"I
Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor" (
and their first gig came on 2003-06-13 at The Grapes in
Sheffield city-centre.
After a few performances, they began to record demos and burn them onto CDs to give
away at gigs. With a limited number of CDs available, fans began to rip the music
back onto their computers and share it amongst themselves. The group
did not mind, saying "we never made those demos to make money or
anything. We were giving them away free anyway — that was a better way
for people to hear them. And it made the gigs better, because people
knew the words and came and sang along."
They themselves took no responsibility for their music, admitting that
they did not even know how to get their songs onto the Internet.
When asked about the popularity of the band's MySpace site in
an interview with Prefix Magazine,
the band pointed out that they did not even know what MySpace was, and
that the site had originally been created by their fans. "[When we went
number one in England] we were on the news and radio about how MySpace
has helped us. But that's just the perfect example of someone who
doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. We actually had no
idea what it was."
They began to grow in popularity across the north of
England,
receiving attention from BBC Radio and the British tabloid press.
Mark Bull, a local amateur photographer, filmed the band's performances
and made the music video to "Fake Tales of San
Francisco", releasing it on his web-site,
alongside the contents of Beneath
the Boardwalk — a collection of the band's
songs which he named after a local music venue.
In May 2005, Arctic Monkeys released their first EP, Five Minutes with
Arctic Monkeys, featuring the songs "Fake Tales
of San Francisco" and "From the Ritz to the Rubble". This release was
limited to 1500 CDs and 2000 7" records, but was also available to
download from the iTunes Music Store. Soon after,
the band played at the Carling Stage of the Reading
and Leeds Festivals, reserved for less known or unsigned bands. Their
appearance was hyped by much of the music press and the band was
received by an unusually large crowd for the billing they played. The
critically acclaimed
performance included spontaneous singalongs of tracks that were only
available as demos on the Internet.
Record deals
The band resisted signing to a record label, refusing to
change their songs to suit the industry — "Before the hysteria started,
the labels would say, 'I like you, but I'm not sure about this bit, and
that song could do with this changing...' We never listened."
Their cynicism with the industry was such that record company scouts
were refused guaranteed guest list entry for their gigs, a move
described by MTV Australia as "We've got this far
without them — why should we let them in?".
The success of the strategy was illustrated with a series of sell-out
gigs across the UK. October 2005 saw them sell out the historic London
Astoria, and Turner saw this as proof that they were justified to
ignore the record companies, saying "Once it all kicked off, we didn't
care anymore. In London, the kids were watching the band, and the
record company were at the back watching the kids watching the band."
Eventually, they signed to Domino
in June 2005. The band almost signed to an undisclosed "other label",
but were attracted to the "DIY ethic" of Domino owner Laurence Bell,
who ran the label from his flat and only signed bands that he liked
personally.
The UK's Daily Star
tabloid newspaper reported that this was followed in October 2005 by a
£1m publishing deal with EMI
and a £725,000 contract with Epic for the United
States.
Arctic Monkeys denied this on their website, dubbing the newspaper "The
Daily Stir". However, Domino have licensed the Australian
and New
Zealand publishing rights to EMI and the Japanese rights to independent label Hostess.
Initial releases
Arctic Monkeys appear on the cover of October 2005's NME
magazine following their debut Number One single.
Their first single after signing to Domino, "I Bet You Look
Good on the Dancefloor", was released on 17 October
2005 and
went straight to #1 on the UK Singles Chart, selling 38,962
copies and beating Sugababes, McFly
and Robbie Williams in the
process. Three days later, they made their first appearance on the
cover of NME.
Their second single, "When the Sun Goes Down"
(previously titled "Scummy"), was released on 2006-01-16 and
also went straight to #1 on the UK Singles Chart, selling 38,922 copies
and dethroning Shayne Ward. The band's
success in reaching the #1 spot without marketing or advertising led
some to suggest that it could signal a change in how new bands achieve
recognition.
