Everything You've Come to Expect is the second studio album by English supergroup the Last Shadow Puppets, released on 1 April 2016 by Domino Recording Company. It was written by band co-frontmen Alex Turner and Miles Kane in 2014 between London, Paris and Los Angeles. Production was done in Malibu by fellow member James Ford, alongside guest musician Matt Helders, new bass player, Zach Dawes and featuring once again string arrangements by Owen Pallett. The album artwork features a photo of singer Tina Turner dancing, as photographed by Jack Robinson Jr. in November 1969; the original picture was modified by illustrator Matthew Cooper, who gave it a gold tint.
Everything You've Come to Expect features a wide array of genres that include baroque pop, orchestral soul and psychedelic pop, with influences from desert rock, post-punk, funk, disco and Italian film scores. The lyrical content explores themes of hedonism, romance and self-doubt, and a retelling of the nightlife adventures of two young rockstars. The album was released to generally positive reviews from critics, who mostly noted the band's evolution from the genre pastiche of their debut album. Welcoming their new style, while staying true to their sound. Everything You've Come to Expect became the Last Shadow Puppets' second and Turner’s seventh consecutive number-one debut in the UK, also topping the charts in Belgium. Following its release, the album was promoted by the singles "Bad Habits" and "Aviation", as well as a global tour and multiple television appearances.
Background and recording The band's first album The Age of the Understatement was released eight years prior, in 2008, to critical acclaim. Since then, Turner had released three albums with Arctic Monkeys, Humbug (2009), Suck It and See (2011), and AM (2013), as well as composing the acoustic soundtrack for the feature film Submarine (2010). Meanwhile, Kane had released his first two albums as a solo artist, Colour of the Trap (2011) and Don't Forget Who You Are (2013).
Following the release of Kane's sophomore record, him and Turner were on the process of writing, what at the time, was thought to be Kane's next album. During one of those writing sessions, both "experimented with a vocal harmony" on a 8-track demo, which would later become "Aviation". This reminded them of their work on The Age of the Understament, but also they felt it was, "promising, in that it suggested there was somewhere to go with it as well". The album was written on acoustic guitar and on a Vox Continental keyboard, between Kane's apartments in London, Paris and Los Angeles. Most of the songs did not make the album, except for "Pattern", which the Last Shadow Puppets said was "the oldest song" in the album, in contrast with "Everything You've Come to Expect", which was the last thing written for the record. They contacted fellow member James Ford, and played him the demos, who agreed to join them.
In the summer of 2015, the Last Shadow Puppets began recording material at Rick Rubin's Shangri La Studios in Malibu, California, their first choice was La Fabrique Studios in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, but it was already booked. Core member and drummer James Ford produced Everything You've Come to Expect. The album features string arrangements from frequent collaborator Owen Pallett, originally the plan was for Pallett to go to the studio for two days, and then work independently from the band, but he ended up staying in the studio until the end of the sessions. Turner said Pallett helped in making the songs feel more cohesive, as he thought before he came in, "the recordings were a bit all over the place". The Last Shadow Puppets were also joined for the first time by Zach Dawes from Mini Mansions, on bass. Dawes later continued as a member during their live performances. Everything You've Come to Expect was recorded in three weeks, with all members in "one room", which Turner claims he had not done since Suck It and See. The string parts were written on piano and later done separately in Hollywood studio United Recording. Turner recalled the sessions, felt like "a holiday" similarly to the ones for the first album, Pallett agreed and thought they were more "like hanging out with mates than work". When not in the studio the band would spend their time swimming, going to a nearby karaoke bar and to a sports bar.
Composition Musical style and influences
Musically, Everything You've Come to Expect has been described as "a louche canon of swooning noir-pop" that sounds "indebted to the baroque soundscapes of the 1960s". It has been characterised as Baroque pop, orchestral soul and psychedelic pop. The album further incorporates influences from desert rock, post-punk, funk, disco and Italian film scores. It has been compared to the works of Jean-Claude Vannier, Serge Gainsbourg, Isaac Hayes, the Replacements, Queens of the Stone Age and its lead singer Josh Homme, Lou Reed and Scott Walker. In an interview with NME, the Last Shadow Puppets stated that their songwriting was influenced by Hayes and the Style Council, as opposed to the Scott Walker influences of their first album. Turner cited English singer David Bowie as being "sort of in the DNA of every record, to some extent. He's been built-in for a long time" and Gainsbourg, "I always just keep trying to make everything sound like Melody Nelson and getting nowhere near." The band also mentioned, Television, Foals, David Axelrod, Sparks, Dr. Hook's "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman", and Ned Doheny's "Get It Up for Love" as inspiration, as well as, Tears For Fears, Depeche Mode, and the Prodigy as bands they were listening to at the time. Turner further cited the bass line to Sonic's Rendezvous Band's "City Slang" as a heavy inspiration for "Bad Habits".
