Case Study: Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am

Arctic Monkeys : Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Front Cover

Back Cover

Whatever People Say I Am is the debut album released in early 2006 by indie rock band Arctic Monkeys. Unduly popular, the album instantaneously became the fastest selling debut album in British music history, selling just short of 120,000 copies before the day was out and an astonishing 364,000 copies in its first week. The album also went to #1 in  the Australian and Irish charts and still remains to hold the record for fastest selling debut album by a band in the UK today.

The cover artwork of the album is a photograph of Chris McClure — a 'tea boy' friend of the band, taken in the early hours of the morning in Korova bar, Liverpool, after the band had given him, his cousin and his best friend "seventy quid to spend on a night out". The image caused a somewhat substantial amount of controversy when the head of Scotland's NHS criticised the cover for "reinforcing the idea that smoking is okay". The band's product manager denied the accusation, and instead suggested the opposite, claiming that "you can see from the image smoking is not doing him the world of good." Billboard advertisements for the album used a similar image to the cover picture, but without the cigarette.

Censored billboard image on the London Underground

Although first appearing to be simple and somewhat plain, the front cover artwork immediately establishes genre and style; The colour grade of the image is more predominantly emerald, creating a vintage, old fashioned style to reflect the archaic, original style of music produced by the band. The short hair and plain white shirt shown to be worn by Chris McClure emphasises the simple, laid-back attitude of the artists and the relaxed style of genre whilst remaining to be slightly edgy; McClure is shown smoking a cigarette, this in alliance with the short hair and generic simple white shirt creates a sort of mod look and style, representing the carefree and alternative stlye of the band and its genre.

The artwork for this digipack is considerably different to the usual album covers that are found within more mainstream genres in that the image featured is not of the artists and the name of the album is not obviously shown. This idea is effective in attracting attention and standing out from the crowd as well as being representative of the extensive reputation and status of the band, similar to influential album The White Album by The Beatles in 1968.

The Beatles was released in 1968 as the bands ninth studio album. The double album was most commonly known as The White Album due to its lack of graphics or text, other than the bands name embossed onto the plain white sleeve. The album's sleeve was designed by Richard Hamilton a notable pop artist creating a design that was in stark contrast to Peter Blake's vivid cover art for the eighth Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1966).The album's inside packaging included a poster, the lyrics to the songs, and a set of photographs taken by John Kelly during the autumn of 1968 that have themselves become iconic. This is the only sleeve of a Beatles studio album not to show the members of the band on the front. It is said that many of the songs on the album were inspired by an eye-opening trip to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India and features many symbolic and allegorical messages within; to reflect this the album cover was left blank, allowing each individual to interpret and sculpt the messages as they see fit.

However, after release in November 1968, the album received mixed reviews from various critics and sociologists; in his book Revolution in the Head, Ian McDonald argues that The Beatles was the album in which the band's cryptic messages to its fan base became not merely vague but intentionally and perhaps dangerously open-ended, identifying oblique passages in songs like "Glass Onion" (e.g., "the walrus was Paul") and "Piggies" ("what they need's a damn good whacking"). These suggestions, along with many others on the album, came to attract popular interest at a time when more of the world's youth were using drugs recreationally and looking for spiritual, political, and strategic advice from popular bands such as The Beatles. Furthermore, in his book A Hard Day's Write, Steve Turner also argues that, with this album, "The Beatles had perhaps laid themselves open to misinterpretation by mixing up the languages of poetry and nonsense."

Although receiving mixed reviews and various criticisms, The White Album still smashed its way to number 1 on both the British and American charts and has sold over 20 million copies, still remaining to be one of the most notable albums and bands in history.

The plain design of this album cover is also significant in showing the extravagant popularity held by the band; most album artworks for other bands (particularly in the more mainstream genres such as pop) feature vibrant, eye-catching images of the band. These are used in order to create a star image; publishing various images of the band ensures that their faces are well known and recognisable, whereas The Beatles are so well established within the music industry that publication of their faces are unnecessary; the public are well aware of their existence.

This idea is reflected by the Arctic Monkeys' album cover for Suck It and See in that this album cover is almost identical to The White Album; this shows the bands popularity as well as acting as a tribute to such an influential and respected former band.

 

Another interesting aspect of this album is the CD itself; the disc is printed with an image of half-smoked, distinguished cigarettes, creating the idea of an ashtray. This image is reflective of the image found on the front cover of the album and creates a uniqueness; this is an uncommon feature of an album and therefore appeals to the audience.

Although effective in create a unique selling point, this image may be ironic in that some could interpret this in opposing ways; some argue that it may be symbolic of the nature of the album and/or tracks (rubbish) whereas some may argue that this is reflective of the cryptic messages hidden within the tracks/album that comment on our state of being and quality of life. Similar to The White Album and Suck It and See album artworks, this idea is left open to interpretation.

  

 

 

Cigarettes and smoking are seen to be an occurring theme/idea throughout the analysis of this album; as mentioned previously in my analysis, some may argue this is to be a controversial issue due to the health implications and risks that come with smoking.

The image held on the front cover of Whatever They Say I Am reminded me somewhat of the posters for the 2007 film production Control; directed by Dutch director Anton Corbijn, this film follows the life of troubled Ian Curtis whose personal, professional and romantic difficulties lead him to commit suicide at the ripe age of 23. As seen above, the young boy is shown to be wearing similar 'mod' attire to the figure shown on the Whatever They Say I Am album artwork and is also similarly shown to be holding a cigarette between his lips. The poster also shows a quotation review from The Independent that claims the production to be 'the coolest British movie of 2007'. Accompanying the word 'coolest' with an image of a youth smoking a cigarette could be seen by many to be extremely controversial in that the reviewer and production team suggests smoking is seen as 'cool' and therefore may be encouraging younger adults to adopt the habit themselves.

 

Nevertheless, cigarettes and smoking appear to come hand-in-hand with such 'mod' styles that run in alliance with the indie-rock genre and I may therefore contemplate incorporating something similar into the design for my own print productions.

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