Even allowing for the age of intrusive media we live in circa the early 21st Century, THE ARCTIC MONKEYS’ rise has been supernaturally fast. I mean, let’s just check our heads for a second: it’s only May 2005 or so when this reviewer first saw pictures and small news pieces about them in the press, and since that time they’ve had more internet-based interest than virtually any unknown band ever, stormed the Reading Festival, had their first number one (and, taking a leaf out of The Clash’s book, refused to mime it on TOTP), played America for the first time and sold out London’s Astoria. Hell, wouldn’t it be easy to lose our collective head and start blathering on about phoney Beatlemania and the like?
Yeah, it would, not to mention begin reaming off superlatives about t’Monkeys shaping up as the new Stone Roses/ Smiths/Oasis etc, because – make no mistake – The Arctic Monkeys will be included in the lineage of ‘the important’ British rock groups when the dust eventually clears, even though you get the feeling that from their refreshingly down-to-Earth Sheffield foursome would find the notion faintly ridiculous.
But it’s that inbuilt ability to refuse to take themselves or the surrounding madness too seriously that you suspect may well ensure The Arctic Monkeys will survive and (hopefully) thrive artistically after they’ve careered through what will surely be a seismic first year of major celebrity. Because regardless of their imminent pin-up status, it’s the sharpness of their funky indie guitar sounds, their tightness as a band and both Alex Turner’s brilliantly observed snatches of life as a teenager on the wrong side of the tracks and his instantly recognisable South Yorkshire voice that matter after the shouting’s died down. However long that may take.
And, for once, your reviewer has scant reason not to agree with the pundits and fashionistas. The Arctic Monkeys are a magnificent band who take bits of what has gone before, add their own crucial twists and local knowledge and turn out something that’s intrinsically their own. “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” is their debut album and while their meteoric rise makes a mockery of using overworked phrases like ‘long-awaited’, let’s just say it’s been worth the recent heightened state of anticipation.
So let’s start at the beginning. The throw-em-off-the-scent title “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” is culled from the classic Alan Sillitoe/ Albert Finney book/film “Saturday Night & Sunday Morning.” It’s not the only time when the band reference a Smiths/ Morrissey-style world of innocence lost (other examples are surely lines like “Remember cuddles in the kitchen/ to get things off the ground” during the brilliant “Mardy Bum” and the poignant, dog-eared morning after observations of the closing “A Certain Romance”) though the majority of Alex Turner’s lyrical observations are planted so firmly in contemporary times that they could almost take root.
And the contemporary times The Arctic Monkeys describe largely take in the cheap, sometimes voyeuristic thrills most young ‘uns derive from an average night out, any night of the week you like. Without plumbing the depths of (erk!) concept albums, the thread that binds around half these songs together is an overall view of that night out, beginning with the anticipatory thoughts of scoring with the opposite sex in the rampant opening “The View From The Afternoon”, through the desperate-to-pull-and-failing-dismally scenario of “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor”, the have-one-more-crack-at-the-title “Dancing Shoes” and then the dismal aftermath, documented in both “Riot Van” and the taxi-ride home of “Red Lights Indicates Doors Are Secured” before the summation comes via “A Certain Romance.”
Naturally, Alex Turner’s vivid lyrical storyboards are unmissable throughout, and it’s impossible to deny the genius of his observations in songs like “Riot Van” (“Up rolls the riot van and these lads just wind the coppers up/ they ask why they don’t catch proper crooks/ they get their names and addresses took, but they couldn’t care less”) and the huge need of his (probably) geeky protagonist in “Still Take You Home” (“I’m struggling, I can’t see through your fake tan/ and you know it for a fact everyone’s eatin’ out of your hand”). He’s also sharp as a tack when openly attacking the vagaries of the music industry’s ‘finest’ on the great “Fake Tales Of San Francisco” ( “There’s a supercool band with trilbies and their glasses of white wine/ and the weekend rock stars are in the toilets practicing their lines”) and even more pointed (rightly, in my opinion) on the abrasive “Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong, But…” when he notes: “Although you pretend to stand by us, I know you’re certain we’ll fail.” Absolutely, young man. There’s a wise head on them youthful shoulders.
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But however talented a lyricist Turner is (and he is), “Whatever People Say I Am…” wouldn’t be half the album it is if the band didn’t play like greyhounds with sticks of dynamite shoved up their arses. Tight? We’re taking the proverbial gnat’s chuff here, matey, and whether t’ Monkeys are attacking the Dead Kennedys-style riffs and cheeky, knockabout middle 8 of “Still Take You Home”, the bludgeoning powerplays of “The View From The Afternoon” or the deceptively mellow and controlled “Riot Van” they get it spot on every time. They can approach the grace and melodic danger of their quintessentially English forbears like The Smiths (not least on the excellent “Mardy Bum”), but often it’s angular heroes such as the Gang Of Four and even The Futureheads that spring as readily to mind as the likes of The Libertines where spiky treats like “Fake Tales Of San Francisco” are concerned. Oh, and in Matt Helders they have that ingredient that matters every bit as much as the frontman: the marvellous drummer who will cope beautifully with future musical development.
Crucially, they remember something else of vital importance: a classic debut album must retain one of its’ trump cards for the final frame, and in the closing “A Certain Romance”, the Arctic Monkeys turn in the best track they have thus far committed to vinyl. Opening with voodoo drums and a machine-gun burst of Who-esque power, it soon eases into a considered groove played with intuition and expectation and it’s the perfect vehicle for Turner’s vivid picture of his (and anyone’s) town where “there’s only music so there’s new ringtones”. Yes, he’s critical of his environment, but there’s warmth, humour, sadness and – despite what Alex sings – a sort of defiant, dog-eared romance in there too. At the four-minute mark, the band lash in and take it all magnificently to another level and when it’s over all you wanna do is go back to the start and go back round again, nursing a bad head an’ all. Suffice it to say it’s up there with Morrissey, Ray Davies and Billy Bragg in terms of presenting an intimate portrait of a dog-eared and instantly recognisable contemporary England.
So in conclusion, I’m gonna share my favourite lyric with you. It’s from “You Probably Couldn’t See The Lights, But You Were Staring Right At Me” and it’s when a tongue-tied Alex sings “I’m so tense and getting tenser/ it could all go a bit Frank Spencer.” Well, I suppose if wild boars fly backwards over the Equator it still might, but otherwise the chance of The Arctic Monkeys doing a whoopsie right now seems less likely than a wholesale discovery of those elusive hens’ teeth.
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