Wes’ Blog

Sue me, or the Arctic Monkeys, but I love music. So anytime I find something to talk about music related I consider it a plus. (Especially after the week I have had.) What I saw was an album cover that had a guy smoking a cigarette on it.

The album is “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s what I’m Not” by the Arctic Monkeys. I first must be honest with you, I have no idea who the Arctic Monkeys are, but who they are is irrelevant to my discussion.

The big complaint about the album cover is that it sends a message that smoking is cool. I don’t like this album cover. I don’t know how they raise children in the U.K., but here in the U.S. I don’t want my (future) children to smoke. It is a dangerous and bad habit (in my opinion and many others.) Seeing people smoking on an album cover promotes smoking. Which I believe is a bad image for the band to have. The fans have probably already seen pictures of band members smoking and it either told them smoking was cool or it didn’t. So the album cover really has no affect on them. But to the rest of the world that is just hearing about the Arctic Monkeys it gives a message that smoking is ok.

I am not blaming the Arctic Monkeys for increased cigarette sales or anything like that. But I would like for them to think about a question PR people have to ask: What is the message being sent? I personally can’t help but think this album cover sends a wrong message to children.

Let me send a clear message: DON’T SMOKE. Unless you are the legal age and you want to hurt your lungs. You can spend that money buying more albums……that sounds like a much better choice to me.