'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' and 'AM' - A Digipak Analysis

The front cover and back of the digipak for Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not shows Chris McClure, a friend of the band Arctic Monkeys smoking a cigarette on the front cover. This synergises throughout the digipak, including the disc which is designed to look like the inside of an ashtray, with a pile of burnt out cigarettes. This theme is very simplistic, and the minimalism of it really works greatly for what this band represent and how they will connect with the ideology of the audience, which is particularly significant when you think how this was Arctic Monkeys debut album. Also, the fact that this was the band's debut album and the overall theme of the album is cigarettes does reflect what the band are about. The dullness of the greyscale back/white colour scheme symbolizes a common theme within the indie rock genre, which had a great impact at the time, and is still used to this day. I think the reason for why this kind of minimalism of a digipak works is that it really reflects how the audience think, as perhaps if the art was much more extravagant then it could take away from what is really important, the music. 

In more mainstream music, the emphasis is much more on the persona of the artistic. This often relates to commercial exhibitionist type music videos, which Sven E Carlson suggests the music video attempts to represent the artist as a brand rather than an artist. Though, this does not appear to be the case with this digipak, and to my knowledge the only music video which could be argued to represent factors of commercial exhibitionism would be 'I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor'. However, in more recent years 'Arctic Monkeys' have become much more mainstream, particularly with the release of their newest album 'AM', and because of this, many people would argue that their music is more about their persona than it was, which may be why many of their newer videos feature themselves, like 'Arabella' and ' R U MINE'. 

The digipak above for the band's newest album 'AM' that the band that it does feature a very similar minimalist theme, though with a more modern looking black/white colour scheme. The theme of this digipak is very simplistic, especially with the front cover which is also the same as the disc, and just features one very minimal piece of artwork, with no text at all that would conventionally relate to the name of the artist of album. Although, the most significant difference which is present on this digipak, is the band who are present on the inside of the digipak. This was not the case with the first digipak, which might say a lot about the music and how ideolgies could have changed over the last seven years. In the newer digipak, the band are shown smartly dressed on the inside of the digipak, though on the older digipak, a man is shown smoking a cigarette, the common theme of the digipak. 

I think that this not only says a lot about this particular band, but how music and interpretation within society has changed in the last decade. A brilliant example of how this is so, is that when 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' was released on 23rd January 2006, the smoking ban was not yet in effect, as this was introduced on 1st July 2007. The smoking ban in England made it illegal to smoke in ANY workplace or social public places, which would have had a very significant impact on social culture that perhaps Arctic Monkeys first album represented. 

Although I have gone into deep analysis of the representation these two Arctic Monkey's albums in this post, it is also important to recognise the more basic conventions which relate to a digipak, even if these particular digipaks could be regarded as unconventional in one way or another. Both front covers of the digipak's feature some iconic artwork which is now very recognisable as an Arctic Monkeys album, even if 'AM' does not say so at all in text. The same goes for the back of both digipaks, though 'AM' is about as simplistic as it can get, it does still feature the band's name and album name also, as 'AM' is just an acronym for 'Arctic Monkeys' and therefore this is a self-titled album. I think that this is a rather clever idea for the digipak, as the front cover is lacking of the artist's name, and customers will always take a look at the tracklist on the back of a digipak, so then they will see the artist's name. There is also a tracklist on the back of the digipak, as well as a barcode and the band's independent record label, Domino Records. Finally, the inside of each of the two digipaks do feature extra information and artwork relating to the overall theme, as do the discs.