The Arctic Monkeys

The Arctic Monkeys have added the alcohol to the punch at the Indie rock party. Arriving 'overnight' in Summer 2005 the four piece band from North Sheffield have quickly established themselves as a force within the indie/rock genre.

The Arctic Monkeys lyrics combined with simple guitar licks and 'Ramones-esque' drum beats filled the gap in the market previously filled by groups such as Pulp, coincidently a band from the same City.The band were concieved in 2002 and played their first gig in June 2003 at the

Grapes, an unremarkable but inspiring public house in the center of Sheffield.

After a series of other performances at similar venues the band started to burn demo's onto CD's and distribute them from the stage into the crowd which, inturn, began to be redistributed onto the hard drives of the fans and onto file sharing sites on the internet.

This process has remained with the band as many Arctic Monkeys downloads are available throughout cyberspace.The release of their first album 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' endorsed the prerelease hype by returning a statistic of the most first week sales of a debut album in history.The Arctic Monkeys reputation started to gather momentum and towards the end of 2004 they were reaching the airwaves via the BBC's Radio 1.

The Arctic Monkeys discography began In May 2005, they released the now rare '5 Minutes with the Arctic Monkeys', an EP containing tracks that would later appear on the debut album.In Summer 2005 they played the Reading and Leeds Festivals and received critical aclaim from the self-professed god of musical publications the NME.A sell out gig in front of 2,000 fans at the London Astoria subsequently saw the band signed by Domino Records in June 2005.

The Arctic Monkeys discography was enhanced in October the same year with the release of their first single 'I Bet You Look Good on The Dance Floor', selling 38,000 copies and going straight to #1 in the process. Shortly after the band appeared on the front cover of the NME.

The bands second single 'When the Sun Goes Down' was released on the 16th January 2006 achieving the #1 in the same week and selling a similar amount of copies as the first single.

The first album was released on 23rd January 2006, a week ahead of the planned distribution date due to 'file sharing leaks' on the internet. 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' sold over 360,000 copies in the first week and over 118,000 on the first day alone.

The album was released a week later in the United States debuting at #24 on the Billboard 100. The band were to tour the USA later in 2006 to mixed reviews. On the 24th April 2006 the band release a 5 track EP called 'Who the Fuck are the Arctic Monkeys', this was ineligible to enter the charts and received mixed airplay due to the lyrical content.

Shortly after the release the band announced that bassist Andy Nicholson would not take part in the tour of North America. He left the band shortly afterwards and was replaced by Nick O'Malley.

The band released their 3rd single 'Leave Before the Lights Come On'' on the 14th August 2006 reaching #4 in the UK singles charts. An appearance at the Reading Festival was to follow and 2 weeks later they were awarded the 2006 Mercury Music Prize for 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not'.

The unconventional route that the band took in order present to the masses its brand of entertainment is not the only thing that sets them apart from the mainstream acts. The Arctic Monkeys media 'bandwagon' has never been at 'full speed ahead', they have continually 'shunned' many opportunities to appear on television and radio. Surely it's not all about the music is it?

Many acts enter the arena with an honest, raw and underproduced first batch of tunes only to fizzle out and never reach the same heights again. Both The Bluetones and more recently Starsailor were victims of that process. Somehow I don't think The Arctic Monkeys will be the same.