Overhyped primates?

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you would know that the United States is under attack right now from yet another wave of vacant looking lads from Britain. This time, the wave of bands is spear-headed by an unlikely gang of 17 to 21 year olds with a penchant for spiky guitars and one of the dumbest names since Limp Bizkit. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you … the Arctic Monkeys!

While it would be tempting to bite our collective tongue and wince at the arrival of yet another British buzz-band, lets hold off on that for right now. Whether or not the Arctic Monkeys are indeed one of the top five most important British groups in rock 'n' roll (as asserted by hot-and-heavy NME) and regardless of the fact that the band's debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not was the fastest-selling debut by a British band ever, the fact is that the band is, well, good. Solid, buzzing, punk-inflected rock with decent slice of life vocals that recall previous chroniclers of the crumbling empire like Pulp, The Jam, and XTC.

I guess what prompted me to write about the Arctic Monkeys this week was a brilliant piece of satire on VH1's Best Week Ever, a show better known for its lack of brilliant satire. The panelists talked about going through a three-step process when it came to their "new favorite band." The first was excitement, with one C-list comedian stating "I've never even heard of them, but the Arctic Monkeys are my new favorite band!" The second was resentment ("It sucks now that everyone knows who they are. I was totally into them before anyone else … even if I'd never heard their stuff."), followed by acceptance ("Hey! These guys sound just like the Strokes, and the Clash, and … the Strokes!). While many of us in the States may continue to scratch our heads and ask "Arctic who?", in Britain it's a whole different story. In the span of six months, the Arctic Monkeys have gone from relative indie unknowns to being the biggest band since Oasis. Now we all know how the British music press loves to build up their heroes, so maybe this shouldn't be so surprising, but it is an alarming level of success that the band has achieved in a relatively tiny window of time. I think Oasis had to at least play to a few empty houses before people started lapping up Definitely Maybe.

So … what does it sound like? Well, as Pitchforkmedia writer Scott Plagenhoef puts it, "the Arctic Monkeys are, at their heart, the same sort of meat 'n' potatoes guitar rock that has dominated the U.K. since the emergence of the Strokes, if not Oasis. They're a band that neatly sums up what's already selling, and in a relatively condensed media market the group was always going to be a hit." For those of you who want a bit more specifics, it sounds like Franz Ferdinand with a dose of Bloc Party or even Oasis' anthemic bent with lyrics about getting too drunk to get a girl's number and boredom and the like.

So why the big fuss? Well, England's a small island country with a national radio that actually plays decent music some of the time, so it's understandable that this is what the youth over there are identifying with - well-written songs about what they know. Also, the Arctic Monkeys emerge from a tradition of self-effacing Brit-poppers. Blur was huge in Britain precisely because of its quintessential Britishness (Blur's attempts at being Pavement notwithstanding). The same goes for the Smiths, a band that defined the idea of British identity in their songs and image. Whether this is the path the Arctic Monkeys will take remains to be seen. On Saturday Night Live, they played up their young upstart image to the hilt, with lead singer/guitarist Alex Turner barely acknowledging the camera and the band jokingly trashing their instruments at the end. When Nirvana did the same thing on the same show 15 years ago, it was an act of defiance. When the Arctic Monkeys playfully slammed their guitars down it was, to borrow a British phrase, them "takin' the piss."