Arctic Monkeys: 'Favourite Worst Nightmare'

Above is the Arctic Monkey’s second album, produced in 2007, which was titled ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’. The format of the CD is a card gatefold style, with a booklet including pictures to compliment the artwork. I like this format for band as it looks and feel like a quality product and also allows more artwork to be shown inside.

The artwork used by the Sheffield 4 piece band shows a council estate with modernist artwork within the windows. This setting for the album is a common place to the band, which grew up in the poor suburbs of the ‘Steel City’. The name of the album, ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’ also connotes the rough and tough lifestyle in this part of the country, meaning it can be a nightmare at times but always good fun.

The front cover of the album represents the changing image of the band. Their first album, ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s what I am not’ had an image of a working class man between the ages of 18-25 smoking a cigarette, a stereotypical image of a man living in a council estate. The second album follows on in this style with the image of a council flats. Also, the dark saturation of the album cover conveys the gloomy and dark nature of council house lifestyle. In contrast to this connotation, the bright and vivid colours of the modernist artwork in the windows show another side to their lifestyle. This represents the artist’s playful side in their music and lifestyle, which has developed as their music popularity has grown. An example of their slightly eccentric side was in 2007; when they played live on the Jonathon Ross show dressed up as clowns.



The band image and album appeals to the target audience as the audience can connect to the bands lifestyle before they hit stardom. Before they became a massive hit through Myspace, they were four normal teenagers from Sheffield and this is showed through their music and artwork. There artwork is different from the norm, which usually includes the band in the front cover. However, they still suit the genre of the band, a rock/british indie style.