British Music Experience launches new exhibition uncovering the artwork of Arctic Monkeys’ debut album

The British Music Experience presents Don’t Believe the Hype a new temporary exhibition uncovering the Artwork of Arctic Monkeys’ Debut Album.

The exhibition explores the creation and cultural legacy of one of the most recognisable album covers of the 21st century: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, the 2006 debut by Arctic Monkeys, with the exhibition launching 20 years to the day of the album’s release.

Centred on the artwork surrounding the album, the exhibition moves beyond the iconic cover image to examine the wider visual world from which it emerged – a sequence of ordinary moments, encounters, and traces that together formed an authentic portrait of youth culture at the time.

The exhibition documents the conceptual journey of Scott Jones, Creative Director for the album, alongside original photographic material, outtakes, interior imagery, and personal artefacts from the period. It traces a day-in-the-life approach to the album’s visual identity: the cover image, single artwork, and photographic sequences that documented a specific moment in time.

Together, these materials form an extended visual document of youth, place, and lived experience, shared spaces, boredom, anticipation, and the small moments that later took on cultural meaning.

The exhibition also reveals for the first time the photograph that inspired the smoke-filled photobooth image that became the album’s cover.

Twenty years on, Don’t Believe the Hype… invites reflection on why this imagery continues to resonate. In an era dominated by algorithmic feeds, optimisation, and self-conscious performance, the exhibition looks back to a pre-platform digital culture shaped by peer-to-peer sharing, early social networks, and collective discovery, where visibility was communal rather than curated.

The exhibition reframes the album artwork not as an act of branding, but as a social document of a generation at the edge of the attention economy.

Scott Jones said:

“Most album artwork reflects youth culture after the fact. This was different. The images didn’t try to perform or exaggerate what was happening around them – just document them. The artwork came from ordinary moments, from waiting around, from nights out, from being there. The poetry was already present; the work was in celebrating it.”

Liz Koravos, Executive Director at the British Music Experience said:

“This exhibition allows visitors to slow down and look again at an album artwork many people think they already know. By placing the artwork back into its original context – its objects, its moments, its ordinariness – we can better understand why it connected so deeply, and why it still resonates today. Launching the exhibition on the 23 January, we mark 20 years to the day that the album was released.  What makes the record curatorial gold is its specificity. The songs are rooted in queue lines, taxi rides, sticky dance floors, and half-heard conversations, yet they translate universally.  We’re excited to mark the anniversary through this temporary exhibition and in doing so, highlight how important the band’s contribution is to the history of British rock and pop.”

Book your tickets now on The BME website.

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