Sheffield, if you don't know, a post-industrial City, in South Yorkshire, UK. It is famous for the steel production, and the manufacture of cutlery, although these were as good as wiped out by the Conservative government of the 1980s.

The industrial nature of the city shaped its first, breakthrough music scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While other British towns were still making punk and new wave, the alternative musicians of Sheffield were more influenced by the bleak sounds of German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. The cold, difficult electronica of Cabaret Voltaire was a pioneering template which was followed, to a greater or lesser degree, by other bands such as Vice Versa, Artery, Clock DVA, The Human League, ABC and Heaven 17. Some of these went on to have major pop careers, but all started with a similar sound - albeit with keyboards, guitars or both - that combined a sense of arty futurism with gritty, almost kitchen-sink realism.

Another band to form during this scene was Pulp, fronted by Jarvis Cocker, but this band would not find their commercial success for over a decade. One of the few breakthrough bands from Sheffield of the time that was outside this were Def Leppard, a proper big-haired 80s rock act, that have become Sheffield's biggest ever musical export.

During the 1980s, Sheffield's musical influences waned. Few Sheffield bands made it big again until the 1990s, when indie bands such as the Longpigs, Speedy and Babybird entered the charts, and Pulp finally made it big, slotting in perfectly with Britpop. Dance acts from Sheffield also made it into the charts, such as All Seeing I, Moloko and Olive.

Although Sheffield bands were breaking through into the charts, there seemed to be little of a cohesive scene among those acts. In 2005 this changed with the emergence of the Arctic Monkeys, a trailblazing young indie band who became darlings of the music press, and broke records with their chart-topping debuts. In their wake came similar guitar bands from Sheffield, including Little Man Tate, Milburn, Bromheads Jacket and Reverend and the Makers, as well as art rockers Long Blondes, and further success for Richard Hawley, the singer-songwriting guitarist who was part of the Longpigs, and latter-day Pulp. Sheffield music is as strong as it ever was.

Of course the music in the charts is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a local scene. Sheffield has always been home to a large number of music venues and clubs, and

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