They finished recording their debut album at Chapel
Studios in Lincolnshire during September 2005. Its
name was confirmed as Whatever
People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, a line
taken from the 1960 film 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning', (which
the band watched after being pressed by Morrissey
formerly of The Smiths) in early December,
with release originally intended for 30 January, 2006. Although early versions
of many tracks were already freely available to download from the
band's pre-label demo CDs, it was widely expected to be one of the
biggest releases of 2006 with thousands of copies pre-ordered. On 2006-01-05,
Domino announced the album's release would be brought forward one week
to the 23
January claiming that this was "due to high demand". While the same
thing was done with the release of Franz Ferdinand,
there has been continued speculation that the move came as a result of
the album's leak and the impact of file sharing — a controversial
suggestion given the part file-sharing played in establishing the
band's fanbase.
Whatever
People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not became the
fastest selling debut album in UK chart history, selling 363,735 copies
in the first week.
This smashed the previous record of 306,631 copies held by Hear’Say with
their debut Popstars, and sold more copies on its
first day alone — 118,501 — than the rest of the Top 20 albums combined.
The record was released a month later in the United
States and sold 34,000 units in its first week, making it the second
fastest selling for a debut indie album in America and debuting at #24
on the Billboard album
chart.
However US sales for the first year did not match those of the first
week in the UK for Whatever... . US critics were
more reserved about the band than their UK counterparts, and appeared
unwilling to be drawn into the possibility of "yet another example of
the UK's press over-hyping new bands".
However, the band's June 2006 tour of North America received critical
acclaim at each stop
— the hype surrounding them "proven to exist for good reason".
Meanwhile, the UK's NME magazine declared
the band's debut album the "5th greatest British album of all time".
They also equalled the record of The Strokes and Oasis
at the 2006 NME Awards, winning three fan-voted awards for Best British
Band, Best New Band and Best Track for I Bet You Look
Good on the Dancefloor.
Nicholson departure; Mercury
Prize
In a similar fashion to bands such as Oasis
and The
Smiths, Arctic Monkeys wasted no time in recording new
material, and released a 5-track EP on 2006-04-24, entitled Who the Fuck Are
Arctic Monkeys, and was seen by critics as a
swipe back at the snowballing hype surrounding the band. Due to its
length, the EP was ineligible to chart as a UK single or album.
Furthermore, the record's bad language has resulted in significantly
less radio airplay than previous records, although this was not a
reported concern — "since they made their name on the Internet — and
that got them a No.1 single and album — they don't care if they don't
get radio play".
However, soon after the release of the EP in the UK, the
band announced that bassist Andy Nicholson would not take part in the
band's forthcoming North America tour due
to "fatigue following an intensive period of touring".
Upon their return to the UK, Nicholson confirmed that he would start
his own project, and by that leave the Arctic Monkeys. Other than the
project, his reason for leaving was that he couldn't deal with the fame
and the success, that the band had acclaimed over the past six months.
Alex Turner, Jamie Cook and Matt Helders were sad about the situation,
and released some of a statement on their official website: "We are sad
to tell everyone that Andy is no longer with the band", also confirmed
that Nick O'Malley — former bassist with Arctic Monkeys' fellow Sheffield
rock band, The Dodgems, who had drafted
in as temporary bassist for the tour — would continue as bassist for
the rest of their summer tour schedule.
Shortly after, Nick O'Malley was confirmed as a full-time member and
bassist of the band.
Arctic Monkeys' first release without Nicholson, the
single "Leave Before the
Lights Come On", came on 2006-08-14. Turner suggested that "it feels
very much like it could be on the album", and that the song was one of
the last songs he wrote before their rise to fame.
Although reaching #4 in the UK, the single became the band's first
failure to reach #1 — leading to Turner referring to it as "the black
sheep of the family" at the band's performance at the 2006 Reading Festival. The
band were re-united at the Leeds Festival when
Nicholson met up with his former band mates and his replacement bassist
O'Malley;
however only the original band members, minus Nicholson, were present
at the award ceremony when Whatever
People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not won the 2006
Mercury Prize two weeks later.
Favourite Worst
Nightmare
On 2007-02-04 the
band announced on their official website that their new album would be
entitled Favourite Worst Nightmare.
