Description
Breathless, hyperbolic praise was piled upon the Arctic Monkeys and their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, an instant phenomenon without peer. Within the course of a year, the band rose from the ranks of an Internet phenomenon to the biggest band in the U.K., all on the strength of early demos circulated on the web as MP3s.
Instead of relying on a digital cut-and-paste clamour, lead singer and lyricist Alex Turner is a natural storyteller, chronicling a very specific time and place. Like many English greats before him, he’s captured his era in stark, vivid terms ; he may not transcend his time, but he embodies it fully.