Album Cover Research

The album cover was taken by Roger Sargent during the emotional "Freedom Gig" at the Tap 'N' Tin, Chantham, Kent, on October 8, 2003, when Pete Doherty reunited with the Libertines for a gig just hours after being released from jail.

A review from the guardian website,
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,,1286725,00.html

The album's cover shows Barat and Doherty reunited on the latter's release from prison last year. It's an astonishing image, the pair radiating tenderness, pain, pride, diffidence, a desire to protect and be protected. Here are two people clinging to each other, sailors on a shipwreck, searching for shore. "If I have to go," Doherty sings in Last Post on the Bugle, "I will be thinking of your love. Oh somehow you'll know - I don't know how but you'll know - I'll be thinking of your love." There is a faith in those words, a sense of trust that seems to have faded since the album was recorded in spring. It's hard not to think of The Libertines as a valediction. It's even harder to think that this is the end.

Deconstruction:

The color red dominates this cover, from Pete Doherty's shirt and the wall behind them. The Libertines as a band often became associated with the color red, also notably from their album cover picturing the band in red British soldier costumes.

The image creates a quite simple cover, but it is quite a graphic image that suggests many things to viewing audiences. Pete is bearing his arm which is essentially quite an innocent pose but it portrays the drug abuse that is strongly associated with Pete Doherty.

The cigarette in Pete's hand represents the band's and his overall image. They are an indie band that represent indie unhealthy lifestyle.
This representation is also shown by the facial expressions of Carl and Pete. They both look heavily intoxicated.

The album is all about the relationship between Carl and Pete and this is strongly anchored by the front cover, of the two sitting together very close and compassionately. Pete and Carl are well known and iconic stars of the indie genre, so displaying them as the image, creates a very popular, recognisable and familiar album cover.

The tattoos also represent the indie genre and the image of the band. You can see a tattoo that says 'Libertine', and this became an iconic image for the band.

The text is placed across the middle of the cover overlapping the image. Some letters are at jaunty angles and are not all in line. This non-linear approach is also representative of the indie genre and the chaos of their lifestyle.

The cover suggests the successfulness of the band and the record label, since it is just a simple image representing two of the band members. If the band members were not well known and in the press, this album cover would not have had the same affect that it did on the audience.