The Arctic Monkeys create record for fastest selling debut album |
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Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:05
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LONDON: Indie band The Arctic Monkeys created a record Sunday for the fastest-selling debut album. The rockers from Sheffield, who have a following on the Internet, had released their album, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" on 23 January and it has sold 363,700 copies in a week.
Downloads from the net could put this figure to 400,000. During peak sales, the album was selling 5,000 copies an hour, outclassing the rest of the top 20 combined.
The group had played its first gigs in 2003, handing out demos to fans who posted them on a website. They then sang with an independent label, Domino.
The existing record for the fastest-selling debut album stands in the name of Hearsay for its "Popstars", selling 306,631 copies in its first week in March 2001.
The Arctic Monkeys was nominated last Tuesday for four top prizes at next month's NME awards.
The group, which had been at the top of the singles charts with its entry "When the Sun Goes Down", was, however, replaced by "Nasty Girl", a posthumous release for the late New York rapper Notorious BIG, according to the Official UK Charts Company. The rendering is now at No 2.
The group's "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" had topped the singles chart at the end of October.
An HMV spokesperson said, "we haven’t seen anything like this since the Beatles".
The four-member group comprises singer Alex Turner, 19, guitarist Jamie Cook, 20, bassist Andy Nicholson, 19, and drummer Matt Helders, 19. The album, with anecdotes of the working class life, alcopops and prostitution, has been compared with The Clash and Oasis.
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