arctic monkeys: number 1 in the midweek charts.

Or "11,000 in one day", as it's sometimes known.

Anyway, they're only 2,000 ahead of McFly, Saturday sales should see the chubby one and his closeted mates steam ahead.

(xpost x 2)

Libertines = Oasis
Franz = Blur
Futureheads = Pulp
Kaisers = Space
This shower of cunts = The Bluetones.

We'll be due the Embrace of haircut indie in a few months Nick!

come on shed 7

wait that one is actually kinda true

Bullet for My Valentine

if you have 3 years of bloc party, franz, yyys type artsy rock, look what the effect is.

i'm not in to it, i must say

They are just a kiddie NME teen band

1. The bassist's constantly popped collar
2. The cute lead vocalist/guitarist

Music-wise? Let's just say high school bands shouldn't sell this well.

maybe it's time for me to flog that arctic monkey promo for their last single that i was sent.

"The Arctic Monkeys got to number one."

Leaving everything else in the position of mere footnotes?

oh sorry, you did specify big or semi-big...

how can i become one of these people?

(NOT for the arctic monkeys obv.)

Get a media degree, fail to get a job in the media, develop a pathological hatred for the world, and there you go.

I often wonder, I mean we must get a bit of it on here, but how much?

-- Dom Passantino (juror...), October 18th, 2005.

Wow...yes...this explains why I hate them so much.

but, again, i first heard of the arctic monkeys in january so this was before they were signed to anything and thats when they started to get the buzz on the internet. so i dont think it's fair to say it's all about street teams and record companies etc. this is something that was started by the fans.

This kind of marketing is about accelerating processes more than creating them, anyway: if the Arctic Monkeys weren't the right product for their target market, the street teams wouldn't do so well.

so what?

Dare one mention the name SUEDE here?

Is it unreasonable to be suspicious & cynical when one sees a band like this suddenly appearing everywhere? Or when one reads that guardian "movers & shakers" piece? Especially when said band seem, on the basis of listening to recordings made by them, and watching a clip of them perform to be lacking in anything to make them stand out from yer usual "indie" fluff. Oh, sorry, the singer has a strong northern accent. Apart from that, then.

The dude-who-liked-them said that he didn't own a radio and didn't read the music press (i have no idea how he hears about new stuff -- TV? The Guardian?), so it wasn't hype that attracted him, it was how good the stuff sounded.

So I guess there are a lot of people who just plain like them.

The other thing that's interested me re the Monkeys is the way the "internet buzz" has been talked-about, when the audioblogs I read or glance at have had almost nary a peep. (At least not until very very recently.) It illustrates how there are really distinct communities online - I remember the discussion about the non-ILM related musicblogosphere from a couple years ago, - and that the hyped-up of one part of the Web (Chad Van Gaalen, Max Geil, Devin Davis, Bishop Allen, Wolf Parade) can be entirely distinct from another.

You see it all the time at The Social in Nottingham. Example: The Thrills, who played the 200-ish capacity venue while staying at the swankiest boutique hotel in town, on the strength of one #36 hit single. Racks of shiny new top-of-the-range guitars at the back of the stage, and you could see that they'd been styled. They were crap, but I left thinking "Glastonbury Other Stage, tea time slot, six months time". And lo, it came to pass.

Oh, yeah.

1/ Media coverage seems to be very easily bought.

2/ There seems to be room for a very limited number of new acts.

3/ The range of material on offer seems very narrow
(ie. a very limited number of very limited new acts.)

(This is also where the Club NME franchise comes into its own: perfect testing ground.)

Is there anyone at any Club NME who isn't there to analyse the reaction to each song? Do any actual IRL punters go there?

Organ.

Serpent.

Sound.

*ponders*

in a word, yes.

They didn't appeal but since their time a lightweight version of them has appeared a few years later and been more successful (by being of lighter weight i.e. sneery snarly vocals not as extreme in tone or abstraction as Pete Voss's or whatever - talking about Kasabian again here). I can't remember which band who charted earlier this year it was that reminded me a lot of King Adora though.

http://www.redorganserpentsound.com/

can't say that for the artic monkees

One of the bands on there was "Skunk Anansie" at least 2 years before any kind of record release.

Music biz type buzz? Or what?

yes! it's slowly coming back to me now.

I say, steady on, Jerry!

i do not feel as if i have missed much.

I'm off to get one, this lunchtme.

