys concerts over a decade after the album’s release. Song to start with: “When the Sun Goes Down”

This track is a perfect entry point into Arctic Monkeys’ special brand of grimy garage rock. After a slow, pared-back beginning, the song catapults into an energetic drum beat similar to others across the album. The musicality and lyricism on display familiarize you with what sort of world you’re going to be dealing with for the next 13 songs—it’s grungy, it’s raw, and it’s “all not quite legitimate.” Overlooked gem: “You Probably Couldn’t See for the Lights But You Were Staring Straight at Me”

Instantly relatable to anyone who’s tried (and failed) to flirt at a loud party or club, the lyrics are refreshingly innocent. The youthful awkwardness described here by a freshly 20-year-old Alex Turner can’t help but seem sweet, especially when compared to the hardened exterior of the rest of the album.

Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007)

The one you probably know: “Fluorescent Adolescent”

It’s the most recognizable song off the album (though, interestingly, not Spotify’s most popular—that’s “505”), and for good reason. Fast-paced with an addictive beat, the song bears punchy lyrics that roll off the tongue with just the right amount of Britishisms for the Sheffield band (it’s one of the few songs I know with an earnest use of the word “daft”). Song to start with: “Do Me a Favour”

“Do Me a Favour” perfectly taps into the almost paradoxical nature of Favourite Worst Nightmare, an album simultaneously more aggressive yet more relaxed than Arctic Monkeys’ debut, which was much more tied to their garage rock sound and less emotionally varied. This song mirrors this natural but noticeable shift beautifully. This selection proves that the band didn’t have to drop their iconic aggressive energy you’ve come to know and love to fit in with the more mature sound of FWN. Overlooked gem: “The Bad Thing”

This song might not have anything too deep to say, but that doesn’t make it any less of a banger. It’s a fun snapshot of a moment in which the singer is propositioned by a taken woman, with some general thoughts on infidelity sprinkled in for good measure. This song sounds great—intense and rock-y to its core. Lyrics that move at a breakneck speed make singing along a challenge, but you’ll undoubtedly be proud of yourself the first time you’re able to get through all two and a half minutes without missing a word.

AM (2013)

The one you probably know: “Do I Wanna Know?”

I don’t need to explain this one. You’ve heard it, you love it, you get the idea. Song to start with: “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?”

Though not as popular as “Do I Wanna Know?,” this song is also well-known even outside of the band’s fan base, and for good reason. Catchy and with easily recalled lyrics, it’s an easy entrypoint even if other Arctic Monkeys songs aren’t your speed, but with just the right amount of retro-style sleaziness to match the vibe of the album. Overlooked gem: “Fireside”

It is a crime that this is one of their least streamed tracks. Despite treading the worn ground of breakup songs, the song invokes careful imagery on display here, leaving the track fresh. It’s relatable to people who have had their hearts broken without bringing down the tone musically (I love it despite being a noted Slow Song Hater). Additionally, I love this song’s foray into rockabilly stylings with its little “shoowops”; every time I hear it, I wind up singing it all day.

Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino (2018)

The one you probably know: “Four Out of Five” Tranquility Base's lead single, “Four Out of Five” is a lot of people’s (read: my) favorite song on the album. Taking inspiration more from glam rock than some of the other ’70s influences on the LP, it offers a bridge to existing Arctic Monkeys fans who came and stayed for the rock, while still following Tranquility Base’s stylistic divergence. Song to start with: “Star Treatment”

Coming back after a five-year break (which felt even longer considering their previous rapid-fire album-release rate), Tranquility Base changed a lot about the band’s style—and “Star Treatment” is a great gateway. Its very first lines, “I just wanted to be one of The Strokes / Now look at the mess you made me make,” tell you exactly what kind of rock-star stylings you’re in for. It’s a song narrated by the washed-up ’70s rockstar character, which perfectly sets you up for the sauve-to-thepoint-of-sleaze ’70s influence throughout the whole album. Overlooked gem: “One Point Perspective”

Look, I will be honest: I’m not a huge fan of this album, but even I have a begrudging respect for this song. Any fan of Turner’s lyrical style has plenty to work with here; his ambiguity and poetry are turned up to 11. It also has a noticeable instance of Yorkshire slang that calls to mind a similar moment on “Do I Wanna Know?” and reminds listeners that, though Turner has been living in LA for many years now, Arctic Monkeys haven’t forgotten their roots as the teenage British rock band behind Whatever People Say I Am. G

WARPING THE MIRROR: FIVE HAUNTING LITERARY MONSTERS

BY LUCY COOK

For as long as humans have told stories, we have told of monsters. The Bible spawned the Devil and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The first true English-language epic, "Beowulf", is a tale of the monstrous Grendel, his mother, and one fateful dragon. What different cultures and societies across time have defined as monstrous offers an anthropological and philosophical perspective on what they both fear and desire. From mindless zombies to omniscient gods, literary monsters reflect and distort humankind.

As Halloween and mainstream seasonal acceptance of the monstrous approaches, here are five novels featuring monsters that served as effective mirrors for human nature.

