“Monster” by The Automatic

"Monster" was the third UK single from Not Accepted Anywhere, the 2006 debut album by Welsh band the Automatic, and when B-Unique put it out on 5 June 2006 it charged up to number 4 on the UK Singles Chart, still the band's high-water mark there. James Frost and Robin Hawkins wrote the music, and the chorus got a full rebuild, tune first and words second.

The band wanted a fairytale feel, and keyboardist and singer Alex Pennie supplied the idea of a monster on the horizon, a line only meant to hold the spot until something better turned up. Nothing did, and by the time the band demoed it in 2005 the stopgap was the hook. Richard Jackson produced and engineered, Stephen Harris mixed, and the writing credit is shared by Frost, Hawkins, Pennie and Iwan Griffiths. America got it in May 2007 under a doubled-up name, the Automatic Automatic.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.