Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner had admitted the idea for the title of their new album came directly from the Velvet Underground‘s compilation ‘VU‘.
Speaking to BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe shortly after the details of their fifth album ‘AM‘ were confirmed yesterday, Turner stated:
“I actually stole it from the Velvet Underground, I’ll just confess that now and get it out of the way. The ‘VU’ record, obviously. Did we cop out? Yeah! Summat about it feels like this record is exactly where we should be right now. So it felt right to just initial it.”
Turner added that the short contribution from Josh Homme, who makes a guest appearance on the record along with former Coral guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones and poet John Cooper Clarke, is ‘like something he’s never heard before’.
“The Josh thing was very much a case of one of us returning a back scratch to the other,” Turner remembered. “His contribution to our record is really exciting, it’s probably my favourite. The 30 seconds that he’s in there is just, I dunno, it’s like something that I’ve never heard before. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but you know what I’m saying.”