ARCTIC MONKEYS
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (LP)
When The Sun Goes Down (EP)
Domino
· With a record-setting 360,000 copies of their debut full-length sold in its first week, the Arctic Monkeys may very well be the most overrated British band yet.
By the time you read these words, the Arctic Monkeys will have no doubt had a monument carved in their likeness, a holiday created and named after them, and been crowned the four new kings of England. Such is the nature of these 19-year-olds’ meteoric, hype-fuelled rise to fame, with higher sales for their smugly (and ugly) titled debut LP in the first week of its release than the rest of the Top 20 combined.
However, what goes up must inevitably come down, and it seems that I must reveal the truth that the British press won’t – neither the debut nor its accompanying EP offer anything all that special.
It’s not even that this music is bad – in fact it’s fairly inoffensive. It’s just that I’ve heard this kind of thing done 10,000 times before, 10,000 better ways. This is recycled and repackaged British guitar-pop, along the lines of The Stone Roses and The Libertines, with a dash of the Kaiser Chiefs and Maximo Park thrown in for bad measure. Every flavour-of-the-month ingredient has been tossed into this heady stew, with paint-by-numbers "buzzsaw" guitars, mediocre tempo shifts and breakdowns, and an annoyingly "real" accented lead vocalist, all adding up to another band you can easily imagine before you’ve even heard them. More like "Whatever You Say You’ll Buy, That’s What I Am."
Singer-guitarist Alex Turner’s voice and cheeky observational lyrics are supposed to be what sets these Monkeys apart from the pack, and sure, lines like "over there, they’ve got broken bones/there’s only music so that there’s new ring-tones" ("A Certain Romance") are what – topical? But really, most of this stuff is only half as good as Pete Doherty or Mike Skinner’s depictions of geezer life, and the songs surrounding them are for the most part instantly forgettable.
Lead single "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" will likely fulfill its own prophecy, but it’s only served to irritate me. "Mardy Bum" is decent, "Perhaps Vampires is a Bit Strong but…" is as awful as its title suggests, and nothing else really sticks out except for "When The Sun Goes Down," (also the sole reason for the energetic but pointless three-song EP) and closer "A Certain Romance," which is actually pretty fun. But that’s not saying much for an album the NME recently declared the fifth greatest of all time, edging out a few you may have heard of called Different Class, London Calling and Revolver.
In the end, the best thing about this album’s jaw-dropping first-week sales is that it will provide further support for other actually worthwhile acts on Domino, like Caribou, Weird War, The Magnetic Fields and Bonnie "Prince" Billy.
LP 2/5
EP 2/5
JESSE LOCKE
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