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Arctic Monkeys
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
Domino
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Article
written by Ged M
Jan 27, 2006.
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A product of internet-transmitted popularity based on good pop music or record company manipulation of four spotty chancers? Definitely the former, on the evidence of this record and its three previous singles. We may be uncomfortable with the rocketing hype which is seeing them everywhere from Jools Holland to the Sun to Asda but there’s no doubting the excitement generated by the pure pop pizazz of their music and the cocky teenage wit of Alex Turner's lyrics. But let’s be realistic. Are they the future of the record industry? No way. Have they written the new 'Definitely Maybe'? Certainly not. They’ve just produced an exciting debut album that’s the thing to hear this week.
The good points are the majority of tunes; they have a way of swooping from electric rhythms into heartstopping melodies (‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’, ‘A Certain Romance’). Lyrically, they’re super-smart and observant, about everyday/night provincial life: clubs, clothes, taxicabs, topshop princesses and rowdy high streets after last orders. With his Northern lingo, Alex Turner has the same sarky wit as Jarvis Cocker or Mike Skinner. Words can be funny (stitching up the indie-rock wannabes in ‘Fake Tales of San Francisco’), tender (‘Mardy Bum’) or surprisingly barbed (‘When The Sun Goes Down’).
On the down side though, the album also contains its share of clunkers: ‘Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But’ not only demonstrates the album’s bad habit of choosing huge titles that drop off the edge of the sleeve but is long and dull, while ‘Dancing Shoes’ has an atypically bad lyric - “get on your dancing shoes/ you sexy little swine” - to go with the soggy dance rhythms.
There are faint echoes of the Strokes, Libertines and Franz Ferdinand but more than anything it sounds like the Arctic Monkeys. That’s a good and a bad thing; it’s original, yes, but it also has a lack of depth that makes the album good on the first few spins and increasingly unyielding the more you play it. Like the Strokes and Franz Ferdinand, it’s a release that I doubt will last more than a week on my turntable (why bother when XfM will be playing tracks every 30 minutes?). Still, for sheer energy, power and charm, while it’s on there it’ll blow off a few cobwebs. Just don’t raise your expectations too high.
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