Close analysis of one album cover

Image: iconic image of bassist Paul Simonon smashing up his guitar at The Palladium in New York City - which was at the time the 'Mecca' of punk and new wave music. This has been later voted the greatest rock n roll photograph of all time.

Although we appear to be close to the key figure, the image is still a long shot, and the rest of the band are out of focus - but still visible - in the background. The wires on stage are present in the image which conveys the fact that this is a live performance, proving how much of a spontaneous and impulsive moment the photographer has captured. This moment reflects the rebellious nature of 'The Clash', a band renowned for their passionately political opinions - left wing, anti-monarchy and anti-aristocracy. Furthermore, they're influence stirred up the public as it drew upon contemporary political issues, especially amongst the working classes (for example, their song 'career opportunities' expressed their discontent about the alienation of low-paid, production line style employment and the lack of alternatives.) Therefore, this picture perfectly encapsulates this sense of uprising and rebellion that the Clash's punk movement was actively spreading.

The cover conforms to conventions, with the band name and album title framing the central image. The text is pink and green, in a quite bubbly, slightly jokey-style font, apparently replicating an old Elvis Presley album. It directly contrasts with the black and white image, making the album look much more contemporary and exciting. The text here is in a reasonably large font, to grab the audience's attention and to immediately promote the album. The spine repeats the name and album title also naming the production company and showing the reference number - essential institutional information.

The back cover once again uses a large font, the same style as on the front cover, to name the band and album title. Underneath this is a list of each band member and their role:

"MICK JONES: GUITARS, VOCALS
JOE STRUMMER: VOCALS, RHYTHM GUITAR
PAUL SIMONON: BASS, VOCALS
TOPPER HEADON: DRUMS, PERCUSSION"

This gives a sense of introducing the band, which is essential in selling an album. Underneath this is a list of tracks and their titles. This is a conventional album cover feature, as it informs the consumer of the tracks, and is also a tool for recognition - when the potential buyer of the album reads the back, if singles they know and like appear in the track listing, they are more likely to trust that the rest of the album will be good. This album has 19 tracks. The back cover also includes two more photographs of the band performing live, one of Joe Strummer on guitar with the crowd cheering behind him, and one of Mick Jones and Topper Headon performing around the drum kit. These images once again establish the band as being musical and instrument-based, and anchors their genre of music - they are clearly not a cheesy pop band. Like the front cover, the images on the back are in black and white, keeping the theme and style continuous. More institutional information is included here - 'Columbia records' and their logo, the reference number, the copyright laws statement and symbol, and Sony Music Entertainment is named.

The inner sleeve of my version of the album is probably different to the original as it is a 25th anniversary addition, nonetheless it is apparent that the theme of black and white images, bright green and pink block colours is still used. A font is also used inside which is in the style of scrawly handwriting, giving a sense that the band were quite messy, arty, spontaneous and down-to-earth.

Overall, the cover gives a sense of an underground, independent band. However, this is just where the band had originally emmerged from - at this point, The Clash were huge stars who had even broken America, however they still held onto the 'small indie punk rock band' image. Furthermore, knwoing the huge scale of 'Columbia Records' productions and the importance of Sony in the music industry, it is clear that they are aiming for a huge, much more mainstream audience than you'd originally expect.

Album Covers

From top (left to right):

• Bjork - Post (1995)
• Dido - Life for rent (2003)
• Thin Lizzy - Live and Dangerous (1978)
• The Beatles - Abbey Road (1969)
• Destiny's Child - Number 1's (2005)
• Razorlight - self titled (2006)
• I am Kloot - self titled (2003)
• The eels - electro-shock blues (1998)
• Massive Attack - blue lines (1991)

I've grouped them according to the style/main image.

* The 1st row all have an image of a singular person. The women are both solo artists, and although Thin Lizzy is a band, their album cover predominantly shows their lead singer/guitarist.

* The second row all use images which show a whole band. Both the Beatles and Razorlight use the whole band in one image, Destiny's Child places three seperated photographs next to one another.

* The 3rd row however, is using graphics to represent the band and the album. The I am Kloot album has used simply the name of the band in bold writing, The eels have used what appears like a hand-drawn picture, and Massive Attack have adapted a well-known symbol.

It'd also be interesting if i categorised chronologically. (Differences and similarities between 1960s and 2000s)

Typical Features an album cover has:

Front:
• Main image
• Name of artist
• Title of album
• Band logo? Title in a recognisable style of the artist

Back (i.e. the sleeve)
• Track list
• Special Features
• Another predominant image underneath the text

Institutional information:
• Price
• Barcode
• Record Label
• Year of publishing
• Copyright
• Individual track writers, composers, engineers, producers
• A reference number
• Band members
• Guest performers

Spine:
• Name of artist
• Title of album
• Record label
• Reference number

Inserts:
• Further institutional information for each individual track
• Song lyrics
• Photographs of artist
• Thank Yous

Purposes of an album cover:
To protect the album
To advertise the contents
Using the artistic design to reflect the creative intentions of artists
To reflect the principles, attitudes etc of record label
To stand out, to be interesting and eye-catching
To boost sales, enhance profit

Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze - just a bit of research:

Has worked in advertising, films and television, has also done some acting. best known for his music videos:

