Backgrounder

In the world of Indie music at the moment, I think there is one thing that stands out most...

Looking at a specific story I would concentrate on the Artic Monkeys, writing up a profile as such of the band. This would be of much relevance due to the issues surrounding the band and the fact they have recently won a load of awards (The Brits and NME) and critical acclaim.

What makes them most interesting is the fact that their popularity and fan base was born online. They quickly escalated from an unheard group, to having the fastest selling album in British history. Not only is this story of relevance to my specialism, is also has an interesting online aspect.

"Legend says it was thanks to the power of the internet that an army of fans latched onto free downloads of demo recordings on the web." Read more

So how would I go about the story?

For an imaginative, not typical approach to the story, I would include comment from those who were there from the beginning. From this message board - http://bb.rocksbackpages.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000069.html - I would post and ask for a reliable person to give me there experience of the Artic Monkeys pre-fame. It was at small venues that the quartet started handing out demo cd's to the crowd, who in turn uploaded them onto the internet.

The following message board would also act as a place to scour contacts:

http://www.soundgenerator.com/messageboards/threads.cfm?b=8


After getting a consensus of opinion I would next look at blogs. Contradictory to the mainstream approach, I would also use blogs from the following locations...

Ignoring the obvious BBC link:

• http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2006/02/arctic_monkeys_.html
• http://www.arcticmonkeys.com/forum/index.php
  

From these two sites alone I get a general feel of what the current issues are about within the Artic Monkey universe. Obviously a bias towards the band can be found in the official e.g., however with the 'A VC' blog, I found a large difference of opinion. Additionally the blogger is from America, interestingly allowing me to give a foreign perspective (I could ask how they were promoted in the U.S.) This contrast of views would hold up well in my (proposed) 'light' article.

[From my experience of blogs, the best are the ones that are able to digest news stories and issues around the topic into easy to read chunks, while giving their own clear opinion. Links are valuable too]

Harking back to a previous posting by myself, I could also use the satirical website SoYouWanna. This would add a comic element to my backgrounder, and possibly providing a decent source.

Although this would be an online type of journalism, somewhat keeping with tradition, I would include comment from experts.

These are my most relevant findings:

tim.wall@uce.ac.uk - Director of Media course here at UCE, very knowledgeable about popular music and culture. Easily accessible and knows his stuff (see his list of publications).

public-relations@bristol.ac.uk - Dr Lee Marshall. His research is on how people consume music, and in particular, how this is structured by copyright. He would be ideal to explain phenomenon of digitally available music, plus the impact of the Artic Monkeys. I would ask him if their success could be recreated.

R.W.Dyer@warwick.ac.uk - Found the experts search page and this guy would be most useful source to comment on the rise of this band and the influences that have fuelled it.

Further Information: (could use some of the information for the article)

News:

http://www.nme.com/news/arctic-monkeys/ - good source of all news relating to the band. Would be the best place to start to flesh out the history of the band.
http://www.mardy-bum.com/ - comprehensive news database for all that is Artic.

Features:
http://www.ilikemusic.com/features/Arctic_Monkeys_Biography-1581 - a great article about the band. Somewhat typical, but having an interview with them-this is the style they chose.
http://www.prefixmag.com/features/A/Arctic-Monkeys/255 - question and answer style interview with the main singer (good, but presentation is very basic).

Others:
http://www.arctic-monkeys.com/ - fan site that is very well built, also contains a forum.
http://www.arcticmonkeyslinks.co.uk/ - as the name suggests, this site contains links to everything possible that can be connected to the band.