| Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Arctic Monkeys | ||||
| Released | 23 January 2006 | |||
| Recorded | June–September 2005 Chapel Studios Lincolnshire, England 2 Fly Studio Sheffield, England Telstar Studios Munich, Germany |
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| Genre | Indie rock,[1] post-punk revival, garage rock | |||
| Length | 40:56 | |||
| Label | Domino | |||
| Producer | Jim Abbiss and Alan Smyth | |||
| Arctic Monkeys chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not | ||||
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Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not is the debut album by English indie rock[1][2] band Arctic Monkeys, released on 23 January 2006. The album became the UK's fastest selling debut album, shifting over 360,000 copies in its first week,[3] and remains the fastest selling debut album by a band.[4] It has since gone quadruple platinum in the UK .[5] The album includes both tracks from the band's original EP, Five Minutes with Arctic Monkeys, as well as their first two singles and UK Number Ones, "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" and "When the Sun Goes Down". It has since appeared in several critics' publications, and is often cited as one of the best rock albums of the 2000s.
Contents |
The common thematic content of Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not has led to it being considered by some a concept album concerning "the lives of young Northern England clubbers".[6] All tracks record first-person narratives of observations made within this context. "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor", "Still Take You Home", "You Probably Couldn't See For The Lights But You Were Staring Straight At Me" and "Dancing Shoes" all examine human behaviour in nightclubs. Alex Turner describes "Dancing Shoes" as being about "people always looking to pull when they go out however much they mask it."[7] Other songs examine other aspects of nightlife; "From The Ritz To The Rubble" is an account of nightclub bouncers, while "When The Sun Goes Down" was inspired by prostitutes in the locality of their practice room in the Neepsend district of Sheffield.[8] Other songs are themed on romantic relationships, such as "Mardy Bum", or youth subcultures, such as "Fake Tales of San Francisco" and "A Certain Romance". In NME's list of top 100 tracks of the decade, "A Certain Romance" was described as "a strangely even-handed song which starts out scorning local townies then appears to absolve them at the end of the song."[9]
Prior to the release of the album, the tracks "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor", "Fake Tales of San Francisco", "Dancing Shoes", "Still Take You Home", "Riot Van" , "Mardy Bum", "When the Sun Goes Down" (then known as "Scummy" or "Scummy Man") and "A Certain Romance" had been released for free via the internet in late 2004 and consolidated on the unofficial Beneath the Boardwalk compilation.
The original release date was 30 January 2006, but was brought forward to 23 January 2006 due to "high demand". Although the same was done with Franz Ferdinand, it was speculated that the move was an attempt to counter the effects of the album's leak onto online file-sharing sites.[10] The re-recorded album versions had been leaked onto the internet by December 2005.
On the first day of its release, the album became the fastest-selling debut album in British history, selling just under 120,000 copies. By the end of the week, the album had sold 363,735 copies - more than the rest of the Top 20 combined and making it the overall fastest selling debut album in British history. Its release in the United States on 21 February 2006 saw it become the second fastest selling debut indie album in history,[11] turning over around 34,000 copies in its first week and achieving #24 in the album charts. The album also went to #1 in Australia and Ireland.
The track "Mardy Bum", while not released as a single, appeared on radio playlists throughout the UK in mid-2006, and is still played infrequently on BBC Radio 1 and some alternative rock stations such as Sirius XM's Sirius XMU. The track "A Certain Romance" was ranked #90 in Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Tracks of 2006 and cited as the standout track.[12] NME also placed "A Certain Romance" at 10 in their list of 100 Tracks of the Decade.[13] In October 2011, NME placed it at number 140 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".[14]
The album's name was taken from a line from the novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning written by Alan Sillitoe. The name was chosen after Turner recognised similarities between the two works and the appropriateness of the title. He said that "it’s good because the book is called Saturday Night And Sunday Morning and that’s kind of what the album is, so there’s a link there. And also, there’s a lot of people saying a lot of things about us and you don’t have control over it."[15] He also said that "songs including 'The View from the Afternoon', 'Dancing Shoes', 'Still Take You Home' and 'From the Ritz to the Rubble' all cover that bit of the weekend and feature the same character."[16]
Cover artwork of the album is a photo of Chris McClure — a friend of the band, frontman of The Violet May and brother of Jon McClure of Reverend and the Makers — taken in the early hours of the morning in Korova bar, Liverpool[15] after the band had given him, his cousin and his best friend "seventy quid to spend on a night out".[17] The image caused some controversy when the head of Scotland's NHS criticised the cover for "reinforcing the idea that smoking is okay".[18] The band's product manager denied the accusation, and in fact suggested the opposite: "You can see from the image smoking is not doing him the world of good." In March 2006, McClure announced that he would be giving up smoking, due to lack of funds,[19] though it has been recently reported that his attempts to do so have failed. Billboard advertisements for the album used a similar image to the cover picture, but without the cigarette.