I have not heared it yet.

Touché I suppose... (many xposts)

But it still stands that you can't back up the conspiracy. I would like to suggest three current up-and-coming pop-indie bands who are not massively hyped at the moment but will be if they become bigger and get signed on album deals (which is the way I'm sure it actually works):

The Bishops
The Good Shoes
The Delaners

unfortunately yes.

£1.99 although I did get a soup as well. At a different shop obv.

(I think it's a good thing if they do, because it'll give me something to write about in 5 years time.)

The last time this sort of thing happened, it was Frans' "Take me out" which is one of my fav singles.

(If it is tc, I'll mention it tomorrow)

Mark do you see this sort of thing as a victory (for the underdog) in an epic battle then? And that Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand are both on your 'team' as it were?

Underdog? Dunno.

"This song in a genre I like is going to get to No.1 so it must be pretty good!"

- TOTALLY 'poppist' (if anything is!)

Umm, it's better than the Kaiser Chiefs. It's alright, I suppose, but I could have lived without it.

And that's the exciting number one potentially? Who knew. I haven't heared the McFly one either, so maybe.

I dunno, I needed to hear it before it made it's entry.

Sayng that, I got home, posted the above, then sat down wid telly, some preview of a fasion show and "I bet..." came on as backing music.

Having said that, I like it better this morning. b-side is also worth the money on its own. But if it had been £2.99 I wouldn't be as bothered.

Oh, it was McFly.

And Artic Monkeys are Banrock fucking Stanton.

PWNT!!!1

I suppose it could be the music :-) But, they are basically an inoffensive pop indie band with danceable tunes and a good turn in "witty" lyrics that chime perfectly with their audience of primarily disaffected provincial/suburban white UK teenagers. And I like them for it. If I were still 17 I'd LOVE it I'm sure, much like I loved early Idlewild. (As a pointless aside, Marcello, for someone who knocks Alex Petridis for his (appalling) grasp of urban youth, it's odd that you seem to practically relish laying into the tastes of kids outside London...)

I agree the hype is annoying. But aren't HUNDREDS of bands each year hyped worse than this lot by their managers, the papers, their record label et al? Unlike most/all of the posters on this thread I was at the Astoria gig, and you just don't get 2000 kids singing along to every single word of songs that are only available from P2P or some bloke in Sheffield's website on the back of hype alone - it doesn't happen! I saw them in Leicester in May as well, and that was exactly the same - fucking insanity.

Is it the press connection? I don't read the NME, admittedly, but I reckon they weren't onto the Arctic Monkeys until earlier this year (based entirely on Imran Ahmed choosing them as "the next big thing" on a Lamacq Live I heard), which was well late. The problem with the NME is not that they are backing them now, it's that by the time they were onto the AMs big-time all the "16-21 indie clubber" demographic I know seemed to know about the band already and had downloaded all their songs! By all means, slate the reactive NME but it's not the band's fault. And all this Guardian "Oh look, they say "fookin'" and "mardy", aren't just they the greatest thing?" bollocks isn't their fault either.

I'm struggling to think of other reasons.
The name? Shit though it is, ILM isn't like that, is it?
Or perhaps it's some kind of blogosphere groupthink along the lines of "Fuck them! I just unleashed this 2000-word gonzo piece on M.I.A. direct from my muso synapse, and TEH KIDZ are ignoring me and finding out about new music from their local indie club or their mates on MSN!"?

Enlighten me, please. Why does this thread get nearly 200 replies, of which 90% seem negative?

xpost, I think

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0007Y87V8.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

(x-post)

see for reference goldie lookin' chain

praps not the finest exponents of music but an interesting similar case

(applause)

-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarlin...), October 21st, 2005.

I suppose it could be the music :-) But, they are basically an inoffensive pop indie band with danceable tunes and....

For me is isn't the band themselves that are annoying, as you mention, they are inoffensive, a bit nowt-nor-summat. When they come on the radio, I neither have the urge to turn the radio up (like I do with "shake a leg" or "do you want to") or turn it off (ie "the avenue", "your missus is a nutter") it's just this indie guitar thing. It's not bad, you know?

It's the hype.

