Looking back, Arctic Monkey‘s rise to prominence with their 2006 fastest-selling debut makes a lot more sense than Susan Boyle’s similar honors. People had just gotten used to finding out about music from the Internet. The Arctic Monkeys were young, irreverent, and most importantly, British. What’s more, the band was enjoyable to people you wouldn’t normally see together at a concert: pop-punkers and indie kids, aging hipsters and tweens, mods and rockers. All in all, 2006 was a pretty great year for them.

The boys from Sheffield have maintained their swagger for the ensuing three, churning out consistently high-quality albums and a slew of exciting EPs in between. Last year’s Humbug was supposedly a bottom-heavy, Americana influenced deviation from the course, although the most apparent difference was in Alex Turner’s longer hair than in any shift in songwriting. They’ve rocked tighter and better than most of their indie-major contemporaries, and although Wednesday was the first time I’d seen them live before, I had heard that their style translated into a fantastic stage show. Read the rest…