Just like clockwork, a new year has brought with it a new British pop sensation, one that will supposedly save rock and roll from its current, sorry state and lead it into a golden age. The 2006 installment of this phenomenon is Sheffield, England's Arctic Monkeys, a fiery teenage four-piece led by nineteen-year-old singer/guitarist Alex Turner.
One of the more hyped records in recent memory, the Arctic Monkeys' debut full-length, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" saw the band leap-frog over the likes of Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, the Libertines and Coldplay by not only debuting at number one on the U.K. sales charts in January, but by selling more copies in its first week of sales than any other debut album in British history. British music publication NME dubbed the Arctic Monkeys "Our Generation's Most Important Band" and gave the record one of the magazine's only perfect tens.
With an American release date set for Feb. 21 and a subsequent headlining tour looming, the Arctic Monkeys seem destined to be ruling the world by this time next year. However, one question remains: How good a debut have these boys come up with, and is it worth even a shred of this kind of hype? This question is a bit tricky to answer.
For one, this album means a lot more to the British public than it does to Americans. A great deal of the band's appeal is their large social impact on British listeners. The Arctic Monkeys made an extremely improbable, meteoric rise from humble, unsigned indie band to a household name in merely six months through Internet demos, an extremely dedicated cult of fans and a shrewd signing with Domino Records, the label responsible for the global success of Franz Ferdinand.
This may be lost in the transition from the British market to the American market. It is unlikely that the Arctic Monkeys will become as hugely popular in the States as in Britain, in part because they won't be able to take the country by storm through the same grassroots venues.
As engaging as "Whatever People Say I Am..." can be at times - and it can be extremely so - the tunes aren't anything that listeners haven't heard before. Frontman Alex Turner's brash and confident Yorkshire banter is strikingly similar to that of former Libertines guitarist Pete Doherty, especially on tracks like the smash-hit single, "I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor" and the pub-rock anthem, "Dancing Shoes."
The music does little to differentiate itself from its peers, with two jangly post-punk-sounding guitars over fairly generic dance basslines and drumbeats. And whereas bands like Franz Ferdinand and the Futureheads are carried more by their instrumentation than by their lead vocalist, the Arctic Monkeys are much more of a vehicle for their frontman than nearly all of their peers.
Turner does, however, possess a penchant for biting cynicism and observations far beyond his young age, which has had major British music mags going so far as to compare him to singers such as Jarvis Cocker and Morrissey. For every biting social judgement Turner makes in his lyrics ("There's only music so that there's new ringtones"), however, there are equally cringeworthy lines such as, "He told Roxanne to put on her red light" and "There are no Montagues or Capulets," that don't exactly evoke a sense of true intellectualism.
That is not to say that Turner isn't a good songwriter; the album's closer, "A Certain Romance," is a gem of a pop song, and a surefire number-one single if the band chooses to release it as such. The album's second single and standout track, "When the Sun Goes Down," skillfully teeters from playful verses to an anthemic, head-banging chorus.
One thing that the Artic Monkeys have going for them is that, like Oasis, Franz Ferdinand and numerous other British pop sensations before them, they appeal to an extremely diverse audience ranging from indie scenesters to teenage girls, frat boys and casual FM listeners.
"Whatever People Say I Am..." is far from a perfect album, and far from life-changing. But it is very easy to understand the hype surrounding this band; they are exciting, charismatic and likely to stay in the public eye for a long time to come.