The 12 song track list was also revealed as well as a release date of 2007-04-23. The
first single, "Brianstorm", was released on 2007-04-16.
The first ever play of Brianstorm was on Marc
Riley's show on BBC
6
Music on the 28 February 2007. Alex Turner has described the new songs
as "very different from last time", adding that the
sound of some tracks are "a bit full-on - a bit like "From
the Ritz to the Rubble", "The View from the Afternoon", that sort of
thing."
A secret gig played at Sheffield's Leadmill on 2007-02-10,
debuted 7 new songs (6 from Favourite Worst Nightmare
and 1 other).
Early reviews of the release have been extremely positive, and have
described it as "very, very fast and very, very loud."
Meanwhile, the band continued to pick up awards from
around the world, winning Best New Artist in the United
States' PLUG Independent Music
Awards and picking up "Album of the Year" awards in Japan, Ireland and the
US (see Awards).
On top of awards for "Best Album" and "Best Music DVD" at the 2007 NME Awards,
a remarkably successful year for the band was topped off as they picked
up "Best British Band" and "Best British Album" at the 2007
BRIT Awards. Whilst promoting their new album they appeared on Radio 1
during a special Radio 1 "Arctic Monday", performing "Brianstorm"
and a cover of the Amy Winehouse track "You
Know I'm No Good" in Jo Whiley's Live Lounge.
On 29
April 2007,
the day Favourite Worst Nightmare charted at #1 in
the UK Albums Chart, all 12 tracks from
the album charted in the Top 200 of the UK
Singles Chart, ranging from "Brianstorm" at #7, to "If You Were There,
Beware" at #189. On 27 April 2007 they had a total of 18 tracks in the Top
200. "Fluorescent Adolescent" and "505" charted in the Top 75, at #60
and #74 respectively. Since only one song (Brianstorm) has been
released as a single, this turned out to be a mistake made by the
iTunes webstore, by counting every sold album as a sold single for each
song on the album as well.
The second single for Favourite Worst Nightmare
was "Fluorescent Adolescent".
B-sides to this single are "The Bakery", "Plastic Tramp" and "Too Much
to Ask".
On July
17, 2007 Favourite Worst Nightmare
was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize. The bands
second nomination in consecutive years.
Criticism and controversy
The cover sleeve of Whatever
People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, depicting
Chris McClure, a friend of the band, after a night of binge
drinking.
The band have received criticism, based largely around the
media circus that has surrounded their rise.
Critics described them as one in a long line of largely overhyped "NME
bands", while the release of the EP Who the Fuck Are
Arctic Monkeys just three months after their
record-breaking debut album has been criticised by some, who have seen
it as "money-grabbing"
and "cashing in on their success".
However, the band countered that they regularly release new music not
to make money, but to avoid the "boredom" of "spending three years
touring on one album".
The cover sleeve of Whatever
People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, showing
Chris McClure, a friend of the band, smoking a cigarette, was
criticised by the head of the NHS in Scotland for
"reinforcing the idea that smoking is OK".
The image on the CD itself is a shot of an ashtray full of cigarettes.
The band's product manager denied the accusation, and in fact suggested
the opposite — "You can see from the image smoking is not doing him the
world of good".
Television appearances
October 2005 saw the group's only UK television
appearances, performing on Popworld (15
October), E4 Music and Later with Jools Holland
(28
October). Since these appearances, however, the band became notorious
for refusing to play on any further TV shows.
They repeatedly turned down offers to play on the BBC's long running (now
cancelled) chart show, Top of the Pops,
as well as ITV's
CD:UK.
The first footage of the band's gigs was broadcast on MTV Two's Gonzo
on Tour on 2005-11-12,
featuring footage from a recent gig in Liverpool.
The band's refusal to attend the 2006
BRIT Awards was originally seen as another snub to television, although
a statement explained that it was in fact due to their prior
commitments on the NME Awards Tour. In their recorded
acceptance speech for Best British Breakthrough Act,
the band gained a "mystery fifth member" who did all the talking.
