Nick O'Malley

It received a Best Alternative Music Album nomination at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, their third to do so, and their second consecutive nomination after Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.

In the United Kingdom, the band became the first independent-label band to debut at number one in the UK with their first five albums.

The band have won seven Brit Awards; winning Best British Group and British Album of the Year three times, becoming the first band to ever "do the double" —that is, win in both categories— three times; a Mercury Prize for Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, an Ivor Novello Award and 20 NME Awards.

Arctic Monkeys are an English rock band formed in Sheffield in 2002.

The group consists of lead singer Alex Turner, drummer Matt Helders, guitarist Jamie Cook and bassist Nick O'Malley.

Arctic Monkeys was formed in mid-2002 by friends Alex Turner, Matt Helders and Andy Nicholson(who left the band shortly after their first debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, was released).

Turner and Helders were neighbours and close friends, and they met Nicholson in secondary school.

Turner, who had grown up in a musical household as his father was a music teacher, played guitar in the then-instrumental-only band, with Helders on drums, Nicholson on bass and a new band member, Jamie Cook, as a second guitarist.

The band began rehearsing at Yellow Arch Studios in Neepsend, and played its first gig on 13 June 2003 at The Grapes in Sheffield city centre.

After a few performances in 2003, the band began to record demos at 2fly studios in Sheffield.

18 songs were demoed in all and the collection, now known as Beneath the Boardwalk, was burned onto CDs to give away at gigs, which were promptly file-shared amongst fans.

The name Beneath the Boardwalk originated when the first batch of demos were sent around.

The first sender, wanting to classify the demos, named them after where he received them, the Boardwalk.

Slowly, as more demos were spread, they were all classified under this name.

This has led to many people falsely believing that Beneath the Boardwalk was an early album, or that the early demos were all released under this title.

The group did not mind the distribution, saying "we never made those demos to make money or anything. We were giving them away free anyway – that was a better way for people to hear them."

The band began to grow in popularity across the north of England, receiving attention from BBC Radio and the British tabloid press.

A local amateur photographer, Mark Bull, filmed the band's performances and made the music video "Fake Tales of San Francisco", releasing it on his website, alongside the contents of Beneath the Boardwalk – a collection of the band's songs which he named after a local music venue.

When asked about the popularity of the band's MySpace site, the band said that they were unaware of what it was and that the site had originally been created by their fans.

In 2005, Turner said they took their name from a band that Helders' dad played in during the 1970s: "He passed it down from generation to generation, like a recipe."

Initially, Turner was reluctant when it came to being the lead singer.

As time passed, Turner became the lead singer and frontman of the band as he had "a thing for words", according to Helders.

In May 2005, Arctic Monkeys released the EP Five Minutes with Arctic Monkeys on their own 'Bang Bang' label, featuring the songs "Fake Tales of San Francisco" and "From the Ritz to the Rubble".

This release was limited to 500 CDs and 1,000 7" records, but was also available to download from the iTunes Music Store. Soon after, the band played at the Carling Stage of the Reading and Leeds Festivals, reserved for less known or unsigned bands.

Eventually, they were signed to Domino in June 2005.

The band said they were attracted to the DIY ethic of Domino owner Laurence Bell, who ran the label from his flat and only signed bands that he liked personally.

The UK's Daily Star reported that this was followed in October by a £1 million publishing deal with EMI and a £725,000 contract with Epic Records for the United States.

Former bassist Andy Nicholson left the band in 2006 shortly after their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, was released.

Arctic Monkeys were heralded as one of the first bands to come to public attention via the Internet, with commentators suggesting they represented the possibility of a change in the way in which new bands are promoted and marketed.

Their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006), received widespread critical acclaim upon release and topped the UK Albums Chart, becoming the fastest-selling debut album in British chart history at the time.

It won Best British Album at the 2007 Brit Awards and has since been hailed as one of the greatest debut albums.

The band's second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007), was also acclaimed by critics and won Best British Album at the 2008 Brit Awards.

In addition, they have been nominated for nine Grammy Awards, and received Mercury Prize nominations in 2007, 2013, 2018 and 2023.

Both Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not and AM are included in NMEs and different editions of Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time lists.

They went on to release Humbug (2009) and Suck It and See (2011), both of which were well-received critically, though not to the extent of their first two albums.

The band's wider international fame came with the success of their critically acclaimed fifth album AM (2013), which was supported by the global hit "Do I Wanna Know?".

It topped four Billboard charts and was certified 3× platinum in the US.

At the 2014 Brit Awards, the album became their third to win British Album of the Year.

Their sixth album, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino (2018), was a major departure from the band's previous guitar-heavy work, instead being piano-oriented.

Their seventh album, The Car, was released in 2022 and received nominations for the Ivor Novello Awards and the Mercury Prize in 2023.