I don't like being told I'm going to receive the finest filet mignon, then sitting down at a table, with my mouth watering, only to have a big mac plonked down in front of me. Anybody would be annoyed in such a situation, surely. Every time another guitar/bass/drums band is feted as the best thing ever, "going to be massive" etc, there's some bit of me that wants it to be true. I want to see all this hype, and then hear the music and be like what the fuck, where did this come from? Instead, it's "is this it?" Surely they can't be saying that about this? Alternatively, it would be great if the band was memorably terrible, like so bad & painful I want to listen to their records, just to see if they're as bad as I remember. Sometimes, I wind up really liking music like that (ie stone roses).

But this is just MEH x1000. They kind of remind me a little bit of the stone roses, joy division or the fall, but not as good. I don't mind derivative bands, some bands I really like are pretty heavily derivative of other bands, but in this case, there just seems to be something lacking. Musically, it's all a bit inspiral carpets-ish. Some of their records were similarly quite enjoyable, but I don't think anyone ever claimed they were going to be the biggest thing ever.

I suppose it could be said that the coverage & hype & fluff isn't the band's "fault" as such, but it is all pushing the band, like, it isn't pushing some other band.

Also, very much for me is the fact that they're kind of "back to basics", you know, 2 x gtr, bass drums, blanga blanga blanga. I like guitar music, but I'm sick of shit like that. There was stuff just like that in the lower reaches of the independent record chart when I was at school, and that was 22 years ago, for fuck's sake.

we can close this thread now that pashmina has said all that.
i agree.

meanwhile the last line of their 2 page live review in NME says
'you're either with us, or agianst us' no time for 'meh' here!

To my mind, if the Arctic Monkeys are a pop band then they're not very exciting. Yeah, hummable tune blah blah but served up in this smug, by-the-numbers sonic porridge that washes straight over my ears without any sense of thrill or energy or anger or anything, really. Do their fans hear them the same way? What excitement do they generate that won't evaporate as soon as you hear the music that's influenced them? Is it a case of them being Now, do people like them because they exist at this moment in time and you can go and see them play live? Is that enough to make any music interesting?

Two sensible seconds' thought explains why the NME uses hyperbole in its band coverage. It's called target audience. I don't care about that. The question that interests me is, do the NME's readers believe a lot of that hyperbole, and if so, why? If this is Britpop Mark 2, what are its fans feeling? What makes it sell records in 2005?

I'm not here to praise the Arctic Monkeys, but I'm having a big problem with this question. Who's to say the kids buying this single DON'T know the influences, and DON'T like the AM more? And who's to say this isn't perfectly valid?

I got that impression with The Libertines based on what fans of theirs (inc. c-man and doomie on ILM) were saying so perhaps yes.

Edward I'm certainly not denying that possibly. I don't mean those questions rhetorically, I think they're interesting problems about the nature of influence versus influenced and about why people might prefer one band from an ostensibly similar other.

if your mate who knows your taste reccomends something to you are you more likely to listen to that than some faceless music hack...

The you're with us or not comment does seems to sum the am in particular its are you part of the gang secret knowledge thing at least to start with anyway..

(Actually Sinister was maybe an early example of this! - esp. with the Brits award paralleling the AM's no.1 in a weird way. Mark S once speculated that the community represented everything that was missing from the music.)

and i don't think the a.m buzz phenomena is drastically dissimilar to MIA and Annie, I read about them here liked them and felt cool passing it on to my mates who don't read here and the associated blogs etc.

whether the song itself is worthy vehicle is a ultimately somewhat subjective

The more of these I see (having seen some fairly close-up or at least close enough to see whats going on) the more I can tell what's being done. The main change in the last 10 years in the UK music industry is that the PR is being outsourced rather than being, as it was traditionally, a joint management/label venture. And the PR firms hired are operating on established principles that come from other industries. That's why marketing for new bands seems more crass but at the same time almost inexplicably unstoppable. They're the techniques that have been tried and tested in business for over 50 years now and they work.

I think the recurring point here with the Artic Monkeys - that you can transpose onto any other New Amazing Band from the last 5/10 years - is that they aren't of the quality of X genre classic. Of course not, the prior method from when the record companies and management were doing what amounts to the PR has gone, gone, gone. They would take a band, nurture and hope for The Big Record(s) to come out sometime between albums 3 and as high as 8 with what seems now to be incredible patience, cf. REM, U2 et al o'dat era. It was the model that sprung up after the initial boom of pop music appeared and the shock-of-the-new youth-rebellion times-they-are-a-changing thing calmed down. Concentrate on quality of product, through improving said product and pushing the product hard when it was at its maximum quality. Yes there was still the flashbang approach of capitalising on short-lived genre explosions, but in terms of what we're talking about here, namely guitar rock for the student and/or slightly refined listener the nurture model stood. (I'm missing out on the independant label boom of the 80's but that was a strange blip really, along the lines of the initial 50's/60's type but also was both a follower and a reactionary to the nurture model).