Known for being camera-shy, it turned out that the band had recruited We
Are Scientists frontman Keith Murray, a friend of the
band, to accept the award for them, to just "confuse the audience".
Despite their hostility to appearances on UK television,
the band made their biggest TV appearance when they appeared on Saturday
Night Live on 2006-03-11 to kick off their sold-out US tour.
The performance included the songs "I Bet You Look Good on the
Dancefloor" and "A Certain Romance", and saw the word "ASBO" printed on the bass drum.
However, just before the guitar solo of "A Certain Romance",
Turner castigated a yawning audience member,
and Cook tossed his guitar at an amp at the end of the song.
In February 2007 the band did not attend the 2007
BRIT Awards ceremony, due to recording of the video to their new single
"Brianstorm"
the same day. Although reported as a second "snub" to the ceremony,
Helders told BBC 6Music ""We're filming the
video that day, so we're not going to be anywhere near it. We haven't
snubbed it, we're just busy boys getting ready to go on tour again."
Winning "Best British Band" and "Best British Album", the band instead
sent videoed acceptance speeches dressed up as characters from the Wizard of Oz and The
Village People.
The band appeared on Jimmy
Kimmel Live on April
26, 2007.
The band also performed on Late Night With Conan
O'Brien on April
30, 2007,
when Conan aired his show in San Francisco, where they played their
latest single, Brianstorm.
They made a UK TV appearance on May 4, 2007 on the BBC Two show Later, hosted by Jools Holland,
where they performed "Brianstorm", " Teddy Picker" and "505",
all three tracks are from their latest album Favourite Worst
Nightmare.
They headlined the Glastonbury
Festival on 22
June, their full set being shown on BBC Two and BBC Three. They played tracks from both of
their albums as well as a cover of Diamonds
Are Forever in homage to Dame Shirley Bassey, who
performed at the festival that Sunday.
They appeared on Friday Night with
Jonathan Ross on 6
July and performed "Fluorescent Adolescent",
whilst dressed in circus clowns attire after earlier promising Ross
that they "had something special" up their sleeves. The clown costumes
were in reference to the Fluorescent Adolescent music
video.
In politics
The popularity of the Arctic Monkeys in the UK, especially
among young people, has led to politicians and journalists referencing
the band in speeches and texts. In May 2006, the then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Gordon Brown stated in an interview
with New
Woman magazine that he listened to them every
day, claiming "[they] really wake you up in the morning",
although in a later interview he was unable to name any of their songs.
This has later been reported as a misquote. Subsequent interviews Brown
has clarified that he said he didn't actually like them. He says he
simply stated they would certainly wake you up in the morning.
He went on to reference this in his speech at the 2006 Labour Party
Conference about the risk of global warming, joking that he was
"more interested in the future of the Arctic
Circle than the future of the Arctic Monkeys".
Liberal Democrat leader Menzies
Campbell also referred to the band at the 2006 Liberal Democrats Party
Conference, mistakenly claiming that they had sold more records than The
Beatles,
a comment which led to much derision from the media.
Band logo
Arctic Monkeys' original band logo, featured on releases before Favourite Worst Nightmare.
The band's distinctive logo from their first release, Five Minutes with
Arctic Monkeys, was used by the band on their
releases as well as their website up until February 2007. On February
13, 2007, the logo on their official site changed to a new design which
features on "Brianstorm"
and Favourite Worst Nightmare
as well as subsequent releases from the album.
Discography
-
Main article: Arctic Monkeys discography
Awards
Band
Records
2006:
- "I Bet You Look
Good on the Dancefloor":
- Whatever
People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not:
2007:
- Whatever People Say I Am, That's What
I'm Not:
- Best International Album - 2007 Meteor Music Awards
(Ireland), February 2007
- Best British Album - 2007
BRIT Awards, February 2007
- Best Album - 2007 NME
Awards, March 2007
- Album Award - Ivor
Novello Awards
Footnotes
-
"Arctic Monkeys make chart history",
BBC News Online, 2006-01-29.
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
Arctic Monkeys break America. Muse (2007-05-03). Retrieved on
2007-05-10.
-
"Monkeys let music do the talking", BBC News, 2006-02-24.
