So last night on Fabulous Rrrrradio One Eff Emm they played the new Arctic Monkeys single. Taken from their forthcoming sophomore album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, it's called Brian Storm (do you see what they did there?). It has since been played on the station every two hours or so. There's a law about it, apparently.

As we all know, Arctic Monkeys are the biggest band on the planet. "They're like this generation's Oasis" is what well-known rock critic Dizzee Rascal said.

We also know that Arctic Monkeys are popular because of the internet, which allowed their fans to come together and say "crikey, I quite like this music", except using typing and modems.

So the online response to this hotly anticipated new record is bound to be stellar, isn't it?

Erm... no.

A total of three (count 'em) bloggers have written about the single. "I heard it. It's good, yeah", says Imdagger with unique insight into the creative process. Meanwhile, Pillaged Prose is more effusive, but slightly more cryptic: "Damn what a follow up", he writes. "But not the sort of thing to listen to when trying to do finicky seam work". An important health warning for all of those kids listening to the Monkeys in a third-world sweatshop, there.

And what of the response on the group's fabled myspace page? Similarly poor,I'm afraid. Just five of the band's 62,989 "friends" felt moved to make a comment. One of them, Mikey, wrote "your new song is the sex", which makes me wonder if he has ever actually had sex (hint: no). But, apart from Mikey, no-one seems to be wetting their pants over this much-feted record.

Come on, guys, the song's not that bad. I mean, the words are clever. And the guitar riff is pretty ferocious. Yes, the tune just repeats itself every two bars and there's no chorus - but what do you expect? They are this generation's Oasis, after all.

Labels: arctic monkeys, Music, Radio