Word: arctics
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...nearly every song, the sentiment sounds hollow. Listeners anxious for Doherty to recapture the verve he displayed with the Libertines will have to wait a little while longer. In the mean time, there’s always the next “Next Big Thing.” Arctic Monkeys, anyone...
...their stiff-upper-lip stoicism, the British go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over any native band that can gin up three chords and an attitude. The latest kings of England are the Arctic Monkeys, four lads who got guitars for Christmas in 2001, mastered them quickly, toured the country and handed out home-burned CDs of songs that were then uploaded to the unsigned-band portal MySpace.com Their following metastasized to the point that the band sold out the famed London Astoria last year on word of mouth. When a record-company bidding war ensued, the Arctic Monkeys signed with...
...instinctive response to this outbreak of British euphoria is condescension. (It's fun to switch cultural roles once in a while, no?) Americans who don't love music can sniff at the band's impossible youth--two of the Arctic Monkeys are 19, two are 20--and refrigerator-poetry name. Music lovers need only glance at dusty albums by Oasis, Super Furry Animals, the Prodigy and Bloc Party to remind themselves that the Brits routinely mistake mediocrity for greatness. Here's the thing, though: this time there's no mistake. Whatever People...
...music itself makes no great claims to originality. The Arctic Monkeys' lo-fi guitar jags are cribbed from the Strokes and Franz Ferdinand (who cribbed them from Lou Reed and Television and so on), and the band's ska rhythms and martial drums come courtesy of the Clash. But singer-guitarist Alex Turner, guitarist Jamie Cook, drummer Matt Helders and bassist Andy Nicholson play with a swagger that obliterates any trace of ancestor worship. They aren't referencing anything as they fly through tunes like The View from the Afternoon; they're just playing as many hooks as possible...
...case, some of the entitlement cuts are illusory. For instance, the Bush budget strangely projects $4 billion in oil leases for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as an entitlement cut. But Congress didn't approve ANWR drilling in the current budget and no one's counting on it passing this year. And the budget also includes $5 billion in cuts of agricultural subsidies, very similar to the ones Bush pushed last year to no avail. All said, Bushies are expecting a $423 billion budget deficit for the current fiscal year, up from their recent estimates of $341 billion...