Imagine being a teenager and before you even release an album your band starts getting compared to the Beatles. Then imagine that when you finally do release music, it really is absolutely incredible and somehow you live up to the nearly impossible expectations placed on you.  Thats the story of the Arctic Monkeys. While they were instantly a “best band ever” in the UK, it took them a while to break through to US audiences but with a little help from Josh Homme of QOTSA, they are here to stay.  I love this band, here are a few of my favorite tunes.

BONUS ARCTIC MONKEYS COVER TUNES THAT ARE ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE:

When I was…a young boy….WAIT NO.  When I was a kid, I won a cassette single of “Friday I’m In Love” by The Cure in some sort of raffle at school that I don’t remember entering.  I had never heard of the Cure before, but it had to be good, I mean, it was a major prize.  Racine WI elementary school system would never give out a bad prize right? I waited all day to hear it and finally after school I raced to my neighbor’s mom’s minivan and begged her to play it for us.  The important part of this story is that my neighbors were about as conservative as it gets, so needless to say, I was greeted with a look of pure horror once she took a look at Robert Smith on the cover of the tape.  Needless to say, that just made me want to listen to it even more and a young punk rocker was born.  From that point forward is was do everything I could to challenge people’s comfort zones.  And it started with The Cure.