Arctic Monkeys

The Arctic Monkeys were an instant sensation in 2005, when an Internet buzz made their single "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" a viral hit despite their lack of airplay or a major-label deal. Critics predicted the band would either become superstars or burn out fast, and they didn't burn out-instead maintaining a strong following and critical respect over the next decade-plus. Formed in Sheffield in 2002, the founding lineup was Alex Turner (vocals, guitar), Matt Helders (drums), Jamie Cook (lead guitar) and Nick O'Malley (bass). While the band's raw, guitar-driven sound was pegged as a punk throwback, not everybody caught one of their main influences: Punk poet John Cooper Clarke, whose late-'70s recordings were referenced in Turner's half-spoken delivery and dense streams of lyric (The band would ultimately cover one of Clarke's pieces, "I Wanna Be Yours," on their fifth album AM). In their early days, the Arctic Monkeys gave demo CDs away at shows, and a fan reciprocated by making their first video "Fake Tales of San Francisco" for free. They also drew crowds at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in 2004, with only the one single to their name. So the audience was growing by the time their 2005 debut, : Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not made its breakthrough. At the time the best-selling debut album in U.K. history, the album won the following year's Mercury Prize and led to a sold-out U.S. club tour. They. even got the compliment of having "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" covered by Tom Jones, in a live clip that also went viral. The group hardly slicked up in the wake of the initial success; since they didn't rely on airplay, they saw no problem calling the follow-up EP Who the F--k are Arctic Monkeys?. Around this time the band has its only personnel change, with bassist Nick O'Malley replacing Nicholson. Further albums evinced musical growth: They teamed with the king of stoner rock, Queens of the Stone Age leader Josh Homme, for 2009's Humbug, a darker and denser record that showed a surprising Nick Cave influence. Following a return to punkish accessibility on 2011's Suck It and See, they branched out again on 2013's AM, a diverse batch of songs ranging from psychedelic to dark/heavy to rap-influenced to almost-disco. Like its four predecessors, it went #1 in England and hit the Top 20 in America. Following the AM tour the band took a three-year hiatus, and Turner worked with the loose-knit supergroup the Last Shadow Puppets with musical partner Miles Kane. The Arctic Monkeys announced they were working on new music together at the end of 2016, but the new album didn't appear until mid-2018 and featured a new sound for the band. Turner wrote the songs for Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino on piano instead of guitar, and the album melded '70s soft rock and electronic influences into its songs.