Target Audience

It would be best to first look at both The Killers and Brandon Flowers target audience. Because of the genre of both these ‘groups’ I would say that the music is particularly aimed at anything from early teens, 13 to anything above. As mentioned in my previous post, both bands have roots of indie rock/ American rock, this genre was most popular towards the end of the 19^th century, as rock music was a main source of entertainment. This is evident when we look at the older generation in which many adults can appreciate rock music. The Killers have also been confused with indie pop, a genre in which the Killers casually slot into. Their music contains pop yet also carries a message, the pop factor of the song will come in the form of catchy chorus or instrumental, however there will often be a actual meaning to the song, in particular the Killers lyrics. Pop itself is also associated with the same kind of audience  as rock, this means that both Brandon Flowers and The Killers have an even wider market audience.

Photos for Digipak and/or magazine advertisement

CD Analysis 3

Local Natives – Gorilla Manor

This is the Gorilla Manor album by Local Natives; the album uses a series of upbeat tracks which can be labelled as quite indie and ‘summery’.

To begin the obvious first thing to come to mind is the use of colour. Local Natives album art uses a combination of black and white with primary colours. I think the use of colour is an indication that their music can perhaps ‘light up your world’ there music is happy and upbeat, something to cheer you up.

The top right we have the words ‘Local Natives’ scribbled against the top corner, over and over again. The words almost seem to be as if they are scribbled onto the wall behind the band members. Perhaps if I do something like this I could combine with other work I have looked at for example the Wolf Parade and Cold War Kids album covers.

CD Analysis 2

Wolf Parade - Expo 86

This is the album cover for Wolf Parade’s Expo 86. Just like the cold war kids one I like these type of album art when they use people stood doing something utterly random, in this case three children with face paint on stood in a field.

Unlike the Cold War Kids artwork the title of the album isn’t particularly dominant in the image, it is only really noticeable because the white title overlaps a darker background. The title uses two different types of font the actual band title and the album both have separate fonts, the font in the title is a lot more bolder and uses colour than the thinner title for Wolf Parade.

The album art is very different to their previous covers which are a combination of random images, the second one in the style of Michel Basquiat. The change in album artwork could connotates a change in music from their previous music. Which in fact, the 3^rd album is very different from their previous albums.

I also like the style of colour used, the picture looks quite grainy and weathered, something I hope to do on my album art, the whole image on the front I feel is very attractive and enchanting. I love how the picture may not mean anything to certain people, yet people can appreciate the image in itself.

Analysing CD Covers

Cold War Kids - We Used to Vacation
I like the use of seemingly random imagery that is used on the front cover, it isn’t particularly eye catching as albums are meant to, but I can appreciate its unique artwork and design.

The cover uses a black and white image of a man holding some kind of package on the shoreline, with New York in the background. As I know both the band and the song, I know that this image is completely unrelated to the actual song and lyrics, which makes it even more interesting and ‘random’.

I like the use of black, whites and blues in this. It almost seems as if we are looking through a fish eye lens at man stood on the shore. I also like how it is much brighter in the middle of the image than the outsides of it, however we have the stranger in black stood slightly to the right of centre in black which disrupts the tone.

We have the main title of the EP above the image, the font isn’t particularly fancy however because the image is quite dark, then surrounding it is white it stands out a lot better, the title also takes up a fifth of the image making yours eyes divert to it after the main image in the middle.

Surprisingly the actual band name ‘Cold war kids’ is in a small font at the bottom left of the image, the font however is the same font used in all cold war kids albums and posters, almost as if it was their signature.

Animatic

Analysing band advertisement within music Magazines.

 Here is a advertisement for a band by the name of Bat for Lashes. The image uses typography in the font, and a popular image which a fan can immediately spot.

To begin we have an image which takes up a large majority of the advert. The image doesn’t particularly mean anything to someone who is not a fan of the band however if you knew about the band you would know that the Indian featured in the image is in fact the main vocalist from the group and is often found wearing this set of clothing.

The colours all blend together within the same type of tone and shading which work well together. I like how the image is very direct, the audience can immediately tell that this is about a band, especially with its place in a magazine. I, for instance have never heard/listened to Bat for Lashes but knew what this advertisement was straight away,

Bands and music magazines.

In this post I will talk about bands sue of advertising in magazines, I will mainly look at the music magazine and how bands get their image via advertisements and image representation.

Music Magazine.

The music magazine is a branch from the original magazine starting in the 1920s by a music magazine going by the name of Melody Maker, long term rivals to NME a magazine from the 1950s. Magazines have suffered a fall since the rise in the internet, a media which is killing off the music magazine because of all the information the internet can give. Also with the rise in music streaming many magazines such as Select and Sound have folded in 1999 and 2000.

There are various magazines in the UK and USA dedicated to certain genres of music and a certain target audience. This is something I have to take into consideration when I create my advert. I know my genre and I know my audience,2 things I should keep in mind and work towards those conventions.

Certain Bands appearing in designated Magazines.

Bands all seem to fit into a certain category of music. With each category comes a magazine suited for it. Bands use this as a starting point for their image, for instance if a music lover picks up say a Kerrang! Magazine it would be a indication that the magazine may contain music based around the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Kerrang! For instance is named after a power cord from the electric guitar, a indication for the type of music it would contain. The type of bands to appear within this magazine would be perhaps AC/DC, which in fact appeared as the band on the first front cover of Kerrang! Other bands to appear on the magazine would be Papa Roach, Slipknot and Linkin Park.

Why bands use the magazine to advertise.

