Arctic Monkeys – Favourite Worst Nightmare

Digipak Analysis

Front CoverThe front cover of this Digipak features the album artwork of a small non-detatched council house with brightly lit windows showing graffiti inside, in addition to this the band and album names are positioned in the top left hand corner. The artwork is reflective of the Indie Rock genre because of the type of house which is shown, as the roots of the genre are very DIY and unpolished due to a lack of funds, the cheap housing is reflective of this. In addition to this the band themselves were raised in Sheffield housing estates such as this one. The graffiti shown on the inside of the house is also relevant to the band who were young at the time of the album’s release, as were many of their fans. The vibrant and artistic art style of graffiti is also reflective of indie genre conventions such as youth, art and bright colours. The artwork is also showing how despite the council houses looking dull and greyscale on the exterior, they can be exciting and vibrant on the inside with art such as the graffiti shown or the music which the band makes. This is very much part of the Indie Rock genre with bands such as The Smiths being outsiders or outcasts.Finally, the band’s logo and album name are written in an obscure, difficult to read font which is also reminiscent of graffiti and urban areas, yet again the indie genre conventions are being addressed.

Inside panelsThe three middle panels inside the Digipak continue with the same contrasting colour scheme and an urban theme. This creates the effect of product identity and adds to the overall aesthetic of the album, creating a real consistent look rather than a collection of randomly thrown together images. As with the front cover, the middle panels are representative of genre conventions such as vibrant, bright colouring and youth.

Back coverThe back cover of the Arctic Monkeys album “Favourite Worst Nightmare” does not keep in with the theme of the rest of the Digipak in terms of the images shown. However the colouring of the font and the overall black tone of the Digipak remains consistent. The decision to include the tracklisting crammed into the bottom half of the panel is reflective of the Indie Rock genre convention of minimalism because it creates a more spacious and empty overall look, leaving 2/3rds of the panel simply empty and black. Another way in which this minimal look is achieved is by not having the song number or running time of each song displayed along with the song names.