Breathless, hyperbolic praise was piled upon
the Arctic Monkeys and their debut album,
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, an instant phenomenon without peer. Within the course of a year, the band rose from the ranks of an Internet phenomenon to the biggest band in the U.K., all on the strength of early demos circulated on the web as MP3s. Those demos built the band a rabid fan base before
the Monkeys had released a record, even before they played more than a handful of gigs. In effect, the group performed a complete run around the industry, avoiding conventional routes toward stardom, which paid off in spades. When
Whatever People Say I Am hit the streets in January 2006, it sold a gob-smacking 118,501 copies within its first week of release, which not only made it the fastest-selling U.K. debut ever, but sold more than the rest of the Top 20 combined -- a remarkable achievement by any measure.
Last time such excitement surrounded a new British guitar band it was a decade earlier, as Brit-pop hit overdrive with the release of
Oasis' 1994 debut, Definitely Maybe. All four members of
the Arctic Monkeys were a little bit shy of their tenth birthday at the time, a bit young to be sure, but old enough to have
Oasis be their first favorite band. So, it's little surprise that the
Gallaghers' laddism -- celebrating nights out fueled by lager and loud guitars -- is the bedrock foundation of
the Arctic Monkeys, just the way as it has been for most British rock bands since the mid-'90s. Their true ground zero though, is 2001, the year
the Strokes stormed British consciousness with their debut,
Is This It.
The Arctic Monkeys borrow heavily from
the Strokes' stylized ennui, adding an equal element of
the Libertines' shambolic neo-classicist punk, undercut by a hint of dance-punk learned from
Franz Ferdinand. But where
the Strokes,
the Libertines, and
Franz all knowingly reference the past, this Sheffield quartet is only concerned with the now, piecing together elements of their favorite bands as lead singer/songwriter
Alex Turner tells stories from their lives, mainly hookups on the dancefloor and underage drinking, balanced by the occasional imagined tragic tales of prostitution and the music industry.
Whatever People Say I Am captures the band mashing up
the Strokes and
the Libertines at will, jamming too many angular riffs into too short a space, tearing through the songs as quickly as possible. But where
the Strokes camouflaged their songwriting skills with a laconic, take-it-or-leave-it sexiness, and where
the Libertines mythologized England with a junkie poeticism,
the Arctic Monkeys at their heart are simple, everyday lads, lacking any sense of sex appeal or romanticism, or even the desire for either. Nor do they harbor much menace, either in their tightly wound music or in how
Turner spits out his words. Also, the dry production, sounding for all the world like an homage to
Is This It -- all clanking guitars and clattering drums, with most of the energy coming from the group's sloppy call-and-response backing vocals -- keeps things ever immediate. In a way,
Whatever People Say I Am is an ideal album for the age of Information Overload: nearly every track here is stuffed with riffs and words, and just when it's about to sort itself out, it stops short. Instead of relying on a digital cut-and-paste clamor, lead singer and lyricist
Alex Turner is a natural storyteller, chronicling a very specific time and place. Like
Weller or
Ian Dury before him, he's captured his era in stark, vivid terms; he may not transcend his time, but he embodies it fully. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine