After paranoia surrounding the ushering of the 21st Century, mainly focusing on the millenium bug and the unusual length of dominance displayed by boybands and Pokemon, the inception of the 21st Century as an era within it's own right took a while. It took a full five years before the 21st Century gained identity, rather than remain a '90's hangover.
Social networking, the instantaneous, consumer dominated age we wallow in today is present thanks to a series of changes, largely through the development of the Internet as the dominant tool in communication, and near enough everything else.
Along this theme, there is one album - to me, at least, that stand out as one of the most indicative of this new age we now take for granted.
Formed in Sheffield in 2002, but releasing their debut some 4 years, The Arctic Monkeys were brash, openly colloquial, and musically talented. Sadly a rarity, when one thinks of the "Americanisation" of the modern music industry.
However, oddly - it is not their sound I wish to focus on. After spending some years (I assume unsuccessfully) giving out their music for free at gigs on burnt CD's, the band had acquired a small amount of fans, a couple of which had set up a page on the upcoming social media site Myspace.
Utilising the sites viral and wide reaching global audience, the band's fan page reached a remarkable amount of popularity, thrusting them into a level of limelight and media hype that was previously unmarked territory for unsigned bands.
Because of the site's ability to put the band on a pedestal before a global audience, the band's first single - usually a test of the waters for labels - was released to an already established audience, guaranteeing sales.
The album did extraordinarily, selling 363,735 copies in the first week, outstripping the previous record held by Hearsay's Popstars album (reinforcing my point about the 90's hangover)
The album itself is gritty, musically accomplished and fresh to the ears. From the lyrical prose that doffs it's cap to Shakespeare in "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" to the wedding band cynicism that slides through "Fake Tales Of San Francisco" and the beautifully choreographed "Dancing Shoes", and finally the sing along classic of the album "When The Sun Goes Down" addressing modern conceptions of villainous character, deliciously baptised "that scummy man" in Alex Turner's northern drawl.
But when I look at the album, and listen to its beguiling modernity and frank nature to notions of binge drinking and cover bands, I think of the Internet, of Myspace and the later development of the "landfill indie" scene, and most importantly - the 21st Century.
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