Digipak Analysis: Artic Monkeys’ Suck It And See

Background

• Suck It And See is Arctic Monkeys’ 4th studio album.

• It was released on the 6th June 2011 in the UK and the 7th June in the US, following their 2011 North American tour.

• In its first week of release the album debuted at number 1 in the United Kingdom, selling over 82,000 units and knocking Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” off the top spot. In its second week, the album sold a further 34,910 units in the UK. Overall the album sold 154,000 units in its first week worldwide. However the music magazine ‘NME’ named the album cover as one of the worst in history.

Digipak Analysis

• The album’s content is painstakingly plain. The album did not come with a booklet or any extra features besides the disk with the band name logo art on the disc itself. This however is the effect that the artists may have been after as due to the plainness of the cover itself, the phrase “suck it and see” definitely comes into play as you have to listen to the songs to know what it’s like. The artists would have chosen for the album art to be like this to go against the idea that the album art should represent what the songs are like, going with the convention of rebellion with the alternative rock genre.

Digipak Analysis Front Cover

• When most artists design their cover to make it memorable with intricate, elaborate designs, Arctic Monkeys have gone for the same effect but using a more simplistic style to be remembered for it’s controversy.

• As the cover is so plain you must listen to the songs to know what the album is like therefore you must “suck it and see”.

• The cover has been compared to the Beatles album ‘White’ in which the cover only showed the Beatles on a white background as shown.

Digipak Analysis Back Cover

• The back cover of the album is just as simple as the front featuring the band logo and a track listing of the songs on the disc.

• The record label’s logo and contact information has been put on the back cover as well for copyright.

Digipak Analysis Disc

• The disc has two main aspects.The band logo and the record label logo.

• These are used to show who’s songs are on the disc and that the record label has copyright over them.