But that couldn't last - it was a very stable way of doing things and stable just doesn't cut it, especially from the mid 90's onwards. You've got to be giving your shareholders an increased return every damn annum. So at some point (I'd love to know when), they probably got some massive PR giant in to have a good no-holds-barred look at how to maximise profit better, much as like what happened with football in the late 80's.

Here I have to get slightly into pure speculation/conspiracy theory, but if standard PR is operating then product value is not the issue anymore, merely how good the idea of the product is and how well/easily the idea can be reinforced and sold. Product lifetime becomes a very different beast as well. Let's look at INDIE as per the last 20 years, it mostly has short 3/5 year-ish flavours. And the principle consumer is students. And how long do they spend in higher education?

DING! DING! Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in CA$H! We have our model. We can even get sloppy on the formerly important "innovation" element (which used to be crucial so that your young new music fan could sneer at his/her older brother/sisters that's-so-outre-daddio record collection - you can laugh but that really is the psychology behind it, no punk without prog etc). The unsurprising conclusion that was doubtless reached was that there is one idea that always focus-groups the best - skinny boys with guitars with witty lyrics playing in dingy no-parent-to-be-seen venues. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I saw this operate on a different subgenre, the slightly-emo oh-so-emotional thinks-himself-mature student of UK music - the bridge genre between bands like the Arctic Monkeys and the point where people start buying albums by female singer songwriters with a vague trip-hop influence - and the principles were pretty much the same. I either overheard or was involved with several conversations about how the PR was to work with would quite honestly make your jaw drop off and burrow all the way to Alice Springs they were so cynical. And its been quite heartbreaking watching artists who would excel in the old nuture model flounder under the new methodology. The bands that I've seen that have done well in the last few years tend not to be the best, or even the potentially best, they've been the ones that are the most well-rounded idea out of the box, even if the substance of their material isn't very good. It makes you think whether there's been a series of focus groups to decide what type of band the public want next and then the nearest approximation of that idea has been pulled from one of the many "feeder labels" that the biggies sustain, or at least it does to me. But I don't think things are that bad. Not yet, anyway.

well, duh. isn't that why we're here?

The complete package lifestyle was very prominent in the 70s and 80s (punk, crusty) but I think what you've got now is more about the selling of the idea of the lifestyle - the same principle you get with Nuts magazine and what that whole area does. It seems paradoxical and wierd in the musicsphere as what it is selling is ideas such as rebellion which are the natural antithesis of marketing. But it isn't. People want choices that reinforce their own individuality in what they buy, not 1-size-fits-all things. Ever wondered why you go off your favourite band when they become too succesful?

For me, I heard Zane Lowe play the demo of Look Good On The Dancefloor and for some reason I instantly really liked it, to such an extent that the next day I did some digging and downloaded the other stuff. Radio 1 aside, hype didn't really come into it. It helps that in my experience they are an excellent live band - dynamic and energetic, and still improving if May-October is anything to go by. At the Astoria they broke down into this really chugging disco groove for what seemed 7 minutes of "Dancing Shoes". I'd have danced more if I wasn't penned in by brawling, beer-chucking teenage yobs (and there's my problem: Oasis nobheads have a new favourite band).

And many more xposts: Noodle, I think the bands I like from the current UK indie scene (including AMs) are the ones with the most energy! I think it's because, whether consciously or not, they seem to take a lot of influence from dance music, if only for 2 minutes rather than 8. When I started going out the only danceable music seemed to be the "conventional" kind on the one hand and pre-1993 indie-dance crossover on the other. There weren't many Britpop songs that had the right kind of sensibility for me, maybe just "Disco 2000" and "Saturn 5". Going to indie clubs quickly got very boring and house music was 10x more exciting.

Hence, I was a very late adopter of the Libertines, but I got invited to a gig, and it just clicked that this was actually really ace dance music. It's only a short step from that to thinking Paul Epworth is the new Phil Spector...

