NW Digipak Analysis

Posted by Nick

'Favourite Worst Nightmare' by the Arctic Monkeys

The 2007 album by the Arctic Monkeys clearly depicts the genre of the artist through its digipak, with the mise-en-scene depicting four small terraced houses, with the third clearly standing out from the rest, as through the windows on the top and bottom floor, we can see bright and vibrant graffiti art on the walls. Whilst this type of artwork is more commonly associated with the ‘Hip-Hop’ genre, the art is starkly different as whilst it uses bright colours, the shapes being extremely bold and simple, standing out, reinforcing the bands rebellion motif and allowing the audience to buy into the ‘Indie’ look and feel of the album. Whilst there are spots of colour apparent, the rest of the album cover is a black and white photograph, and this connotes that the band have come from a harsh background, using a photograph rather than elaborate and intricate graphics to depict their lifestyle, and the fact that the cover just shows a set of four houses connotes that they have come from similar backgrounds and that they use their music to break away from the boredom of everyday life.

When studying the digipak, it is clear how the designers have thought about the visual techniques needed to maximise drawing in an audience to study the cover and thus potentially buy it. The rule of thirds is evident as the album’s title with the band name in a bigger font above it, is in the top left hand corner of the cover. Leading lines are evident as the roof of the houses and that on the pathway all converge to the title, whilst also giving the photo perspective. The aerial lead’s from the second house and makes contact with the text, leading the audiences viewing line from the house towards the title. The texture is quite rough and grainy due to the cover being a photograph, with dust in the air and on the lens all being captured in the shot and adding to the grittiness of the cover. This also connotes that the band has had a rough and poor upbringing, using grainy photographs to give the audience an insight into their lives. The tone of the cover is quite dull, with the only colour coming from the title, and the graffiti on the interior of the houses.

The houses are an iconic sign of the struggle of poor families in the 1980’s and 1990’s, cheaper houses being seen as harbouring those who were frowned upon by both the government and those higher up than them, and the graffiti is an iconic sign of the rebellious artists in the same time using colour and bold shapes to highlight their individuality. The text is also bold and stands out, however it is one of the last thing one looks at, following the reading pattern looking from the top right of the digipak first and then taking in other elements later. The digipak as a whole creates an individual coding system, following the formula of the signs on the cover, including the dimly lit houses, the interior visible through the windows, and the setting itself, all adding to the overall image of the band created by the cover, that being that their individualism has helped them stand out in an industry dogged by those striving to sell the most music rather than produce good and well thought out songs.

The title of the album ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’ brings up a variety of connotations instantly, all relating to the visual techniques evident on the album cover. First of all, the title is a complete contradiction, with ‘favourite’ and ‘worst’ being immediate opposites, and thus the audience could connote that the combination of the modern graffiti intertwined with the picture of the terraced houses resembles the confusion and thus enigma created in the album title. The word ‘nightmare’ brings ideas of dreams and confusion to mind, playing on the audiences emotions and inviting them to share with the bands ideas. ‘Nightmare’ could be taken as the state in which the group have lived in before they found success, highlighting the picture on their album cover, with the colours in the windows being seen as the ‘dream’ like state, starkly different to the reality of the estate in which they live. The title itself, using two contradicting words, could draw attention to how the band find their history living in a poor community as something negative (‘worst’), but has thus shaped them into the successful group whom they are today, thus being the ‘favourite’ part of the ‘nightmare’. The typography itself is very bold, with straight lines used instead of a curvaceous text, and this is more striking, making a statement that the band have produced a very loud and daring album.

The album cover is very postmodern, using bricolage, combining both modern and past styles to create an artistic digipak that stands out from others on the shelf. With the covers tone and colour being quite dull in comparison to the areas of colour, it may not truly stand out from other more ‘in your face’ albums on the shelf, but as the artwork is not easily understandable on a first glance, (its setting and typography not sticking to traditional conventions of ‘Indie’ album covers), audiences will want to look at it in more depth to understand the use of location and colour, giving it its postmodern feel. The album is a pastiche of artists in the twenty first century who have chosen to combine new and old styles of print making to produce fresh and exciting artwork.

Looking at Richard Dyer’s analysis of ‘stars’, we can see how the band have chosen to continue with their ‘meta-narrative’, with the band offering another postmodern album cover similar to that of their first album ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not’, with the band not on the front cover of the album, meaning the audience will read their album cover in a focused manner to learn more about them. The band are seen as rebellious yet original with their non-conventional digipak, whilst also being seen to be successful against the odds, as through the mise-en-scene we can see that the artists futures looked bleak, all growing up to similar futures (connoted through the four identical houses), but thus their artistic flare (shown through the spots of colour on the interior of the house) means that they have come out of the trap of living their entire lives as poor and are thus producing number one albums. We can see how the Arctic Monkeys fans have taken in their image and thus have bought into the ‘product’ of the group, as the album covers do not give a big inclination into what music the band have produced, but the audience still consume the music as they wish to own the latest outlet from the band, and thus make sense of the image on the album cover.

Audiences may choose to consume the digipak in both an ambient and focused view, as on one hand, the tone of the cover is dreary and lifeless, no loud and vibrant colors, thus being consumed in a casual manner, one potentially brushing past the album on the shelf, but on the other hand, one may wish to consume the cover in a passive manner, not entirely sure what the band are trying to convey through the artwork and thus will look at it closer to truly understand it.