A note: The monsters on this list are purposefully inhuman, as the term “monster” applied to human or humanoid subjects becomes much trickier and more subjective.

The Creature—Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

As the first true science fiction novel, Frankenstein was one of the earliest works to sympathetically approach monstrosity from the perspective of the inhuman itself. The Creature gets an enormously bad rap for what is essentially an ugly baby forced into the world, seeking acceptance and understanding in the wake of abandonment. That’s all of us; we are all the Creature. Such a depiction of the monstrous offers questions about humanity, how we define it, and whether that definition means anything at all. Over time, the portrayal of the Creature has evolved from an intelligent and sensitive creature seeking happiness to a mindless lump of electrocuted green meat, erasing all of Mary Shelley’s nuance and thoroughly disrespecting our boy. If anyone was a monster here, it was Victor Frankenstein, deadbeat dad and deranged college student with a god complex. Justice for the Creature.

The Wood—Uprooted by Naomi Novik (2015)

Uprooted features a monster without a physical body. Instead, it is the corrupted Wood that plagues protagonist Agnieszka and her community, poisoning the minds and bodies of anyone venturing too near. The victims of the Wood lose their grasp on reality, their bodies calcifying into wood. Forests are timeworn fantasy and horror settings, often tied to an “uncivilized” unknown and, in Christian contexts, paganism and the Devil. This is not so in Uprooted; Novik’s Wood is simply misunderstood. Once, it was home to an ancient race of forest-dwelling people who, when met with humankind’s fire and axes, turned themselves into trees in a misguided effort for self-preservation. Since this slaughter, the Wood Queen’s spirit has been seeking vengeance upon the nearby remaining humans. While not as overt in its political messaging as Ring Shout (2020), Uprooted offers a highly folkloric look at imperialism and environmental devastation. Novik’s language is lush and vital, weaving an ecological fantasy from green and gold sentences. Her Wood teems with life and pain, both heartbreaking and terrifying.

The Newts—The War with the Newts by Karel Čapek (1936)

Humankind discovers they can exploit the labor of a dexterous species of Newt for more efficient pearl diving. Over time, these Newts evolve into a highly intelligent and physically able species, and humans become ever more dependent on Newtlabor. Thus spawns the Newt-Human conflicts, ultimately resulting in a proletarian revolution and all-out class warfare. When the Newts claim dominance, it is clear they will seek to wipe out humanity, sparing a few for labor. They will ultimately divide amongst themselves and self-destruct, committing the same errors as their human overlords. Written in 1930s Czechoslovakia, Čapek’s satirical novel offers a scathing critique of capitalism, unethical labor practices, militarism, and imperialism. As always, the monstrous provides a warped funhouse mirror for humanity, examining the ways in which we hurt ourselves and the world around us to devastating effects. Yet still, a good monster story always expresses the nuance of human pain and destruction—in every Newt warlord there was once a gentle pearl-diver.

The Ku Kluxes—Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark (2020)

In a barely fantastical 1915, the notorious white supremacist film A Birth of a Nation releases a curse upon the United States. As a result, the Ku Klux Klan has transformed into multi-mouthed, quadrupedal, carnivorous demons masquerading as average white Americans—and the “Ku Kluxes” are multiplying, particularly in Georgia, the home of our intrepid heroine Maryse. Clark’s Ku Kluxes are an exercise in the grotesque, body horror at its most horrific—their lashing tongues are ridged with teeth, their many maws gaping. Part of what makes the Ku Kluxes so effective is their foundation in the physical, reflecting the real and tangible violence that the Klan has inflicted for generations upon Black Americans. By portraying the Klan as literally monstrous and physically grotesque, Clark exposes how the process of dehumanization causes the oppressor to lose their own humanity. Ring Shout is an excellent novella blending the fantastic with the historical to create a portrait of America at once familiar and uniquely horrific. Elements of Gullah root magic and resilient community offer a form of resistance and power for our heroes, bringing Ring Shout beyond the realm of simple allegory to become a fully fleshed out story of Black history and folk tradition in the American South.

The Resurrection Beasts—Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #2) by Tamsyn Muir (2021)

I will force-feed Tamsyn Muir to every Leisure book list I can. In a world of necromancy, body horror, split consciousnesses, and pathetic immortals, it is safe to say the monstrous appears in many forms within The Locked Tomb series—some more human than others. But the Resurrection Beasts take the cake in terms of conceptual grandiosity. The vengeful ghosts of nine dead planets, the Resurrection Beasts are coming to kill God. And they’re terrible beyond description. (Literally. None of the characters can describe the Beasts except to say that their presence invokes vomiting, terror-induced-pants-wetting, and madness.) Muir takes the universal concept of a lost soul to the grandest scale: It’s only reasonable that a dead planet’s soul—encompassing all the life that once inhabited it—would be too enormous and mournful for comprehension. G

Content warning: This article includes references to substance abuse and self-harm.

