The man on the cover of Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’ does not believe the album’s success could happen again.
The Sheffield band’s legendary debut album was released 20 years ago yesterday (January 23), and it remains the fastest-selling debut album by a band in British chart history, having surpassed Oasis’ ‘Definitely Maybe’ and shifting over 360,000 copies in its first week.
The album artwork featured a black-and-white photograph of Chris McClure, a close friend of the band who was the frontman of The Violet May and is now known as the viral comedy character Steve Bracknall, a pastiche of an amateur football manager.
McClure is also the brother of Reverend & The Makers frontman Jon McClure, and to mark the 20th anniversary of the album, he appeared on BBC Radio Sheffield to reminisce about the chaos of the record’s release.
“I remember the release date were really intense,” he said. “There were, like, reporters outside my mum’s house. I worked in a boozer in Grenoside at that time and there were reporters in the pub.”
McClure went on to speculate on whether the headline success of the album could be replicated now.
“But I was thinking the other day, like, you imagine now a band coming from England, a working class band of four lads, and being headline news on the Six O’Clock News on the BBC?” he asked. “I don’t think it would happen now. But that’s how big it were at the time, you know, fastest selling British album of all time.”
To shoot the album cover, the band gave McClure £70 for a night out in Liverpool, and took the shot in the early hours at the city’s Korova bar.
“[It was] just me sat on a stool. They gave me more whisky and I threw up half way through. Everything was blurry,” he previously recalled. “I was pleased but I don’t think I grasped how massive it was going to be. It was only on the day the album was released, in January 2006, I thought, ‘Shit, what have I let myself in for?’”
On the 15th anniversary of the album in 2021, McClure reflected on having his photo used as the artwork and shared a colour photo from the original shoot.
The album included their breakout Number One single ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’, which frontman Alex Turner told NME in 2011 he wrote after he “found the lyrics for it scribbled on a piece of paper”.
“There was all sorts of stuff about cigarettes and stuff… There were some stinkers in there,” Turner said about some of the early lyrics he wrote. “Arguably, there still is.”
Since its release, the album has been certified eight-times platinum in the UK, and in the US it became the second-fastest selling debut album on an independent record label. It also saw the band win the 2007 Mercury Prize, take home the BRIT Award for Best British Album, and get nominated for the Grammy’s Best Alternative Music Album award.
The band surprised fans earlier this week by releasing a brand new song called ‘Opening Night’. This was recorded as a one-off release, and it is the first taste of a new all-star charity album ‘Help(2)’, made in conjunction with War Child.
NME gave ‘Opening Night’ a four-star review, noting that the song’s release had been “enveloped in hearsay – that it’s their final release, that it’s an outtake from ‘AM’ sessions”.
“If you’re looking for answers as to what the future holds, you’re not going to get them here,” it read. “But if this is the last piece of music we’re going to get from Arctic Monkeys, it’s a solid way to bow out – interesting, enjoyable and for a mighty good cause. More tunes aside, it’s all we could ask for.”