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AbsolutePunk | 89%[1] |
| Allmusic | [20] |
| The Guardian | [8] |
| The Independent | [21] |
| NME | 10/10[22] |
| Pitchfork Media | 7.4/10[23] |
| Robert Christgau | A-[24] |
| Rolling Stone | [25] |
| Winnipeg Sun | [26] |
| PopMatters | 8/10[27] |
The album since its release has received universal acclaim with a Metacritic rating of 82[28] and featuring highly in many year-end lists and being hailed as a modern classic.[29] Many critics and figures in the British Media hyped the Arctic Monkeys and their rapid rise to acclaim through unconventional means[8][30][31] and some even cited the Arctic Monkeys as revolutionising the way people find music as they built a fanbase on the basis of a few demos shared by fans through the internet.[32] NME declared them "Our Generation's Most Important Band" and Alex Turner's lyrics and depiction of Sheffield and the night lives of teenagers in particular praised with him being labelled as a "master of observation"[22] and USA Today claiming "you probably won't hear better CD all year long" and calling it "utterly infectious".[29] MusicOMH wrote that it was the sort of guitar rock that "makes you fall in love with music all over again" and along with many other critics cited "A Certain Romance" as the standout track and as being "a wonderfully articulate dissection of youth culture that belies Turner's tender years". It was however, noted that some of the tracks which had previously been released on the internet as demos had lost some of their quality and "don't sound as good".[30]
In 2009 the album was voted the 9th greatest album ever by MTV from an online poll voted for by fans. [3]
All lyrics written by Alex Turner except stated, all music composed by Arctic Monkeys.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "The View from the Afternoon" | 3:38 |
| 2. | "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" | 2:53 |
| 3. | "Fake Tales of San Francisco" | 2:57 |
| 4. | "Dancing Shoes" | 2:21 |
| 5. | "You Probably Couldn't See for the Lights But You Were Staring Straight at Me" | 2:10 |
| 6. | "Still Take You Home" (Jamie Cook) | 2:53 |
| 7. | "Riot Van" | 2:14 |
| 8. | "Red Light Indicates Doors are Secured" | 2:23 |
| 9. | "Mardy Bum" | 2:55 |
| 10. | "Perhaps Vampires is a Bit Strong But.." | 4:28 |
| 11. | "When the Sun Goes Down" | 3:20 |
| 12. | "From the Ritz to the Rubble" | 3:13 |
| 13. | "A Certain Romance" | 5:31 |
| Charts (2006) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| UK Albums Chart | 1 |
| Australian ARIA Albums Chart | 1 |
| Austrian Albums Chart | 23 |
| Belgium Albums Chart | 9 |
| Canadian Albums Chart | 46 |
| Danish Albums Chart | 6 |
| Finnish Albums Chart | 8 |
| German Albums Chart | 20 |
| Irish Albums Chart | 1 |
| New Zealand Albums Chart | 15 |
| French Albums Chart | 17 |
| Japan Album Chart | 9 |
| Netherlands Album Chart | 8 |
| Swiss Albums Chart | 15 |
| Swedish Albums Chart | 26 |
| Italian Albums Chart | 40 |
| US Billboard 200 | 24 |
| Preceded by Stars of CCTV by Hard-Fi |
UK number one album 29 January 2006 – 25 February 2006 |
Succeeded by In Between Dreams by Jack Johnson |
| Preceded by Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George by Jack Johnson |
Australian ARIA Albums Chart number-one album 27 February 2006 – 5 March 2006 |
Succeeded by Face to Face by Westlife |
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