Arctic Monkeys: Brick By Brick

Arctic Monkeys hit at the right time for me, when I still believed being clever about music made you better. Their early records had that nervous energy, all Sheffield wit and wordplay, the kind of thing you could feel smart liking. They’ve evolved far beyond those songs since, which is what good bands do, but something about the tension in those first albums works on me—not nostalgia exactly, just the reminder that I once thought a guitar band could change everything.