Another year, another massive pop phenomenon from England.
Last year, the U.K. was all abuzz about James Blunt, an ex-soldier who came “from nowhere” (read: an indie label) to top the U.K. album chart for an unprecedented number of weeks (nine).
This year – as every rock hipster already knows – it’s all about the Arctic Monkeys. They’re a four-man band from an unfashionable nook in Northern England (Sheffield) who gave away their songs on the Internet to seed an audience. Then they signed to an indie imprint, and wound up having the biggest-selling debut CD in British history. Or at least the biggest since they began accurately counting these things in the early “90s.
Last month, the Monkeys’ CD, “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not,” moved 360,000 copies for that unprecedented opening flourish.
It makes for an awfully good story – especially the bit about the band giving away their first songs over the Net. (“How modern,” you’re meant to think, as if lots of young bands don’t do the same thing on sites like myspace.com.) Also, by the time the Monkeys put out their debut, they had an unusually powerful indie label backing them – Domino, the British home to Franz Ferdinand.
Also keep in mind that postpunk history is awash in bands who’ve wowed the Brits only to tank with Yanks. For every Spice Girls and Radiohead, there’s a Travis and Supergrass (groups whose American audiences measure a mere fraction of their followings at home).
This Tuesday, the American appeal of the Monkeys will finally be put to the test when “Whatever” hits U.S. shores.
Commercially speaking, it could be an uphill battle. We’re talking about an album, after all, whose lyrics use phrases like “knackered,” “lairy” and “full on,” delivered in a regional, working-class English accent.
And the music can sound as swaggeringly British as Blur.
Creatively speaking, however, “Whatever” is stupendous fun. It’s packed with the brash riffs and cheeky humor of the most animated of modern Brit pop. The riffs in the band’s big single, “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” have a frantic brilliance that perfectly mirrors the frustrated lust of the lyrics.
Most of the band’s words deal with the drunken embarrassment of trying to find sex and love in the deafening din, and deceiving lighting, of dance clubs.
They’re fairly typical concerns of anyone of the Monkeys’ ages (early 20s). Thankfully, there’s nothing typical about their hip-shaking sound. First, it has nothing to do with the “80s recycle that mars so much modern rock. It forges its own sneering path. Second, singer Alex Turner has a uniquely sputtering, mile-a-minute delivery that could impress even the most fleet rappers.
If the Monkeys don’t make it here, it’s our loss.
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(c) 2006, New York Daily News.
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AP-NY-02-20-06 0559EST
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