2.21.2006

ARCTIC MONKEYS in a barrel. . .

IcedMonk.jpg

I know, I know. This is Internet Blog Post #1,000,000 about the crazily hyped Arctic Monkeys, whose debut album "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" finally reached our shores earlier today. If you haven't already seen a ton of press on these guys, then you're probably some friend or relative of mine and this is the only music blog you've ever read, and you're only doing it to humor me.

In my defense, I'm positive I posted about them as early as October of 2005 (even then I was running late on the bandwagon) and tried my hardest to stay out of the fray until now. It's a little ridiculous to gush about a band when you haven't heard their record, especially if you haven't even seen them in concert.

Finally, I have the record in my grubby little hands so I can have a qualified opinion. Since I have only owned it for about 3 hours, I won't make any definite statements beyond: "This is pretty kickass."

Check out some for yourself:

"A Certain Romance": The first Arctic Monkeys song I ever heard was the demo version of this song. That is a demo version, right? There are a lot of similarities, but a few things that sound off to me (the drums sound like they were recorded differently, for example. You might not notice the clever, postmodern lyrics the first few times you hear it because the song has such an obvious, great melody that it doesn't really need good lyrics. "There's only music so that there's new ringtones" is the best dis on the music industry I've heard in a long time.

"Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But. . .": I like when a band can pull of having good songs on the second "side" of their album. Most records tend to run out of steam after the first four or five songs because even the band knows they have to front-load that shit so you won't realize how lame the record is in the long run. I love both of Rogue Wave's albums for that same reason; they never run out of good songs.

"Seven": This one is a b-side from the "When the Sun Goes Down" single. I recently read an interview with Mick Jagger where he pimped the Arctic Monkeys, and I'm guessing he loves this song.


FOR MORE ON TONIGHT'S POST:
- The Monkeys' home page
- Listen to the whole album on their MySpace page
- The Brits know their hype: Arctic Monkeys have fastest selling debut in UK history

munk.jpg

3 comments:

sh said...

I'll admit this is pretty much the only music blog I read (the other being this one), but I certainly don't read it to humor you. I read it to humor me.

Anonymous said...

Do you have the other demo artic monkeys tracks? I came to the Monkeys party just about two weeks too late, and it'd be great if you could post (or hook me up with) the other demo tracks. Especially of any that aren't on the album.

Best track on the album is Fake Tales Of San Francisco IMHO.

RC said...

Hey, don't mind the post b/c I just learned about the Arctic Monkeys this week for the 1st time myself...so I added to the world of post with one of my own.

--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com