Music videos
"High in High School" by Chainsaw Kittens (1992)
"100%" by Sonic Youth (1992)
"Cannonball" by The Breeders (1993)
"Country At War" by X (1993)
"Daughters of the Kaos" by Luscious Jackson (1993)
"Hang On" by Teenage Fanclub (1993)
"Time For Livin'" by the Beastie Boys (1993)
"All About Eve" by Marxman (1994)
"Buddy Holly" by Weezer (1994)
"Ditch Digger" by Rocket From the Crypt (1994)
"Divine Hammer" by The Breeders (1994)
"Feel the Pain" by Dinosaur Jr. (1994)
"I Can't Stop Smiling" by Velocity Girl (1994)
"If I Only Had a Brain" by MC 900 Ft. Jesus (1994)
"Old Timer" by That Dog (1994)
"Ricky's Theme" by Beastie Boys (1994)
"Sabotage" by Beastie Boys (1994) (also writer)
"Sure Shot" by Beastie Boys (1994)
"Undone (The Sweater Song)" by Weezer (1994)
"California" by Wax (1995)
"Car Song" by Elastica (1995)
"Crush with Eyeliner" by R.E.M. (1995)
"Freedom of '76" by Ween (1995)
"It's Oh So Quiet" by Björk (1995)
"The Diamond Sea" by Sonic Youth (1995)
"Who Is Next?" by Wax (1995)
"Drop" by The Pharcyde (1996)
"Da Funk" by Daft Punk (1997)
"Electrolite" by R.E.M. (1997)
"Elektrobank" by The Chemical Brothers (1997)
"It's All About the Benjamins (rock version)" by Puff Daddy (1997)
"Liberty Calls" by Mike Watt (1997)
"Shady Lane" by Pavement (1997)
"Sky's The Limit" by Notorious B.I.G. (1997)
"Home (Sean Lennon song)" by Sean Lennon (1998)
"Praise You" by Fatboy Slim (1998) - award winning
"Root Down" (version 2) by Beastie Boys (1998)
"The Rockafeller Skank" (version 1) by Fatboy Slim (1998)
"Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim (2000)
"What's Up, Fatlip?" by Fatlip (2000)
"Wonderboy" by Tenacious D (2000)
"Island in the Sun" (Version 2) by Weezer (2002)
"It's in Our Hands" by Björk (2002)
"Big Brat" by Phantom Planet (2003)
"Get Back" by Ludacris (2004)
"Y Control" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2004)
"Triumph of a Heart" by Björk (2005)
" Blessed Evening" by Foetus (2005)

His work is known to be wildly creative and eccentric, he is a cult figure amongst many movie or music fans, made his name in 1994 with his Beastie Boys video, but prefers to stay completely out of the limelight. his real name is Adam Spiegel.

Good Music Videos

Just linking a couple of music videos which are pretty interesting, unusual or just memorable. well, i think so...

The Eels - My Beloved monster



Blur - Coffee and TV (the milk carton is sooo cute)



Bjork - It's all so quiet, directed by Spike Jones. It's just a bit mad, and the umbrellas are wicked.


Overall I think the song is illustrative - it fits with the lyrics (ie putting had to lips when 'sshh'), and links love with happiness (as we would expect) through dancing, laughing and big, bold colours.

There is a sense of narrative: there is a prelude to the piece where she is washing her face which starts the story. The narrative is basically, everything normal around her turns really weird and mad as soon as she starts singing about being in love. For example, she is leaning on a bin, which starts dancing with her when she sings 'when you fall in love'. HOWEVER, I think the use of conforming to many conventions of the 'musical' genre undermines the narrative, producing a more performance-based video. She sings along to all of the lyrics and dances when the music builds to a climax. The conventions she complies to are people bursting into song (she seems as though she's bursting into song because she was being normal and washing her face before hand), normal people joining in and dancing with her, everyone randomly knowing what moves to do at the same time even though they've 'never met'.

This also gives a sense of inter-textuality - it's just like any musical films we've seen. She's tap dancing and singing on the street like in 'singing in the rain', and there's a big ensemble dance and she dances on a car, just like in 'fame'.

There are many CUs of the artist, especially when she has a very intimate shot of her singing slowly, her hair blowing gracefully, and she's looking very beautiful. All of the shots of her however are not sexual, she looks small, cute, feminine and happy. The camera is following her the whole time, she's like the main character in a film.

Voyeurism: not so much people watching her, but the fact that all the dancers join in WITH her suggests that she's cool.

Mcfly - 5 colours in her hair



The genre of this music is essentially pop, boyband and the video conforms to the typical generic conventions of this type of video; the group perform, they are good looking, fun, up to mischief, young, and their main interst is concerning a girl.

The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is illustrative (the girl who they are singing about in the video complies with the girl in the lyrics, for example she's a bit different, trendy and has five colours in her hair). However, the relationship isn;t literal, the lyrics talk about how she shaves off her hair and can't deal with her popularity at school, but in the video she just joins in with the band and dances around with them.

The relationship between the music and the visuals is also illustrative, the music is energetic and fast paced and the guitars have a very surfer-like riff which is included in the visuals. The performance of the music and the music are in sync, as well as the use of lots of movements and edits which are in conjuncture with the rhythm.

There are plenty of visuals hooks which are always CUs of the band members. There is a notion of looking in this video; the girl is watching them perform on the telly, and the band have lots of fans dancing around them and watching them. I noticed one intertextual reference; the video is about this very colourful modern girl who is stuck with her family who appear to live in the black and white world of the 60s. When her and the band jump into the telly the old BBC image comes up which was always used when there was a technical fault, but this time it has mcfly surfing in the middle.

The video is performance based, but there's an ongoing narrative of the girl who is bored and stuck at home, she's then saved by the McFly boys and she joins their performance by dancing with them.