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These Monkeys are really cool

By SEAN DALY
Published February 14, 2006

With the exception of the Spice Girls, Chumbawamba and that seizure-inducing Crazy Frog, U.K. kids have had a pretty keen ear for killer music over the past decade. I'm talking mostly about the moneymaking export of Brit-pop, which was huge over there before it was huge over here. You know, Blur and Oasis, Radiohead and Coldplay, Travis and Doves. All those sad guitar boys with broken hearts, bad teeth and the kind of gotcha hooks that can make you pose like a rock star and/or swerve off the road and sob like a ninny.

Except for hip-hop - in which we rule almost exclusively - I've learned to trust rock fans overseas more than I do stateside tastemakers, who often seem more obsessed with midriffs than hot riffs. If the Brits are flipping out about something, then I usually take notice. That's why I was ready to fully embrace the Arctic Monkeys - a ragtag band of 19- and 20-year-old chums from the blue collar English city of Sheffield - before I listened to a single note.

As it turns out, my premature euphoria was justified.

The Arctic Monkeys' first album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, released in Britain in January, is the fastest-selling debut in British history, topping previous champ Oasis.

Fronted by lead singer/guitarist Alex Turner - who also pens the band's bar stool poet lyrics about working class weekends in smoke-stained pubs - the group sold almost 400,000 copies of its debut in its first week alone.

The band's staggering success in Great Britain is being credited to a grass-roots Internet campaign and, more important, a head start via online digital music store iTunes, where five songs from Whatever People Say I Am have been available for weeks. That explains why lots of U.S. kids are already buzzing about the Monkeys, too: The entire album won't be released here until Feb. 21, but iPod users - an influential group to be sure - are already championing the feverish first single, I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.

And with good reason: Dancefloor is a take-notice coming-out party, a song that is sexy and nasty like Courtney Love used to be sexy and nasty. It's set in one of those urban dance clubs where all the social classes converge, and you can almost smell the perfumed girls, the cig-lipped boys and restrooms that reek no matter how clean they are. The song has slam-dancing punk power and damn-the-nuance rage. But keep listening, and you'll hear a subtle pop propulsion (the catchy chorus, the funky bass from Andy Nicholson, the driving drums from Matt Helders) and a whole lot of smarts, as Turner tries to woo a woman out of his league, dropping clunky Shakespeare references to try to impress her.

For such young rapscallions, these dudes sure are smart. Endearing influences, either overt or sneaky, are everywhere, from the Clash to Elvis Costello to the ska-pop silliness of Madness. On the sublime Fake Tales of San Francisco - also available on iTunes - the cut commences with an old-school Stonesian groove, hips-forward white-boy blues. The band gets great percussive oomph from all the instruments - addictive beats might be the band's secret weapon - and an arena-appropriate call and response gives the song an epic finale.

The Arctic Monkeys like loud noises to be sure; there are moments of such pure power-chording metal, you just know that there's an Angus Young poster hanging in their rehearsal space. But the album does slow down on occasion, especially for Riot Van, which is all lush guitar and morning-after melancholy. Here, Turner is both bemoaning the end of a brutal night and celebrating the strange primal beauty of law-skirting hooligans. "They got a chase last night, from men with truncheons dressed in hats," he sings. "They didn't do that much wrong, still ran away though, for the laugh." In its own way, the song is just as subversive as anything by N.W.A., but it's also just as lovely as anything by Coldplay. That's not an easy trick.

If you're wondering why the Arctic Monkeys will have U.S. success while such garage-bound bands as the Strokes and the Hives are still fighting for a commercial foothold, it's their ability to please a diverse swath of music fans without looking like they're trying too hard. They are crowd-pleasers despite themselves. For instance, Dancing Shoes has a jackhammer guitar line, messy transitions and a misogynistic streak; at the same time, with its natural boogie groove, it's destined to be "remixed" as a rave-worthy club hit and adored by Paris Hilton.

-- Sean Daly can be reached at sdaly@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8467. His blog is at www.sptimes.com/blogs/popmusic.

[Last modified February 14, 2006, 17:28:40]