Lyrics and themes
Lyrically, Everything You've Come to Expects main themes are hedonism, romance and self doubt. With the songs alluding to: sex and free love, recreational drug use, prostitution, jealousy, dreams and homoerotic imagery. Being mainly "about the shenanigans young rock stars get up to in LA; lust figures often", it was described as "a west coast film noir fever dream, scored by Ennio Morricone, with Kane and Turner the doomed protagonists". The lyrics are a departure from The Age of the Understatement and have been compared to the ones in other works by Turner, such as the "insecurity" found in Submarine and "metaphors straight from Arctic Monkeys' fourth album Suck It and See". The album setting revolves around Los Angeles and the West Coast, and includes references to the neighbourhood of Los Feliz and cities outside the United States, such as Sheffield and Paris. Turner thought the lyrics on this record were "more effective and more refined" than the ones on their debut and that they had achieved something "slightly more surreal or abstract". He further added, "You still, arguably, sometimes reach more or evoke more interest in feelings when you're not telling a story and someone is not right there with you. You just sort of create an atmosphere."
Songs "Aviation", the opening track of Everything You've Come to Expect, begins with an "echoing scrape of strings". Its first verse references sectoral heterochromia, an eye condition in which part of one eye is a different color from its remainder. Turner wanted to use the word "Colorama" in a song since the first time he saw Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966), he described it as, "an unplugged neon light at the back of my mind for years", about the line he added, "It doesn't make a ton of sense, but that's not really the point. I think, not always, but sometimes it's good to just have the lyrics facilitate a melody, like, that's harder to do, [...] — getting the fuckin’ ‘I Am The Walrus’ shit right." Musically, the track has been described as coming closest to the "Lee Hazlewood-indebted style" of their first record.
On "Miracle Aligner", the album is at its most "lush" and "seductive". The song has a "breezy melody" and makes use of "tremolo-heavy guitars". The duo jokingly claimed the song was inspired by a "yoga teacher" and a "make-believe wrestler". Turner has said the beginnings of the song are "really old", with "Miracle Aligner" mostly written by himself and musician Alexandra Savior. Originally written for her debut album, "it ended up being under the Shadow Puppets umbrella". Savior rejected the song, saying, "it's obviously about a coke dealer - it's a lifestyle that I didn't relate to myself". Musically it has been described as "honeyed soul-pop".
"Everything You've Come to Expect" is a "psychedelic waltz" and has been called "Beatle-esque". The song finds Turner as "a jealous guy", among a "phantasmagoria of surreal visions of decadence." The song references several songs and musicians, with the line "Croc-skin collar on a diamond dog" recalling Bowie's album of the same name (1974). The mention of Honey Pie on the preceding verse, was thought to be a Beatles reference, although Turner admitted it was coincidental. Another line, "I just can't get the thought of you and him out of my head", was described as "textbook Turner lust", with one reviewer alluding to an homoerotic reading of the line, noting that "Maybe they're singing it at each other". The band has said it was the last song written for Everything You've Come to Expect and "the further down the wing" they have gone in terms of songwriting, adding that its their favourite track in the record. "The Element of Surprise" has been called a ballad "direct from a past era" that finds producer James Ford "steering closer to his dance music origins", soft-rock and a funk track "that sounds like the Rat Pack performing inside George Clinton's Holy Mothership". "Bad Habits" has been described as a "sinister punk mariachi groover" driven by "Pallet’s violins", with "Iggy Pop-like intensity". The song started with Turner playing the bass line, inspired by the one in Sonic's Rendezvous Band's "City Slang". The stream of consciousness lyrics were edited down from the original 40 minute long take, where Kane started reciting words without repeating himself once. Kane highlighted Ford's work in the song "to make it a pop song with, like, a punky edge".
On "Sweet Dreams, TN", Turner "approximates a Nashville crooner" and has an "Elvis-in Vegas-turn" in what has been described as a "career best vocal". The song has a "bolero-like staccato rhythm and slapback echo-drenched vocal". It started when Turner sat down "playing an old Roy Orbison riff on an acoustic". The track is a love song for his at the time girlfriend, Taylor Bagley, and the most direct piece of writing in the record, "That tune actually is perhaps the only one where i sat down and it is just what it is, That's straightforward that", Turner has said. Bagley convinced him to put the song on the record as he at first thought "There was almost too much truth in it or something". In a 2018 interview Turner retracted the previous statement by saying that he "Perhaps [I] even went too far on purpose", by exaggerating some aspects lyrically to fit the mold of a love song, also citing "The Dream Synopsis" as an example. It has been described as "country-tinged" and "lounge singer grandeur".