Bands use the magazine in a number of different ways, as mentioned above just deciding what magazine to be in has already determined a starting point for what the band is all about. Bands use advertisements and appearance to get the message across. This could just be to promote an image, bands such as Enter Shikari are renown for anti government rallies and sing about the government in their music. Another band like this could be the Towers of London, a punk band in which are renown for aggression and fighting. The advertisements could also be to promote a new album or single, a method which every band or artist use at some point to promote their records.

How I will use the Music Magazine.

I think that my genre of music would most likely fit into the USA music magazine ‘Rolling Stone’ or the UK magazine ‘NME’. So I feel as though I should look through these magazines and seeing if either the Killers or Brandon Flowers has made an appearance within them and I could perhaps try using the advertisements as a source of inspiration.

Genre Conventions

                                                                                                       Jared Costa

                                                                                              A2 Media Studies

Genre Conventions

Rock music entered the mainstream in the late 1960s and has, since then become a very popular genre of music. This genre of music often features instruments such as, electric guitar, bass, piano drums and synthesizers as of the later 60s.

In the late 60s and early 70s, rock began to develop sub genres, genres such as folk rock, blues rock, indie rock, hard rock, Britpop, punk rock and more.

The term rock band is loosely used as a term to describe music in general of that genre, such as the sub genres mentioned above.

Both the killers and Brandon Flowers would fit into the category of indie/alternative rock.

Alternative rock is a genre which developed in the 1980s, but became much more popular in the 90s. Alternative rock also breaks down into its own sub genre, it is in these subgenres that we can define both the Killers and Brandon Flowers. These sub genres have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, but since success have become more and more involved with the music industry and as a result become much more popular with record labels. These sub genres include, Britpop, gothic rock, grunge and indie pop.

Only few alternative rock bands achieved commercial success and mainstream critical recognition. These bands include REM and The Cure. Many great bands didn’t actually achieve commercial success and relied on college radio and word of mouth to spread their music. The first commercial success of grunge was Kurt Cobain’s popular band Nirvana and with this success in the grunge movement many others followed entering the musical mainstream along with other musical genres.

Alternative rock is a term aimed at underground music, music that had emerged from the 1980s, such as punk rock. Throughout most of alternatives rock it has not achieved success until around the 90s, it was this period that the defined the move from underground to much more mainstream and commercial success. The rock genre tends to address topics that people can relate to, such as depression, drug use and environmentalism.

Bands that use alternative rock often take inspiration from previous artists, as mentioned in an earlier post that the Killers had inspiration from a number of successful artists such as The Cure, The Beatles and more. It is not an uncommon sight to listen to a band and find elements from other bands within their music.

Typically Alternative Rock and Indie Pop aim at audiences around 14 and above as many different ages can appreciate this type of music, it is known that in the earlier 19^th century that children and adults from that time relied on Rock music as their source of entertainment which is why this genre would have such a wide target audience and attract so many people.

This particular sub genre of rock is often made much more popular than say grunge or punk due to the characteristics of the music. This sub genre uses harmonious sounds and light guitar and keyboards, something that would much more likely play on the radio. I personally think that this is due to the breakthrough in Pop, a genre that has seemed to take over the music industry, with its auto tuners and synthesizers. Alternative rock just seems to be a genre that takes inspiration from the older rock and combines it with the pop we hear everyday on the radio.

Indie Pop/ alternative Rock, follow a certain trend of ‘Wackiness’. More traditionally is the Indie genres use of clothing, a particular band that use this is ‘The Drums’, they brought back a more retro look from America, where the band is from, the type of outfit is from around the 1980s America. Bands are often the cause of setting new trends, and are often caught in the publics eye for outrageous dress code, a prime example of this would be Lady Gaga.

During the late 90s and early 21^st century, several alternative rock bands emerged. These came in the form of Muse, The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers and more. These are just some of the bands to achieve commercial success in the early 21^st century. I will end with a quote from Entertainment Weekly, declared in 2004 ‘After almost a decade of domination by rap-rock and nu-metal bands, mainstream alt-rock is finally good again’.

What is a Digipak?

What is a Digipak?

Digipaks usually consists of a book type case made of card or paper board. These cardboard designs typically can hold one or more CD or DVD attached to the inside. Since Digipaks were among the first alternatives to jewel cases to be used for major record companies.

Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and tall DVD Digipak is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets. Often the US and Europe have different packaging for various media, such as DVD cases.

Often a Digipak is released for more renown bands, bands which know they can make money back selling the records in these special cases.

Bands such as Oasis release Digipaks, for their records.

Here is an example of a Digipak associated with Oasis. The cover isn’t particularly  interesting or en eye catching, I feel that a majority of fans would spot this for the recognisable logo, as it stands out against the fairly boring and dull background, but the black box around oasis is fairly eye catching.

 Using the knowledge I know from looking at this cover and previous knowledge knowing how much a band label can sell the item, I plan to make the logo easily visual and look good in general.

Here is a DVD digipak, in this image we can see the inside of the case. The case seems to contain some kind of booklet and the 2 discs. On one disk, the one in the centre we have a image on the disk. We can assume that this Is the location of the event on the DVD. The title uses typography, this is something I plan to use experimenting with text to create a good design.

What I plan to do next

As we have begun filming I have decided to start work looking and analysing digipaks in both CD and DVD case format. I will look at these and try and use them as influence of my work. I will closely look at that of both The Killers and Brandon Flower cases. I will also start to look and analyse magazine advertisement for the single/album.

Storyboard

Lyrics