New Artist: Arctic Monkeys
- Name of Band: Arctic Monkeys
- Chris Cullari’s Video of the Week: Click here!
- Sound: They’re British indie rock, and the best way I can think to describe them is scrappy. Their first CD is a lot rougher than their second one, which became a lot tighter and became more like fast, clean punk music. At any rate, they’re still great, and the thing to listen for is how they rhythmically arrange their lyrics, because they are British rock’s answer to rap.
- Location: Sheffield, England
- Website: www.arcticmonkeys.com
- Band Members:
- Alex Turner - Lead vocals/Guitar
- Jamie Cook - Guitar
- Matt Helders - Drums/Backing Vocals
- Nick O’Malley - Bass Guitar
- Andy Nicholson - (Formerly) Bass Guitar
- You May Remember Them From Such Songs As…: “I Bet That You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” which was the first song I heard from them during their performance on SNL. Believe me, all it takes is that song to get you hooked to them for life.
- Next Performance: September 1st at Bar M, Ibiza Rocks
Okay, so I know that this week, everyone is getting a little slighted, because I’m having the busiest week of my life, and that’s completely unfair. That’s why I thought I’d talk to you about the Arctic Monkeys, because they are a band that is worth the wait, in my humble opinion.
I first heard the Arctic Monkeys on Saturday Night Live, which I said up above, and honestly, it’s all I needed to completely fall for their music and what they stood for. Their first CD, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, is a great window into the world that is the chav and indie culture in England. (For a good Wikipedia article on the “chav” culture, click here, they explain it better than I ever could). When there are so many artists out there singing about living the high life, and basically a life of excess, the Arctic Monkeys are a good example of a band that illustrates the life of the working class, and the daily goings on of a bunch of English hooligans. The first album was fun, raw, filled with attitude, and it just screams “I don’t give a damn what you think!” Something that really helps create this vibe is the lead singer, Alex Turner, who has a thick Yorkshire accent. He says thing on the record like “summat” instead of “something” and “dun’t” instead of “don’t.” These guys aren’t putting on an act to be indie rockers, they completely live the scene.
How did these crazy kids get started? You could say to thank Santa Claus for the birth of Arctic Monkeys. Christmas 2001: Alex Turner and Jamie Cook both ask that jolly old St. Nick for guitars, and waddaya know, they were good that year! Their two friends, Andy Nicholson and Matt Helders, joined the band they decided to form shortly after, and Helders had to play drums, since Nicholson already knew how to play bass. If you’ve heard Helders’ drum skills, you know how ridiculous it is to think that he’s playing at that level on very few years of experience. Mind-blowing. Moving on…
Yellow Arch Studios in Neepsend was the first site where the band practiced, and after a couple years of hard work, their first gig was at The Grapes in Sheffield, on June 13, 2003. After a few gigs, the band started giving out demos, but because of the limit in number, fans started ripping the CDs and sharing them with friends. The band was totally cool with this, because they never tried to make money with the demos anyway, and it turned out to be a really good technique for them. The popularity of their music from person-to-person sharing and internet exposure is really the main reason they became as huge as quickly as they did. Their MySpace was even originally created by a fan, but received massive amounts of traffic. This was a completely fan-driven phenomena.
May 2005 brought around their first EP release, Five Minutes with Arctic Monkeys, which featured the songs “Fake Tales of San Francisco,” and “From the Ritz to the Rubble.” They only made 1500 CDs and 2000 7″ records, but also had the music available for download on iTunes. Due to lots of hype in the music press, the next show they played after releasing at the Carling stage of the Reading and Leeds Festivals, drew a much bigger crowd than what the stage was meant for, proving that this was a band not to be ignored.
Despite this amazing success, it took quite some time for Arctic Monkeys to sign with a label. They weren’t interested in being changed by a label, and they figured that if they could do so much on their own without one, there was no point. However, they eventually caved in and signed with Domino Records in June 2005.
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not was the fastest selling debut album in English history, but this didn’t seem to be enough to convince the US right away. It still debuted in the US by selling about 34,000 copies, which is the second fastest selling album for an indie band in America, but many people were skeptical, due to the UK’s tendencies to overhype new bands. A tour in America changed everyone’s minds, and right about the same time, they were getting critical acclaim once again in the UK, with NME Magazine dubbing them the “5th greatest British album of all time.”
Favourite Worst Nightmare, however, seems to be somewhat of a different animal. It’s still up for debate in the music world if this album will bring as much success as did the first. It seems to be stereotypically sophomoric, with the band trying to tighten things up a notch, clean a lot, but still keep that rhythmic, pulsing, raucous sound that made them so popular in the first place. In this fan’s opinion, I see their second album as a stepping stone to something better, so fingers are crossed over here. It was released in April 2007, so there’s definitely time for it to grow into popularity, but when a band takes over basically overnight, it’s a tough call as to where they go from that point.
Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kokalola/274145609/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/swishblog/235330160/
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POSTED IN: New Artist Monday
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