I think your total lifestyle packages worked at a time when alienation and disatisfaction were very publicly accepted things in the UK (70's, 80's) and you had strikes, riots and the like. Where does the rebellious child go when a large part of society is very openly against society? I think thats why during those times you got the more extreme forms. Seeing as how things are a lot more wishy-washy these days in general you're just not going to get that. And even if you did Poppa PR would be there to sell it back to you through the highstreet, as we've seen happen countless times before. You're right that the Pete Hat and LJ pic is the same thing only in a different form.

Whether all this is "bad thing" or not is up to perspective. I think if you are a card-carrying Serious Music Fan then its bad as quality is no longer as important part in the equation, neither are other associated factors such as the progression of one artist or genre spontaneity or whatever. There's always the old addage to fall back on that "hey, man, the good stuff is out there, you just have to look harder", even when its like chasing a marble down the Cresta Run - as it seems to be for me these days. Personally, as a wannabe musico in my own right its rodding me in ass by proxy so I'm fucking livid. But it's the way of the world. Life sucks, buy a trucker hat.

I think if you're studying "pop music as a reflection of society yo de hum" then its possibly the clearest reflection we've had at any point in pops relatively short history, as its the same principles that have defined and remodelled everything from manufacturing to politics working on pop. I think the romantic notion of pop as a romantic notion is just a romantic notion. It's just a business, no matter how hallowed you personally hold the product in question. Some people are really passionate about skincare products too. Do you want more than that from it? Say a want a revolution? Fine. That'll be £15.99 please.

Yeah now THIS is interesting. Even in the era of tiny singles sales you don't go straight to #1 on the kind of micro-targetting Noodle Vague is talking about (also I think the mystical powers of PR and marketing and targetting are routinely overrated, there's a lot more hit and hope than people imagine if my experience - OK, not in the music biz but pretty widely outside - is anything to go by.)

So what's causing this crossover from Libertines kids to Oasis lads? Just a kind of mouthy Northern-ness?

I wasn't referring to the two singles with the "never played on the radio" comment. I meant more the rest of the demo tracks like "Scummy" and "Mardy Bum" which AFAIK haven't had any radio play, are only available on mp3 and seem to be more popular at the gigs than the released material.

BTW, I'm not denying than marketing forces are at work now, just that it seems very jaded to use the band as some kind of masterclass in marketing theory when I think there's a more positive explanation.

http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news?id=9662

As I'm sure many of you might be aware on occasion labels have been known to 'employ' (by employ i mean give a nominal sum and if your lucky a reference) regional scouts, who are often like i was merely a student with bit of a thing for music

i was for a period of time not so long ago one of these tinniest of cogs in the machine for a label that didnt sign the a.m but did as far as a minion was able to ascertain they did contemplate signing,

all us from around the country were gathered and asked to comment on bands we wished to reccomend, at this point the artic monkeys hadn't really gigged outside their home town but their obbsessive local fan base had begun to manifest itself, the local cog had pointed this out.

whether this local (but seemingly soon to be mirrored nationally) merely was a natural progression or a foundation for the shifty workings of some adept marketing men is another question

i thought this might add the debate

p.s after the writing of message secondhandnews did not go onto sell his soul to the music industry or set up a workers co-operative of musicians with the sole intention of providing spiritual awareness

Prove me wrong by naming some bands/artists that the media should be talking about instead of the Arctic Monkeys.

MYSTERY BLEEDING JETS

Pop band goes to No 1 by clicking with fans online
By Richard Alleyne and Andrew Perry
(Filed: 24/10/2005)

One of the first bands in Britain fully to harness the power of the internet to build a huge following exploded on to the charts yesterday, grabbing the number one spot with their first single.

Traditionally, bands have been forced to use radio play and record company marketing to create a buzz around their music but the Arctic Monkeys, a Sheffield-based guitar band, built up a committed following of young fans well before being noticed by the music industry.

While established record companies struggled with internet piracy, the band used the net by allowing young music lovers to swap their songs free, creating a huge underground fan base.

By the time they had signed with a record label and released their first single I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor last week they were already tipped as the "next big thing".

The hype was translated into sales when the band beat the Sugarbabes and McFly to the top spot.

The amazing success of the single followed a sell-out tour that included headlining at the 2,000-capacity Astoria Theatre in London.

Tickets were changing hands for as much as £100 on eBay and outside the venue. Even Sean Bean, the actor, had heard of their growing fame and turned out to see the band from his native city.

