The Arctic Monkeys – a brash group of English teens without a member of legal U.S. drinking age and who didn’t even own instruments until Christmas 2001 – debuted atop the UK charts last week.

Not only did the band’s first full-length enter the chart in its top slot, but “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am Not” became the first non-major label release ever to hold that position.

Additionally, the 118K copies sold during that first week made the album the fastest selling debut in history.

How does this happen? How does an act with just a handful of live gigs, only slightly more musical experience than a typical 7th grade marching band member and virtually no label-backing premiere as a chart topper in such a hotbed of music?

It’s a nice and familiar story. A group of school friends get instruments and form a band on a lark. But what makes the Arctic Monkeys tale so phenomenal is the quick rise to fame. The band hadn’t recorded a note until 2005 when it laid down a few internet-only tracks as a prelude to the now famous debut LP.

There’s a list of things the band members could thank.

They could buy a round of pints for anyone affiliated with Myspace. The Web site is credited often – by the band and fans – as what helped break the quartet. With more than 50,000 friends and close to 480,000 profile views, clearly the band tapped into a market strategy most utilized by its peers. And boy do teens buy albums… a lot of albums – quickly.

The band could thank its label mates like Franz Ferdinand, Test Icicles and Clinic for building up clout for Domino Records. Much like Sub Pop was for grunge in the early 1990s, the UK indie has become synonymous with guitar-driven dance music with a reputation for success.

But most of all – more than the timing, the label, the Internet and all the right-place-right-time pieces that fell into this puzzle – the Arctic Monkeys need to thank the UK. More than any place, the English press is notoriously gracious with hype and willing to create a buzz about unproven acts. And more than any place, English consumers are willing to pay for those unproven acts.

It’s become a joke among many circles; every band out of the UK is the “next big thing.” From The Coral to the Zutons, the list of bands that failed to meet the expectations is about as long as the regions history for bad teeth. But it still doesn’t stop the UK press from hyping new acts monthly, just in case one of them deserves the praise.

The last big Brit-pop explosion is a perfect example of how publicity of an unknown band can translate to record sales. Before the Blur/Oasis war, and long before Creation Records became one of the most important movements in modern music, strings were pulled for some acts that would become major players over the decade. How else can you explain Suede’s 1993 debut becoming the fastest selling UK debut to date, only to have that title swiped by Oasis’ 1994 release and then again in 1995 by Elastica’s self-title. In the span of three years, three different bands staked claim to owning the fastest selling debut album in UK history.

Why are European audiences so willing to buy deafly and glom onto a band’s reputation before an act is proven? Trust. While American record labels sign backroom deals with major publications to promote the likes of Lil’ Bow Wow and Staind, bands like Stereophonics and JJ72 grace UK covers.

It’s this same trust why consumers don’t mind when those countless “next big things” never pan out. They know sometime they’ll be right and find another Radiohead.

A part of it is silly to see a nation of record buyers latch onto calculated reputations and unmitigated potential. But another part of it is genuine, like a group of people so thirsty for good music they are willing to try anything to find it – even buy into the hype of a few teenagers from Sheffield with a name as bad as Arctic Monkeys.

And who knows, maybe this is “the next big thing.” But even if it isn’t, it’s an example why America will never know what it’s like to have that hype – we’re too afraid to be wrong.

Daily Herald BEEP, Feb. 27, 2006