After the turn of the millennium, industry consensus had it that file-sharing was a grave evil about to destroy the music business. Sheffield's Arctic Monkeys, however -- like fellow Internet-friendly acts the Weeknd, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, all of whom were suddenly gifting fans with music for free (or nearly for free) online -- were of a differing opinion. The band, in fact, gained critical and popular notoriety and was already selling out gigs on both sides of the Atlantic well before its official debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I Am Not, arrived in 2006 largely by giving free CD-R demos away at gigs and encouraging fans to circulate them on the Web. 

This did not damage the first album's commercial fortunes at all. It became the fastest-selling debut album in British history, selling 350,000 copies in the U.K. during its first week of release. Arctic Monkey's high-energy pub rock and frontman Alex Turner's laddish lyrics about nights on the prowl in clubs were very English by nature, but Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I Am Not sold well around the world, too, and teed the band up as one of the 21st century's most successful rock acts.