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Arctic Monkeys

 

Biography by MacKenzie Wilson

 

Citing influences such as the Jam, the Clash, and the Smiths, the Arctic Monkeys create a vibrant punk-inspired sound well suited for Britpop and alternative rock fans alike. Alex Turner (vocals/guitar), Jamie Cook (guitar), Andy Nicholson (bass), and Matt Helders (drums) formed the Arctic Monkeys in Sheffield, England, in 2003. A year prior, Turner and Cook received guitars for Christmas. From there, these teenagers made practicing an obsession, memorizing hits by the White Stripes and the Vines. A deal with Domino, the label home to Franz Ferdinand and Clinic, followed in spring 2004. Rambunctious first single "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" debuted at number one on the U.K. singles chart in October 2005. Their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, was issued in January 2006; within a day of its release, the album sold 118,501 copies in the U.K., setting a record for more records sold than the rest of the Top 20 album chart combined. In America, the album scraped the bottom of the Top 40. On their first North American tour, bassist Andy Nicholson sat out due to fatigue. Nick O'Malley temporarily stepped in to play the tour; however, the band announced that Nicholson was officially out of the band in June 2006.

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Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (Feb 21, 2006)

3.5 Stars :angry:

 

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

 

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 (sic) of release, which not only made it the fastest-selling debut ever, but it 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 Britpop 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, but the Monkeys' true musical ground zero 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 in too many angular riffs into too short of 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 rather earthbound, too; the band doesn't soar with youthful abandon, it merely raises a bit of noise in the background.

 

In a way, Whatever People Say I Am is an ideal album for the Information Overload Age — nearly every track here is overloaded with riffs and words, and just when it's about to sort itself out, it stops short. But even if it's an album of and for its time, Whatever People Say I Am doesn't sound particularly fresh. After all, the Arctic Monkeys are reworking the sounds of a revival without any knowledge — or even much interest — in the past, so they wind up with a patchwork of common sounds, stitched together in ways that may have odd juxtapositions, but usually feel familiar, because they're so green, they repeat the same patterns without realizing they're treading a well-worn path.

 

This, of course, doesn't make them or their debut bad, just surprisingly predictable: they're competent, lacking enough imagination or restlessness to do anything other than the expected, which for anybody who hears them after reading the reviews, is quite underwhelming. The one thing that sets them apart, and does give them promise, is Alex Turner's writerly ambitions. While he may fall far short of fellow Sheffield lyricist Jarvis Cocker, or such past teenage renegades as Paul Weller, Turner does illustrate ample ambition here. While his words can be overcooked — allusions to Romeo & Juliet do not necessarily count as depth — he does tell stories, which does distinguish him from his first-person peers. But it's a double-edged sword, his gift: the very thing that sets him apart — his fondness for detail, his sense of place — may be the quality that makes his work resonate for thousands of young Britons, but they also tie him completely to a particular time and place that makes it harder to relate to for listeners who aren't in his demographic or country (and perhaps time). If his band had either a stronger musical viewpoint or more kinetic energy, or if their songs didn't play like a heap of riffs, such provincial shortcomings would be transcended by the sheer force of the music. But the music, while good, is not great, and that's what makes Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not a curiosity that defines a time when niches are so specialized and targeted, they turn into a phenomenon overnight and last just about as long.

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Favourite Worst Nightmare (Apr 23, 2007)

4.5 Stars

 

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

 

Breathless praise is a time-honored tradition in British pop music, but even so, the whole brouhaha surrounding the 2006 debut of the Arctic Monkeys bordered on the absurd. It wasn't enough for the Arctic Monkeys to be the best new band of 2006; they had to be the saviors of rock & roll. Lead singer/songwriter Alex Turner had to be the best songwriter since Noel Gallagher or perhaps even Paul Weller, and their debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, at first was hailed as one of the most important albums of the decade, and then, just months after its release, NME called it one of the Top Five British albums ever. Heady stuff for a group just out of their teens, and they weathered the storm with minimal damage, losing their bassist but not their sense of purpose as they coped in the time-honored method for young bands riding the wave of enormous success: they kept on working. All year long they toured, rapidly writing and recording their second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, getting it out just a little over a year after their debut, a speedy turnaround by any measure. Some may call it striking when the iron is hot, cashing in while there's still interest, but Favourite Worst Nightmare is the opposite of opportunism: it's the vibrant, thrilling sound of a band coming into its own.

 

The Arctic Monkeys surely showed potential on Whatever People Say I Am, but their youthful vigor often camouflaged their debt to other bands. Here, they're absorbing their influences, turning their liberal borrowings from the Libertines, the Strokes, and the Jam into something that's their own distinct identity. Unlike any of those three bands, however, the Arctic Monkeys haven't stumbled on their second album; they haven't choked on hubris, they haven't overthought their sophomore salvo, nor have they cranked it out too quickly. That constant year of work resulted in startling growth as the band is testing the limits of what they can do and where they can go. Favourite Worst Nightmare hardly abandons the pleasures of their debut but instead frantically expands upon them. They still have a kinetic nervous energy, but this isn't a quartet that bashes out simply three-chord rock & roll. The Monkeys may start with an infectious riff, but then they'll violently burst into jagged yet tightly controlled blasts of post-punk squalls, or they'll dress a verse with circular harmonies as they do at the end of "Fluorescent Adolescent." Their signature is precision, evident in their concise songs, deftly executed instrumental interplay, and the details within Turner's wry wordplay, which is clever but never condescending. Indeed, the remarkable thing about the Arctic Monkeys — which Favourite Worst Nightmare brings into sharp relief — is their genuine guilelessness, how they restructure classic rock clichés in a way that pays little mind to how things were done in the past, and that all goes back to their youth.

 

Born in the '80s and raised on the Strokes and the Libertines, they treat all rock as a level playing field, loving its traditions but not seeing musical barriers between generations, since the band learned all of rock history at once and now spit it all out in a giddy, cacophonous blend of post-punk and classic rock that sounds fresh, partially because they jam each of their very songs with a surplus of ideas. Some of this was true on their debut album, but it's the restlessness of Favourite Worst Nightmare that impresses — they're discovering themselves as they go and, unlike so many modern bands, they're interested in the discovery and not appearances. They'll venture into darker territory, they'll slow things down on "Only Ones Who Know," they'll play art punk riffs without pretension. Here, they sound like they'll try anything, which makes this a rougher album in some ways than their debut, which indeed was more cohesive. All the songs on Whatever shared a similar viewpoint, whereas the excitement here is that there's a multitude of viewpoints, all suggesting different tantalizing directions they could go. On that debut, it was possible hear all the ways they were similar to their predecessors, but here it's possible to hear all the ways the Arctic Monkeys are a unique, vibrant band and that's why Favourite Worst Nightmare is in its own way more exciting than the debut: it reveals the depth and ambition of the band and, in doing so, it will turn skeptics into believers.

Thanks for this. :D ^_^ I'll pin it as well.

 

Shall be intresting to see how they rate the new album compared to the old album, especially seen as though they didn't seem to hate their debut album as highly as many others have. :o

Thread updated with review of the Arctic Monkey's second album.

All the reviews of it have been near enough brilliant so far. I think maybe only The Fly's was the only one that didn't really seem to think it was that good. Has mostly got near enough full scores out of 5 or 10 for most of the reviews it's got, which is justified in my opinion. :D ^_^