When they began to play their high-energy brand of post-punky guitar pop, the entire audience seemed not only to know the words, but to be screaming along in unison, as they danced enthusiastically to every song.

This whole experience, even the more cynical industry insiders present had to agree, was something new. How had all this happened without them?

The answer lay on the internet, where the band, who are barely into their twenties, have made available two dozen or more songs as MP3 files on their website. Through touring the country, mainly in the North, the band have created their own following and encouraged their fans to distribute their songs via file-sharing sites for nothing. Thus far, there have been no publishing royalties at stake.

In the months ahead, we shall no doubt be reading plenty more about the Arctic Monkeys. They have now signed to the indie label Domino, the same label as Franz Ferdinand, and are poised to be the biggest new act of 2006.

However, their extraordinary rise is but the most prominent evidence to date of a fast-growing culture emerging in British pop, which is using the internet, as well as text messaging and other recent technology, to bypass the accepted channels established by the music industry and create its own scene, and its own excitement.

"There is a massive online community out there," says Laurence Bell, the owner of Domino. "They are constantly exchanging tracks, passing it on, raving about it - check this out, go to this gig.

"They are bypassing traditional marketing routes, and the mainstream media, which is what major record companies have a grasp of and a hold on. Nobody's telling them to do it; that's the key. Basically, these kids are making the decisions."

Such happenings as the Arctic Monkeys and a rising number of bands springing surprise performances, known as "gorilla gigs" satisfy a certain requirement among cutting-edge British audiences for concerts to be DIY and slightly beyond the boundaries.

It is a great tradition stretching back to the days of John Lennon-organised love-ins, and Pink Floyd's "Eighteen-Hour Technicolour Dream", and to the Seventies punk bands who promoted tours by word-of-mouth in defiance of the local councils who were trying to ban them; and to the early raves, whose expectant attenders would gather clandestinely in service stations around the M25 to be directed to the party's secret location.

Pete Doherty, both with the Libertines and Babyshambles, is the patron saint of this spur-of-the-moment pursuit.

Several years ago, the Libertines would alert their most devoted followers by text message to gigs, which, once or twice, took place in Doherty's front room. Although these appearances are plainly intended as fun, with the vague possibility of press coverage thereafter, their popularity represents a vote of no confidence in how today's music industry brings bands to the public in such a systematic manner. The industry, which is dominated by huge, increasingly American-focused corporations, now hoovers up underground acts almost as quickly as they appear, enslaving them to a harsh schedule of endless touring and recording. Informed music fans are fully aware of this process, and can easily detect the gradual disappearance of the twinkle in their favourite band's eyes.

For both performer and punter, the chaos of this uniquely British response - the hastily arranged soirée - is an antidote to all that, and each side clearly enjoys the mutual proximity it affords. The bands get to play in front of the people who care enough about their music to log on to their website and the fans get to feel "inside-track" with the band.

"I have never had such a laugh in my life," said Declan, 19, outside the Arctic Monkeys' Astoria show, sweat still dripping from his chin. "Part of what makes the Monkeys special is that they have not been hyped, like James Blunt or whoever. They are "ours". It's like we're beating the system together."

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But all I have to say is this - saw them on TOTP last night, and blimey. What a dull song and what a tedious band.

FUCKING KIDS.

Some people at gigs can be right twats. I just felt rage building up inside me tonight, I want to batter everyone who stood around me. I was just begging for some twat to spill his pint on me, or push me out the way cos I would have clobbered them.

Arctic Monkeys were wicked. But their fans are a bunch of cnuts. These fucking twatty Oasis singing along, beer swilling dickheads. If you wanna sing football chants and throw your beer over people, go to a football match and then a pub. Not a gig.

My biggest motivation for going to this gig was that Test Icicles were one of the support and the fucking twatty Arctic Monkeys people booed them off stage and they had to leave after like four songs. They didn't even get to play Boa! No thought to the people like me and Stacey there to see Test Icicles, who they've just ruined a perfectly good gig for. Just cos Test sounds a bit different and dress a bit cool these twats boo them off stage. Its cos the twat arse 'ArcticArmy' all think Arctic Monkeys are good becasue they don't dress scene. Well thats well and good but that doesn't mean you have to boo off some scene band, without even giving them a chance. Fucking twats. I'm so angry.

Its just... rude! Me and Stacey didn't think much to Field Music, but we stood dutifully and gave them a chance. We didn't start shouting for the Arctic Monkeys and booing them off the stage.

