UP TO A POINT, LORD COCKER

It's like musical bird flu, the spread of Arctic Monkey fever, isn't it? Jarvis Cocker has announced that he supports the band and their rise based on graft, not hype:

"I think it's very important because they've done it without trying "The only reason people have got into it (the music) is because they've listened to it and they like it, so it's something real.

"I guess all the music industry will probably think 'how can we emulate that or what can we do?' "I think there's nothing they can do about it because it's something that has happened naturally, there's no way to apply spin doctorism to it."

Well... kind of, Jarvis. They may have been a hype-free act up until about ten minutes before the release of the first single, but since then "the band from the internets" has been receiving enough hype to make Mark Oaten Prime Minister; and while their spin might not have come from a smoked glass clad office block, there's spin a-plenty around them. (Remember that last Friday they were even co-opted by the BPI into the battle against file sharers.)

And the fastest selling debut album of all time schtick has been fairly hypey of itself - now, admittedly, a lot of that came from the retailers and chart companies rather than the Monkeys, but to pretend that it was nothing more than word of mouth that got the band onto the BBC Ten O'Clock News twice in five days is surely placing faith ahead of sense?

music arctic monkeys jarvis cocker