ARCTIC MONKEYS - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not LP

Label: Domino

Arctic Monkeys may share a love of The Smiths, The Clash and The Jam, but in no way were they ready to simply regurgitate the well-trodden Brit-Rock path.

Rather, they spent their school days listening to Roots Manuva, Braintax and other stuff on low-life, not to mention lyricist lounge compilations and rawkus records cuts like Pharaohe Monch. another unique influence was Mancunian poet John Cooper Clarke, who Alex is a huge recent fan of.

Hence the razor-sharp lyricism that fuels songs like a certain romance, a witty observation of small-town life where there’s only music. Elsewhere, there were grim tales of girls who’d ended up on the streets and glorious swipes at the rock’n’roll clones that arose on the back of the great garage rock boom of 2002.

This was life in satellite-town England, as cutting and observant as anything you’d hear from mike skinner. This is a remarkable modern British debut.