In retrospect, it is amazing to consider how much expectation sat on those not-yet-20-year-old shoulders. Yet the band seemed so unfazed. This confidence even inspired some in the press to disbelieve it was that these 18 and 19 years-olds from Sheffield were writing their own songs and around the album’s release The Guardian highlighted music industry conspiracy theories claiming someone else was writing the band’s material, with lyrical references to the Police’s “Roxanne” in one song “proof” that someone else older was involved. Members maybe caught it with Ayalew, but we rebranded the “original” subscription as VMP Essentials, so you’ll see the new stamp or logo on those records. People have really liked the obi strip we’re doing on our Rap & Hip-Hop releases, and we decided to carry that over, because when we took away the white wraparound we used to have around our albums last year, the thing that was immediately lost was the uniformity if you line up your Record of the Months across your shelf. The OCD in all of us as collectors was really pinged, so we’re doing that across the board. Classics will have it in May, and Essentials has it in April. I also think they were first band I looked up on YouTube too. They had the “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor” on YouTube, and I remember hearing that YouTube was a thing that exists, and looking up music videos immediately, and that was on there. I got on dial-up and tied up the phone line for an hour to watch that. (Laughs) While the mainstream press had enjoyed only limited access to the group – the rapid deterioration of the winners’ press conference suggesting their management’s cautious approach was justified – the NME, for whom I was then News Editor, had fared better… but only just. I had five minutes. The irony of course is that plenty of people did share Arctic Monkeys’ vision. They resonated with Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’s energy, they recognized the experiences Alex Turner’s snapshots captured and then they moved their “dancing feet” to the cavalcade of of riffs and rhythms. The album was the best selling British record of 2006, yet, the achievement of Arctic Monkeys is bigger than just articulating shared experience in a catchy manner – after all, they had already achieved that with their online demos as those early festival audiences showed.

The almost folkish “Riot Van” then takes us outside the club, trying to make sense of the internal logic behind the thrill of baiting the police… then running away just in time, while “Red Light Indicate Doors Are Secured: details the near military planning required by all groups of lads trying to get a taxi in Britain while drunk – which might not sound like promising subject matter for a song, is much more universal than you’d possibly expect (until you’ve been there, staring at an empty road at 3 a.m.).

The relentless rhythms of “From The Ritz To The Rubble” shakes with the fuzzy anger and sore head of the morning after one of the epic, boozy night out on the dance floors detailed earlier, before “A Certain Romance” rolls the credits with its whimsically clipped guitar and a solecismic sadness of thinking no one else in the world shares your vision that there might just be something more going on with life. Yeah, it looks like it’s a closeup photo of the air above the dude on the covers head, or something. It’s like faint smoke in a room’s corner. It’s the fastest selling U.K. debut in all of history. Faster than the Stones, the Beatles, or whoever else.

However, the resulting debut album did not just answer those questions with its obvious authenticity, but it lived up to the considerable hype generated by those early shows, with “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor” debuting at Number One in the UK charts (ironically Alex Turner even asks viewers “not to believe the hype” in the grainy live video that accompanied the single) and NME including their debut at Number Five in our Best British Albums Of All Time list the week before the record’s actual release.

And had its creation had been a great experience too? “It’s the best year of our lives, isn’t it? Not bad for a first job is it?” concluded the singer. “What do we do now, though? Probably go mental…” Our full range of studio equipment from all the leading equipment and software brands. Guaranteed fast delivery and low prices.

We feel really honored to be doing this album because we know how big of a deal it was for the band and the label. The challenge of doing this one was making sure we presented this with a lot of respect, and weren’t going to be doing something that didn’t feel in-line with the ethos of the band. It was almost like a “What are your intentions with my daughter?” talk, like they wanted to make sure we were going to be doing right by the album. Although the list wasn’t my idea, I was called out by a BBC Radio 6 Music reporter for “unfairly raising expectations on the band” because I’d written the review of the record, a piece the 28 year-old me concluded by stating: “Passion, belief and style are timeless, and so is this record.” But I wasn’t alone in my enthusiasm. The interview began with me effectively asking them how it felt to win--I know, but I hadn’t seen the press conference at that point-- but I got away with it by actually asking how the duo felt to be in the same company as M People who’d surprisingly beaten Blur to the same prize in 1995. By fluke, Helders was a fan of the soul-lite pop band. “Oh God, yeah! I love M People,” he enthused, before making me feel positively ancient by adding “They remind me of when I was a kid and my mum and dad used to listen to them!” Then I asked Alex if he’d had inkling that he was on to a good thing when they first started writing songs for their debut. Not to be all I was there, man, but I bought this album the first day it came out on CD. Here, they were kind of more notorious for being the first band I ever heard of becoming famous for songs they posted to a MySpace. I’m fairly certain they were the reason I even heard about MySpace. When we agreed to do the project, we talked to the band about remastering the album, and they really felt satisfied with how it had been mastered originally. I fall into this category too, but sometimes people are like, “If this is a reissue, there must be a new remaster,” but sometimes things are great as they are and everyone’s already happy with the album, and the person who mastered it the first time did a great job. There’s something to be said about when you’re happy 100% with the originals.