North West What's On

Don't believe the hype... at BME

The British Music Experience presents Don’t Believe the Hype… Uncovering the Artwork of Arctic Monkeys’ Debut Album. The temporary 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-topeer
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.

“Most album artwork reflects youth culture after the fact,” says Scott Jones. “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.”

“This exhibition allows visitors to slow down and look again at an album artwork many
people think they already know,” says Liz Koravos, Executive Director at the British Music
Experience. “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.”

Don’t Believe the Hype… runs from 23 January to 22 March 2026 and is included with all
general admission tickets.

To book tickets, visit: www.britishmusicexperience.com

 Photo credit: Alexandra Wolkowicz, Andy Brown, Scott Jones