Post-punk CD cover analysis

The White Stripes - Elephant

Elephant encapsulates all of the features of the post-punk movement; with eccentric dress sense, minimalist set design and a nod to the retro with the old fashioned amplifier. The cover is a seemingly disjunctive with any constant theme, as it has many different objects pertaining to many different subjetcts and fields. The colours are symetrical; the white of the dress, stripe of the jacket, cricket bat and light contrast with the black of the amplifier and light, all against a red background.



The Ordinary Boys - Over The Counter Culture

 

 



Again, this cover features very little in the way of cohesiveness or a clear message. The band name in white stands out on top of the sheep's black fur, while the album font is stylised to make the cover look clever rather than mundane. The capatalist connotations of the title are contrasted by the nature of the sheep, blue sky and clouds. There is a symbol next to the title which could add extra brand recognition if that symbol is used on their other releases.

Kaiser Chiefs - Employment

Again, minamalism is at the forefront of this cover. It has been made to look aged, the animal print makes it look as much like a book as it does a CD. The slanted allignment of the text and yellow box background add to the nostagic vibes. The words "A Box Of Tricks" and "Thrills For All" are present, whereas this could be seen as notable songs from the album, they are not actually songs at all. The phrases serve to be the album's matra; all are welcome, all will enjoy, and expect something different.

The Strokes - Angles

Whilst less abstract than some of the other covers, it is no less striking to the customer. The title plays in with the image, a seemingly impossible staircase, which gets the customer looking at the staircase and gets them trying to work it out. The bold colours contrast against each other to give the impression that the creators are confident and stand out themselves. The band name and title are in italics, again, adding to the angles theme.

The Hives - Barely Legal

Even in 1997, the foundations of the post-punk revival scene where already in place. The band adopt a stern, confident pose; wearing mainly black, with some white trainers and a white tie. The black and white of the photo are juxtaposed by the colours and font of the adjecent text, stylised to look like a 1930's film poster. The whole cover has a haphazard and jaunty feel, perhaps evident of their genre-defining music.

Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul poster analysis

This poster differs from the Kasabian advert in that this Oasis poster was given away in magazines with the intention of being put up on the reader's wall. The content of the poster reflects this, with less marketing material and more prominence given to the artwork than on the advert for Empire.

The brand image stays in tact, as the font used throughout is the same as what is used on the album itself. The foreground contrasts with the background through the use of bright colours in the foreground against the paler colours. The artwork is abstract, which makes it more interesting as a display than just the album's artwork, which was what was on Kasabian's advert.

The centrepiece of the art is a record, perhaps a nod to the "classic" sound they were trying to achieve and to their older audience. While the poster is made to be put up, it retains some of its promotional value, telling anyone who sees it the release date of the new album.

The serif font is eye pleasing and is suited to be displayed.

Odd Shaped Head - Corpse in the Kitchen music deconstruction

While the tempo of the music and singing is high, there are also many breakdowns and bridges dispersed along the track. The chorus is fairly lengthy, repeating four times in each instance. This gives us opportunity to either show performance or build upon the imagery we created during the verse itself.

The slower section near the end of the track ("there are two dead bodies here") we could use to shift the tone from joviality to something more sinister to give a more satisfying conclusion to the video for our audience.

There are many instrumentals between verses and choruses. This allows us to create atmosphere with cross cutting between the living room and the kitchen, where the party is and the band are, respectively.

Odd Shaped Head - Corpse in the Kitchen lyric deconstruction

Since a story is told within the lyrics, it would be difficult to make a cohesive disjunctive music video. A illustrative or amplification style would therefore be better suited. The story takes place entirely within a house which is useful to us as we have access to one to film in. The controlled setting allows us to both control variables which would detract from continuity, such as people in the background, and the lighting would be under more duress than it would be outside.



The referral of the protagonists in the third person creates an air of the unknown, which we could capitalise on through framing the shot in such a way to not reveal an identity or achieve the same effect through cutting panning shots just short in the edit. The song being set at midnight would mean the lighting has to be quite dark. This allows us to be able to highlight certain props within the frame with spotlighting more effectively.

The chorus does not advance the story and so it would be an opportunity for us to introduce a more prominent performance aspect without the audience being left with the feeling they're missing something.

Magazine advert analysis - Kasabian (Empire)

This is an advert for Kasabian's second album, Empire. The centrepiece of the advert is the band name in large, bold, stylised font. This draws the reader's attention straight away, although it makes the album name stand out less underneath, relying on its own font to catch attention. The picture used is also the album's artwork, which is useful for brand identity as the reader will recognise the image on the CD when shopping.

The album reviews serve to both attract new listeners who have heard of the reviewers, and to reassure fans of the first album that the follow up is also to a 4* standard. The writing is smaller, meaning the reader would probably read the reviews after they had both seen the artwork and read the larger text underneath.

Speaking of which, the text used is easy for the reader to glance at and take in the information. This has been done by the short phrase - The New Album - and a date, which leaves no unanswered questions. The factual intent of the phrasing is accentuated by the formal, serif font.

The red text above the websites gives information on the different formats and editions the album is available in. This would mostly be useful to current fans of the band who may wish to spend more money to get more content from a band they already enjoy the music of.  

The Libertines - Don't Look Back Into The Sun analysis

The Libertines - Don't Look Back Into The Sun

Don't Look Back Into The Sun was released in 2003, early into The Libertines' lifespan. The lack of money must have resulted in a low budget for this music video as it is very basic, both in idea and execution. Both narrative and performance feature in roughly equal amounts. The narrative shows the band going into a record shop and them stealing (and getting away with) their own album.


The performance aspect looks like it was filmed at one of their gigs, with obligatory close ups of the singer, long shots of the band and cutaways to screaming girls in the crowd. What sets it apart, for better or for worse, is the dissonance between the music and the video. At no point is lip-syncing attempted or, for example, guitar riffs accompanied with the relevant video clip. This amateur approach may be seen to be suited to the happy-go-lucky nature of the song, which is lucky considering the production values they had to work with. The shaky camcorder style used throughout could resonate better with the audience than HD visuals as it is shortens the disconnect between the band and its fans.

The costume worn by the singer, an unbuttoned red jacket, is the only link between the performance and narrative elements. The costume promotes the band's image as being quintessentially British, furthered by them being filmed inside a red phone box and visiting landmarks in London. This image feels genuine as it reflects the upbringing of the band, a similar background to what many members of the audience would feel part of.

The narrative segment is interesting as not much really happens, it's just a cameraman filming the band walking around London talking to each other. The video itself seems to refer to the lack of organisation as one shot shows not only a cameraman but also a boom mic operator following them around. This lampoons the video as what the band say is irrelevant as the song will play over the top anyway. More thought must have went into the video than they want to let on as they would also need another cameraman to film the cameraman and sound engineer filming the band.

 

To compensate for the absence of variety in the narrative, the director cuts between the narrative and performance often to keep the audience engaged. Even if the content was more interesting, the shorter shot times could be of a benefit to our video to keep the attention of our target demographic of young adults, a group not known for sustained concentration. 

The audience for the video and song is similar to ours, teenagers to young adults. Out of the three videos I've analysed (this, The Futureheads and Bloc Party), our video is most likely to be resemble this one the most. This is due to both looking rather amateurish and low budget. We don't have access to the location or big panning shots in Skip To The End, nor access to special effects such as those in Ratchet. 

Our ideas pitch

Our ideas pitch