Do people really listen to the music?

Seeing Arctic Monkeys being played on MTV make me wonder how much people really listen to what they are listening to. The band is mediocre at best and while it's fresh to hear something else and than sugar sweet RnB on MTV I still feel that they don't have their music to thank for the sudden stardom. No, they made headlines back in 2005 when they manage to promote themselves over the internet building a fan base before venturing on and signing with the label Domino (also home of Franz Ferdinand). The media have made them stars by using their name as a symbol of the change the media industry is currently going though. The Times had an article regarding this in October, and several other prominent news papers have covered this phenomena giving the band massive media coverage. In the words of Dr Hannibal Lecter we do covet what we see every day and no one sums up the media industry like him.

So by becoming symbols for how we consume culture today Arctic Monkeys have rocket themselves to instant fame despite their music. There must be thousands of bands out there sounding better that the Sheffield boys but as we all know it's how famous you are not how good you are that decide if you can be one of the select few to be aired on your favourite music station.

Ok, I think that is enough cynism for one day.