Your name isn't Rio, but I don't care for sand

Number 21

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

Trotter’s Top Ten position : 1 in 2006

UK Chart high : 1 in 2006

Continuing a trend then, pretty poor year (2006 this time and only one other album from that year - Metric's - makes my fifty) and a Number One outside the top twenty (just).  This time it's Arctic Monkeys with their debut and if anything it falls just below the twenty for the simple reason that, on returning to it after a few years, it sags a tad in the middle.  Still - fantastic, abrasive, smart, confident-beyond-their-years, youthful rock from the north - with regional accents to the full and a massive impact that rejuvenated British rock and encouraged a new generation to pick up the guitar thanks to this vignette into British youths' tribulations.  Although the myspace/facebook legend was vastly overworked (through no fault of the band who owed their meteoric rise more to endless gigging and cd giveaways) they managed to outlast the hype and have settled into one of Britain's best current bands.  I'll say no more except laud Alex Turner's amazing, amazing lyrics by listing from a few of their tunes here:

There's a super cool band yeah
With their trilbys and their glasses of white wine
And all the weekend rockstars in the toilets
Practicing their lines

And yeah, I'd love to tell you all my problem
You're not from New York City, you're from Rotherham
So get off the bandwagon, and put down the handbook

Well now then Mardy Bum
Oh I'm in trouble again, aren't I

Who's that girl there?
I wonder what went wrong
So that she had to roam the streets
She dunt do major credit cards
I doubt she does receipts

And he told Roxanne to put on her red light
They're all infected but he'll be alright
Cause he's a scumbag, don't you know

Don't get me wrong, oh there's boys in bands
And kids who like to scrap with pool cues in their hands
And just cause he's had a couple of cans
He thinks it's alright to act like a dickhead

Dint ya see she were gorgeous, she was beyond belief
But this lad at the side drinking a Smirnoff ice came and paid for her tropical Reef

Look at I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor ; Fake Tales of San Francisco ; The View From the Afternoon ; A Certain Romance (live) ; When the Sun Goes Down
Listen to a sampling of the Top Fifty on Spotify as we go or the 'one from each album' version