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

Arctic Monkeys' debut gave British rock music a swift kick in the trousers. Riotous tracks like "The View from the Afternoon" and "Dancing Shoes," with their twitchy drum lines and broken guitar scales, are both wobbly and anthemic; they provide a fitting backdrop to Alex Turner's stories of “weekend rock stars” who dodge the police, hustle club bouncers, and dance “to electro-pop from 1984.” The songs are more snapshots than portraits, but there’s an urgent beauty in their raggedness.