Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	82/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Entertainment Weekly	A−
The Guardian
Los Angeles Times
NME	10/10
Pitchfork Media	7.4/10
Q
Rolling Stone
Spin	B+
The Village Voice	A−

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not is the debut studio album by English rock band Arctic Monkeys, released on 23 January 2006 by Domino. The album surpassed Elastica's self-titled album to become the fastest selling debut album in British music history, shifting over 360,000 copies in its first week, and remains the fastest selling debut album by a band. It has since gone quintuple platinum in the UK.

The album includes both tracks from the band's original EP, Five Minutes with Arctic Monkeys, as well as their first two singles and UK number ones, "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" and "When the Sun Goes Down". It has since appeared in several critics' publications, and is often cited as one of the best rock albums of the decade. It received the 2006 Mercury Prize for Best Album. It was ranked number 371 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2013 Rolling Stone ranked it the 30th greatest debut album of all time. In October 2013, music magazine NME also ranked the album at number 19 in their poll of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Musically, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not features indie rock,garage rock revival,post-punk revival, and punk rock. The common thematic content of the album has led to it being considered by some a concept album concerning "the lives of young Northern England clubbers". All tracks record first-person narratives of observations made within this context. "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor", "Still Take You Home", "You Probably Couldn't See for the Lights But You Were Staring Straight at Me" and "Dancing Shoes" all examine human behaviour in nightclubs. Frontman Alex Turner describes "Dancing Shoes" as being about "people always looking to when they go out however much they mask it." Other songs examine other aspects of nightlife; "From the Ritz to the Rubble" is an account of nightclub bouncers, "Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured" tells the typical experiences and troubles of getting a taxicab after a night out, and "When the Sun Goes Down" was inspired by prostitutes in the locality of their practice room in the Neepsend district of Sheffield. Other songs are themed on romantic relationships, such as "Mardy Bum", or youth subcultures, such as "Fake Tales of San Francisco" and "A Certain Romance". In NME's list of the top 100 tracks of the decade, "A Certain Romance" was described as "a strangely even-handed song which starts out scorning local townies then appears to absolve them at the end of the song."

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