If Demi Lovato has proven one thing over their decade-and-a-half-long music career, it’s that no genre can hold them. After starting in pop-punk, they forayed into mainstream pop with their 2013 self-titled album, then experimented with electronic and R&B sounds on Confident (2015) and Tell Me You Love Me (2017)—all while showcasing musical range and unparalleled vocal power.

But this past January, Lovato deleted everything from their Instagram feed, posted a picture flipping off the camera while surrounded by their management team, and captioned it, “A funeral for my pop music.”

As promised, Lovato’s newest album Holy Fvck (2022) goes beyond the Disney-sanctioned pop-punk into gritty, grunge rock music. Distorted vocals, heavy drumming, and sludgy guitars define the album, coupled with metal imagery (the album cover features Lovato in bondage laying on a cross). Tracks from this album and a handful of throwbacks make up the Holy Fvck tour setlist, her first since a near-fatal drug overdose in 2018. In a triumphant return to the stage, Lovato’s Holy Fvck tour is one of healing, catharsis, and rebirth, all delivered through her natural stage presence and breathtaking vocals.

On her last two tours, which centered the Confident and Tell Me You Love Me albums respectively, Lovato took the stage in bedazzled leotards and trendy glam makeup. Elaborate dance routines and costume changes contributed to a maximalist aesthetic. This tour was cut short after Lovato’s overdose and hospitalization, and they have since revealed that immense pressure from management while touring was one of the contributing factors to their relapse after six years of sobriety.

This time, there was no sold-out arena or elaborate stage setup; only Demi, the general admission crowd at The Anthem, and the all-girl band Lovato told the audience had “always been a dream” of hers to have. Between the opener, Royal & the Serpent, and Lovato’s set, the stage crew hoisted up a white tarp emblazoned with a black blood-spattered cross, in line with the demonic imagery of the Holy Fvck era. Lovato’s silhouette was cast onto the cross as she played the opening chords of “Holy Fvck.” When the tarp dropped from the ceiling to reveal Lovato and her band, the crowd roared, ecstatic to see Lovato back on stage.

It was clear from the start that not only was the music new, but so was Demi. She strutted freely from one side of the stage to the other, creating the intimate artist-crowd connection that one might not expect to feel at a global superstar’s concert. Lovato leaned into her new rock ’n’ roll persona, headbanging and air-guitar strumming.

The emphasis on instrumentation in Lovato’s new music allowed the band to take center stage with them. Guitarist Nita Strauss and bass player Leanne Bowes worked the crowd, coming to the edge of the stage to perform solos or dancing alongside Lovato. Instruments in hand and flipping their hair to the music, they seemed like they’d performed as a band all their lives, coursing with blood-pumping energy and chemistry that could only be felt live.

Of course, Lovato’s comfort on stage comes from years of practice, and she had no trouble wailing into the mic in between dance breaks. During “SUBSTANCE,” the second single off of Holy Fvck, Lovato’s clarity while speak-singing on the verses beautifully contrasted with their jagged chorus belting. Bringing out the lead singer of Royal & the Serpent to perform “EAT ME,” they angrily screamed the lyrics, “I know the girl that you adored / She’s dead, it’s time to fucking mourn.” Despite saying goodbye to her past self,

Lovato still paid tribute to her old music. Jumping into a series of throwbacks, she teased, “I think you guys might know this one” as the drums to “Confident” kicked in. Then, breezing past other pop hits of the 2010s, she went all the way back to her Disney pop-punk days with “Here We Go Again.” If the crowd was excited for “Confident,” it was nothing compared to hearing this banger. This performance was a matured version of the song Lovato recorded at 16, with added runs and wails; she even changed the lyric “stuff” to “shit,” rejecting years of censorship. She also performed “Remember December,” “La La Land,” and “Don’t Forget” from her first two studio albums, during the last of which she hit her stride.

While their lively rock music is a fun change of pace, Lovato still shines in their vulnerable moments, which were imbued with an intimacy only possible with a general admission audience. They performed the titular track off their 2021 pop album, “The Art of Starting Over,” then moved into a tribute to their boyfriend: a song from Holy Fvck entitled “4 EVER 4 ME” mashed up with the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris.” Later they sang “Skyscraper,” their return to music in 2011 after their first treatment for drug abuse and self-harm. In these emotional moments, the audience could not only feel love and healing, but also growth. On new songs “29” and “HAPPY ENDING,” the visceral imagery of her trauma and search for peace offered a rawness unmatched by any of her previous work. These slower moments made the upbeat songs that followed even more enjoyable. Lovato transformed pop hits “Sorry Not Sorry” and “Heart Attack” into headbangers, and finished off her set with “Cool for the Summer.” Injecting these crowd-pleasers with rock sounds from Holy Fvck gave them new life. Lovato knew which songs her audience wanted to hear but refused to revert back to her pop ways, ushering them into her current era.

Their old music may be dead, but the new Demi is still honest, vulnerable, and incredibly talented. With a healthy mix of old and new, Lovato’s Holy Fvck tour satisfied longtime fans and newcomers alike, giving both an unforgettable evening of screaming till their lungs gave out. G

BY MAYA KOMINSKY