The New Arctic Monkeys Album is...Pretty Okay

The Arctic Monkeys finally get their domestic release today after what seems like weeks or even months of hype. There's a statistic floating around out there that when the album debuted in England a few weeks ago at number one, it sold more than the rest of the top 20 combined. Which is pretty impressive, to me at least.

They seem to be getting a reasonably big push here, too--or at least as big a push as any indie-ish British rock band can get. I ran by the Times Square Virgin Megastore on lunch break and the Monkeys were the featured New Release o' the Day on the racks. Not to mention that their poster has been wheat pasted on construction sites around town for the past week or two. Most of all, though, it just seems like they're getting a lot of hype from the various magazines and online reviewers and bloggers out there. I've even seen references to them in the New York Times and ESPN.com, where one of the writers was saying that the NFL should have gotten a hip young band like the Arctic Monkeys instead of the Rolling Stones to play halftime at the Super Bowl. It's one thing when you've got Pitchfork raving about the next big thing weeks before the album comes out, but quite another when ESPN.com is doing the talking. That's some mainstream hype right there.

Not only has there been hype, though, but I feel like I've seen a lot of the meta-hype as well. A lot of people talking about the Arctic Monkeys are starting off by saying, "The Brits are always hyping the Next Big Thing and they're always wrong, but these guys...these guys actually live up to the hype!"

So, needless to say, I'm a total sucker for this stuff. I'm easily impressionable and can be persuaded to buy just about any album by a well-placed review. In short, I'm a record company's dream customer, and probably singlehandedly responsible for propping up the industry over the past few years. They aren't doing well now, but without me? The recording industry wouldn't exist anymore, outside of 30-second clips of faux-ironic '80s songs downloaded to cellphones.

But I digress. I would have probably picked up the album if it came with even a fraction of the advance notice. It's right down the sweet spot of stuff I like, and I'm pretty much always willing to give a new band a chance. Since the word was so good on the Arctic Monkeys, I bit the bullet and bought myself an import copy of the album a few weeks ago, and I've been listening to it since then. Trying to mull it over, really get a sense of it, live with it a bit. In fact, since I picked it up, I've probably listened to it more than any other album. So I know whereof I speak when I say...

I don't get it.

I'm not trying to be the arch hipster with the reactionary, "I dislike everything that other people like." I like the album. It's good stuff, and if you are thinking about buying it, I'd say go ahead and get it. There are some catchy songs on there, it has some energy and the guy has an accent when he sings, which is always good. I like it, and I don't feel bad about putting down my $22 to get the import copy. (Okay, knowing what I know, I might have waited the three weeks for the domestic release and saved $10. But you get my point.)

But I don't see what makes it so special. It escapes me how this is so clearly the standout album that everyone is talking about, especially when you consider other albums in essentially the same genre that came out contemporaneously with it: I've got new albums by the Strokes, We Are Scientists, and Love is All that were released just since the beginning of January that are all basically comparable in genre to the Arctic Monkeys, and I like all three more than I like the Arctic Monkeys. And there are others I haven't gotten around to, like the M's, the Subways, and the Editors that are, from what I understand, also in the same "rough, angular, post-punk revival" sound or whatever it is. These are all just in the last month or so. Let's just say that the field is not sparse right now.

So how did the Arctic Monkeys emerge from the scrum as the clearcut best of the bunch? If it was some crappy American Idol / teen pop / Justin Timberlake-type that was selling all these records, I'd just read that to mean, of course, that people really don't care what they listen to. But this is a band I like, in a genre I'm fairly well versed in. I'm baffled. Is it their lyrics? Their backstory? (There's some of that, about them being unsigned and internet demos and...you know, whatever.) I just don't hear what makes them special, and I really really want to. It's bordering on obsession.

And so that's why I'll probably be listening to the Arctic Monkeys for weeks or months to come. Not because I love it the way I love, say, Love Is All's Nine Times That Same Song. (Is it too early to start saying, "my favorite album of the year"? If not, Nine Times is it.) But just because I want figure out this mystery. This is one of the few cultural trends that I should actually be able to sync up with, as opposed to all of the wildly popular things like Dancing with the Stars and American Idol that I just don't get. This is my moment! This is my chance to have something I like actually be relatively popular! So why am I still feeling left out in the cold like usual?