And then these cnuts next to us start giving me looks. Presumably because I wasn't creaming myself over the imminent arrival of Arctic Monkeys like they were. Or spilling my beer over the person in front.

Me and Stacey are both in agreement that we wont bother seeing Arctic Monkeys again. We were boxed in by twats last time as well.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/teflongrl/64255.html

Bands don't get to choose their audience.

Research not these two's strong point, then

Awesome

hmmm

Uh? What's Dress Scene? Should that be "Dress Scenery"?

now where did phil say the gig was again???

I just wanted to throw this in, I have no cool music credentials, I'm not down with the kids, I like all sorts of pop, indie etc and I'm not a snob about it - I like what I like and I don't care how I get to hear it - If I like I buy it.

I LOVE the Arctic Monkeys song, so much so that, off the back of hearing it played once, and only once, on Radio 1, I got tickets to go see them live (which is a very rare event in my sad little world) I took a friend who had never heard of them - we both loved it - we both bought the single.

So ner.

Test Icicles? The first band to be signed to Domino? After Franz? and before the Arctics? and that have a massive buzz about them on the internet? Those?

By all means, list 'em.

Westlife sold 30,000 copies of their new single on Monday alone, so its all relative.

And not Kate Bush.

Q: [Yet Another Generic Brit-Guitar Band to appeal to NME teenagers?]
A: Arctic Monkeys

Q: [band designed by focus group to appeal to NME teenagers?]
A: Arctic Monkeys

Q: Are the Arctic Monkeys this year's Mega City Four or These Animal Men ?
A: Yes

http://www.nme.com/images/82_241005_articmonkeys_cover.jpg

"Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts" is as real as the Kaisers would like to be.

Right, I post no more on this subject. Have a nice (rest of) thread.

this is SO nu-metal

"Chun-Li's Spinning Bird Kick" is also a nasty funky jam which summoned to mind Ocean Colour Scene.

Good a-side, though. Got an SMS this evening asking where the Arctic Monkeys came from and whether the web had anything to do with it.

What do you guys reckon?

Some ILMerz appreciate visionary spaz out music but only if it's AVANT-GARDE, man (Godz, Boredoms, what have you), so they're not gonna like it from some KIDS WHO OBVIOUSLY DON'T KNOW NOTHIN' and are doing teh nouveau indie dance rock.

The question is: how visionary will the Ice Testicles' and the Arctic Monkeys' spazziness ultimately be and the verdict for me is still out. (The Monkeys' album isn't out yet and I haven't heard the whole ICE TESTICLES LP.)

They are all shit.

"12-year-old boy jokes and 12-year-old boy music. I'm so glad I'm not a 12-year-old boy"

http://www.rockfeedback.com/images/testicicles_bandwatch.jpg

Did 3rd Bass look "mentally retarded?"
Did the Goo Goo Dolls look "mentally retarded?"
Did China Crisis look "mentally retarded?"
Did Darts look "mentally retarded?"
Did 98 Degrees look "mentally retarded?"
Did Powder look "mentally retarded?"

Culture



The Sunday Times February 26, 2006

Pop: Monkey magic?
It works wonders for new bands, but does the MySpace effect have pitfalls for fans and artists, asks Dan Cairns


The term “niche product” is traditionally used to describe a commercially available item, event or attraction that is likely to appeal to only a limited number of people. Indeed, one definition of “niche” is “relating to or aimed at a small, specialised group or market”. You might, therefore, conclude that it is perverse to describe the debut CD from the Sheffield band Arctic Monkeys — which last month became Britain’s fastest-selling album of all time — as a niche product.
In a sense, you’d be right. After all, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not is approaching sales of 1m copies in this country. Crucially, the initial impetus for that record-breaking opening week came from the internet, as tens of thousands of web-fingered young fans flocked to sites such as MySpace and shared information, gossip and tip-offs about the group. So that rules “small” out. It’s when you subject “specialised” to scrutiny, though, that the whole notion of the new technoculture, and its possible impact on pop music — how it’s discovered, made, distributed, consumed — becomes both more complex and more intriguing.

A vivid illustration of this was provided nine days ago at Brixton Academy, in London, when the annual NME awards tour reached its climax. The headliners were the Newcastle band Maxïmo Park. Beneath them on the bill were three groups, including the Arctic Monkeys. Traditionally, all the acts congregate on stage during the final song by the headline band. On this occasion, however, members of the two bands that preceded the Yorkshire newcomers joined them for a last hurrah, after which a sizeable proportion of the audience left the venue. Maxïmo Park may have delivered a barnstorming set, but they did so after being abandoned by the support acts.

The incident put under the microscope an aspect of the brave new netspace order of things that gets buried in the avalanche of eye-popping statistics. The brand loyalty, the shared sense of “specialisation”, that impelled so many to buy Whatever People Say I Am … also, arguably, led them to reject anything that falls outside that specialised choice — in this instance, Maxïmo Park.

That’s fine for now. But it’s a febrile state of affairs, too. To borrow from the old Elvis marketing line, 50m users can’t be wrong. That figure is the latest worldwide estimate of registered members of MySpace (part of The Sunday Times’s parent company, News Corporation, since it bought the site’s owners, Intermix, last year). In America, it receives more hits than Google. And in this country — where MySpace is set to launch a UK-specific site in the spring, with a particular emphasis on music content — community websites are the dominant online destinations.

Small wonder, then, that the music business is eyeing these sites with such interest — and such fear. Where the pieces land is a question currently obsessing those who work in the old modes of mass-culture provision. And who emerges as the driving force(s) in the new equation — provider, creator, consumer — could transform the landscape in which music is made, marketed and purchased.

Right now, most of the talk is about the empowerment of the artist and the fan at the expense of the manufacturer and the retailer. Certainly, the two former groups appear to hold the whip hand as never before. The ease with which, as a music consumer, you can register with such sites (and don’t be put off if you’re at the less net-savvy end of the spectrum; it’s a doddle) means you’re just a few clicks away from becoming a well-informed voice in the forging of new musical tastes. And if you’re in a band, posting new songs, details of forthcoming gigs and evidence to surfing A&R men of the size of your online fan base opens music-biz doors that once might have been slammed in your face.

If, however, you are a high-street retailer, or a music-industry executive with huge overheads, the current thinking is that you should be afraid, very afraid. If the wilder dreams of techno-cultural forecasters were to materialise — if, for instance, bands were to make viable the model of selling their product directly and cheaply to fans — where does a big label with 40,000 employees go other than down the pan? Yet if a new generation is riding a 24-hour electronic loop that will make them both a powerful engine of taste-making and a formidable commercial resource, might there not also be some downsides to this cyber-scenario? Bombarded with choice, informed to the point of instant expertise, how do you react? In an ideal world, you advance serenely towards the Proceed with Purchase button. What, though, if such choice, far from locking down your certainties, instead makes them more malleable? As far as pop music goes, it’s here, I think, where the battleground lies.

Let’s return to the Arctic Monkeys, and the three key participant groups with a role in their success. First, the fans. A sense of community and ownership draws them to social-network sites and into purchasing the album. Said album sells 1m copies. What happens to that sense of community and ownership then? In any case, aren’t the Monkeys old hat now — what about that new act everyone’s buzzing about online? Second, the band itself. Remember when everyone was talking about Franz Ferdinand? The circus has since moved on. Could that hype, and those record sales, be fashioning a mighty big trap for the Sheffield band? Lastly, the music business, old and new. You have the resources to adapt to new formats, invest in changing technology and exploit fresh revenue streams. Cyberspace is delivering priceless marketing profiles to your inbox.

Back, finally, to “niche product”. Once a term that implied a modest commercial return, it could turn out to be music’s key mantra for the net age. You know what you like, and where to find it. We know what you like, too, and we’ve learnt how to sell it to you. The niche becomes a capricious temporary address, a staging post to the next specialisation. There’s one step forward: fans have more power. But the collective fickle finger of fate hovers restlessly over the mouse button — and over the bands. Now that’s scary.

a member quits and the new single isn't NME single of the week!

there's a very quick turnover in your modern pop game.

lol at people talking about Test Icicles as if they were gonna be big upthread.

Weren't they big upthread?

Upthread Ranking

With the exception of Goldie Lookin' Chain, Test Icicles are the worst band currently releasing records.
-- Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Saturday, 17 December 2005 21:13 (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

Ah, for the innocence of days before New Young Pony Club

lol at me not liking them very much upthread.

lightspeed champion, though - he's rather good.

monkeys are the most visible of the current glut of northern uncle toms. enough already with the meat pie rock n roll.