-
Dyson, Matt (2005-08-30). Review: Arctic Monkeys (HTML). BBC. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
Barton, Laura. "The question: Have the Arctic Monkeys changed
the music business?", The Guardian, 2005-10-25.
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
Gibson, Owen. "A Mercury for the Monkeys", The
Guardian, 2006-09-06.
-
Morley, Paul. "We love the 1980s", The
Guardian, 2006-01-27.
-
http://www.arctic-monkeys.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1866
-
"Arctic Monkeys confirm festival plans",
NME.
Retrieved on 2007-02-05.
-
"Malahide Castle, Dublin", Arctic
Monkeys Official Website, 2007-02-15. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
-
Aizlewood, John. "Monkeys are top of the tree", Evening
Standard, 2006-01-27.
Retrieved on 2006-01-27.
-
Dyson, Matt (2005-08-30). Review: Arctic Monkeys (HTML). BBC. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
Arctic Monkeys (HTML). MTV
Australia. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
McKay, Alastair. "Record labels: The Domino effect", The
Independent, 2006-02-03.
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
Colothan, Scott. "Arctic Monkeys Sign £1million Publishing Deal",
Gigwise, 2005-10-07.
Retrieved on 2005-10-19.
-
Barton, Laura. "The question: Have the Arctic Monkeys changed
the music business?", The Guardian, 2005-10-25.
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
Kumi, Alex. "Arctic Monkeys make chart history",
The
Guardian, 2006-01-30.
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
"Arctic Monkeys eye debut record", BBC
News Online, 2006-01-24.
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
"Arctic Monkeys crack US Top 30", NME, 2006-03-02. Retrieved
on 2007-04-16.
-
"US reluctant to heed Monkeys hype",
BBC News Online, 2006-03-17.
Retrieved on 2006-06-01.
-
Moody, Annemarie. "Arctic Monkeys: Platinum Primates rule
dancefloor", azcentral.com, 2006-06-05. Retrieved on 2006-06-08.
-
Peterson, Ryan. "Arctic Monkeys fast and furious", Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 2006-06-08. Retrieved
on 2006-06-08.
-
"Arctic Monkeys spark another British invasion",
Houston Chronicle, 2006-06-08. Retrieved
on 2006-06-08.
-
Parker, Kaitlin. "More Fun than a Barrel of Arctic Monkeys",
Texas Gigs, 2006-06-08. Retrieved
on 2006-06-08.
-
"NME's best British album of all time revealed", 2006-01-26.
-
Kilkelly, Daniel. "Arctic Monkeys plan foul-mouthed EP",
Digital
Spy, 2006-03-25.
Retrieved on 2006-03-25.
-
"Arctic
Monkeys lose a member", NME, 2006-05-26. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
Alex Turner, Jamie Cook, Matt Helders. "Andy
Nicholson", www.arcticmonkeys.com, 2006-06-19. Retrieved
on 2006-07-13.
-
"Arctic Monkeys play gig in tiny pub",
NME, 2006-05-25. Retrieved
on 2006-07-10.
-
"Arctic Monkeys re-unite in Leeds", NME, 2006-08-27.
Retrieved on 2006-10-01.
-
-
"Arctic
Monkeys say new album is 'very different'", NME, 2007-01-05.
Retrieved on 2007-01-13.
-
Arctic Monkeys make surprise live return.
NME (2007-02-11).
Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
-
Brandle, Lars. "Arctic Monkeys Snatch Two NME Trophies",
Billboard, 2007-03-01. Retrieved
on 2007-03-02.
-
Familiar Face? (HTML). BBC (2006-02-09).
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
Hanley, Lynsey. "Monkeymania", New
Statesman, 2006-01-30.
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
"Arctic Monkeys defend EP release", NME, 2006-04-18.
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
"Young Brains", San Diego CityBeat,
31 May 2006.
-
"Arctic Monkeys refuse Brits appearance",
Contactmusic, 2006-01-26.
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
-
Colothan, Scott. "Arctic Monkeys gain mystery fifth member",
Gigwise, 2006-02-16.
Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
