276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'M Not

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

Yeah, it looks like it’s a closeup photo of the air above the dude on the covers head, or something. It’s like faint smoke in a room’s corner.

While the mainstream press had enjoyed only limited access to the group – the rapid deterioration of the winners’ press conference suggesting their management’s cautious approach was justified – the NME, for whom I was then News Editor, had fared better… but only just. I had five minutes. However, the resulting debut album did not just answer those questions with its obvious authenticity, but it lived up to the considerable hype generated by those early shows, with “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor” debuting at Number One in the UK charts (ironically Alex Turner even asks viewers “not to believe the hype” in the grainy live video that accompanied the single) and NME including their debut at Number Five in our Best British Albums Of All Time list the week before the record’s actual release. The almost folkish “Riot Van” then takes us outside the club, trying to make sense of the internal logic behind the thrill of baiting the police… then running away just in time, while “Red Light Indicate Doors Are Secured: details the near military planning required by all groups of lads trying to get a taxi in Britain while drunk – which might not sound like promising subject matter for a song, is much more universal than you’d possibly expect (until you’ve been there, staring at an empty road at 3 a.m.).Members maybe caught it with Ayalew, but we rebranded the “original” subscription as VMP Essentials, so you’ll see the new stamp or logo on those records. People have really liked the obi strip we’re doing on our Rap & Hip-Hop releases, and we decided to carry that over, because when we took away the white wraparound we used to have around our albums last year, the thing that was immediately lost was the uniformity if you line up your Record of the Months across your shelf. The OCD in all of us as collectors was really pinged, so we’re doing that across the board. Classics will have it in May, and Essentials has it in April. It’s the fastest selling U.K. debut in all of history. Faster than the Stones, the Beatles, or whoever else. Our full range of studio equipment from all the leading equipment and software brands. Guaranteed fast delivery and low prices. The interview began with me effectively asking them how it felt to win--I know, but I hadn’t seen the press conference at that point-- but I got away with it by actually asking how the duo felt to be in the same company as M People who’d surprisingly beaten Blur to the same prize in 1995. By fluke, Helders was a fan of the soul-lite pop band. “Oh God, yeah! I love M People,” he enthused, before making me feel positively ancient by adding “They remind me of when I was a kid and my mum and dad used to listen to them!” Then I asked Alex if he’d had inkling that he was on to a good thing when they first started writing songs for their debut.

And had its creation had been a great experience too? “It’s the best year of our lives, isn’t it? Not bad for a first job is it?” concluded the singer. “What do we do now, though? Probably go mental…” Although the list wasn’t my idea, I was called out by a BBC Radio 6 Music reporter for “unfairly raising expectations on the band” because I’d written the review of the record, a piece the 28 year-old me concluded by stating: “Passion, belief and style are timeless, and so is this record.” But I wasn’t alone in my enthusiasm.

The irony of course is that plenty of people did share Arctic Monkeys’ vision. They resonated with Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’s energy, they recognized the experiences Alex Turner’s snapshots captured and then they moved their “dancing feet” to the cavalcade of of riffs and rhythms. The album was the best selling British record of 2006, yet, the achievement of Arctic Monkeys is bigger than just articulating shared experience in a catchy manner – after all, they had already achieved that with their online demos as those early festival audiences showed.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment