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The most iconic speech of all times

Arctic Monkeys 2014 Brits acceptance speech for the album of the year

By Anna DohnalováPublished 4 years ago 2 min read
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Five years ago, at the Brits awards, Alex Turner, the lead singer of the Arctic Monkeys, had managed to divide the world by making an extraordinarily dramatic award acceptance speech, after the Sheffield’s rockers won the Album of the Year. This standout moment truly went down in the history of speeches.

The band’s fifth album AM has received unexpected response from not only the loyal fans, but also a huge number of new fans, who became especially attached to the album’s alternative sounds. No doubt it deserved the award. And so, as the winner was announced, the band stood up and accompanied by one of the most famous songs on the record, “Do I Wanna Know”, Alex Turner took hold of the microphone and just simply went for it.

“That rock‘n’roll, eh? That rock’n’roll, it just won’t go away,” started the front man as he dramatically walked on the stage. “It might hibernate from time to time and sink back into the swamp.” said Turner, referring to the rock and roll’s reoccurring phases throughout the years and shortly after that compared the genre to a cyclical nature of the universe. A theory that understands universe as something that undergoes constant repetitive cycles of expansions and reductions of its size.

“I think the cyclical nature of the universe in which it exists demands it adheres to some of its rules. But it's always waiting there, just around the corner. Ready to make its way back through the sludge and smash through the glass ceiling, looking better than ever.”

Although he was already dramatic enough, he put even more emphasis on the whole statement by continuing the speech with saying that even though the genre seems like it’s faded away, it will most certainly never die and that there is not a thing that could ever possibly be done about it.

The other members of the band were just watching from behind and left it all up to him. They were seen tittering at his words about the immortality of rock’n’roll and its apparent resemblance to the universe, but none of them got to say something.

And then, at the ending of what could be very easily transferred into lyrics of one of the band’s songs, Turner finished with saying: “Invoice me for the microphone if you need to,” as he dropped it on the ground.

He left the world stunned and even made people think that he was under the influence of alcohol, because of how he managed to make it look like he did not care about the award at all. Later in an interview, he refuted the assumptions and confirmed that he was not on any drugs and that he just “couldn’t pretend getting an award was something he’s dreamed about since he was a kid, because it wasn’t.”

However, what people did not seem to get was that he was saying all of that to prove a point. These days, the best eras of music are behind us, but fortunately, even with the prevailing of the modern commercial pop music, there is always going to be that rock’n’roll making its way through the sludge, eh?

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