Ancillary Text 1 - Critical Analysis of Album Covers/Digipaks

This is the digipak for the rock band Evanescence whose song I chose to use in my music video. This is their album; Fallen. The front covers main image is a sharp close up of the lead singer as she is the most important member of the band. This allows the audience to recognise her therefore recognise the band. Her black her, piercing and dark makeup reinforces the gothic rock genre. Her serious expression is conventional for this genre as the focus of the album is death, and pain which reflects this music style. The image is in black and white with a tinted hue of blue to connote death. This theme is consistent throughout the digipak and again reinforces the genre.

The back of the digipak consists of another image of the other three members of the band, showing continuity through the colour scheme. These members of the band are less important as they are at the back of the album cover and do not have to be recognised by the target audience. All three members of the band are looking away from the camera therefore not having to interact with the audience. The high angle mid shot shows them as weak, as does their body language and the blurring of their faces – this makes them unrecognisable as individuals. The fact that the band member has his hand on the lens has connotations of pain.  

The middle pages of the digipak shows the band as a whole, the lead singer is there and all members are looking at the audience showing that they are only confident with her their making her the most important band member. The lead singer is at the front and dominates this image as she is the most recognisable to the audience; this is a good selling technique and is conventional for music digipaks as a whole. Their body language still suggests that they are in pain reinforcing the genre of the music.

This digipak will attract a specific audience for example people who look/dress similar to the band members (mainly the lead singer). It could also attract a mature audience as the music is dark and less ‘pop’ therefore making the younger listener a minority.

The text on the album is very clear and easy for the audience to read and recognise. The text is unique as the gothic font has its own sharp lines and a thin cross through the name of the band – it has become a logo for the band. This is conventional for the genre and has connotations of religion again reflecting the genre. The white font has connotations of purity and angels which links to the albums name ‘Fallen’.

The CD is very plain and continues the dark theme that runs through the digipak. The ‘Evanescence’ logo allows the CD to be recognised by fans of the band and fans of the gothic rock genre.

The small print contains who the artist is signed by which promotes the record company and the band as their audience may look at other bands that company has signed and fans of the company may listen to ‘Evanescence’ because they like other bands signed by that company.

This is the digipak for the R&B and pop artist Rihanna’s 2011 album ‘Loud’. The main image on the front cover is a close up of the artists face with her eyes shut used to create emotion. The image emphasises on her red hair and red lips that has connotations of love which reflects the theme of the album. The image is very sharp and clear and is edited to make Rihanna look as perfect as possible to reinforce her good looks. The image is warm which again reflects the love theme of the album.

The image spread across the 3 panels shows continuity from the front cover as the artist again has her eyes shut and her hair the same style. This mid shot allows us to see what the artist is wearing which is a pink dress and thin sparkly necklace which shows femininity and again has connotations of love which is conventional for this genre of music. The red roses also represent love and match the artists red hair and lips showing continuity from the popular music video ‘Only girl in the world’. This is conventional for music digipaks/magazine advertisement and music videos. The body language of the artist in this image connotes romance and beauty, her face isn’t fully recognisable but the target audience will recognise it is Rihanna from the red hair and continued warm colour scheme.

The back image is again of the artist, this time showing her against a pink/peach skin coloured background again connoting love. This time Rihanna’s body language make her look vulnerable therefore reflects the lyrics of her album for example in the song ‘Love the way you lie’ featuring Eminem. Again Rihanna’s face isn’t fully recognisable reinforcing the fact that she is recognised worldwide therefore doesn’t need to sell herself as an artist.

The CDs have images of pink rose printed onto them, these contrast with the red roses in the middle image however still have the same connotations. The text on the CDs is very small/thin and not easy to read, this could be because it isn’t as important as the image. The audience will be able to recognise what the genre of music is by these CDs and will know that the artist is will be singing a lot about love.

The main text is in a plain capital white font at the top and bottom of the front cover. The top text is the name of the artist which is smaller as she is already well known worldwide therefore doesn’t need to advertise herself as much as the name of her new album ‘Loud’ which is written in a bigger font. The album name is very short and easy to remember which is a good advertising technique and is conventional for music albums of this mainstream genre. The back cover shows the track list written in the same plain font this time in the dominant red colour that has been used throughout the digipak. The small white font shows the company logos, websites, information on the record company, copyright information and other less important information that the audience may not actually read. This shows that the track lists are the more dominant text on the back cover which again is conventional of music digipaks.

This is the album cover for the album ‘Making Mirrors’ by the alternative rock band ‘Gotye’. This album was released after the successful single ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ that I analysed as one of my music videos. The main image is very abstract which is conventional for this genre. This image is of abstract artwork which reflects the video of the number 1 single. The colours of the album cover are the same colours used in the abstract painting in the video as is the triangle shapes. The album cover itself creates the illusion of being a painting on a piece of paper. The only text on the album cover is the small name of the artist ‘Gotye’ which is written as though an artist has signed the artwork reinforcing the illusion of it being a painting. This is post-modern as it is merging music and abstract paintings together. Other albums of this genre have abstract album covers for example Coldplay’s album ‘Mylo Xyloto’ and Muse’s album ‘The Resistance’. (both shown below)

This is the album cover of the self titled UK indie rock band ‘Razorlight’. The main image is of the band standing alongside each other being exactly the same height in the image therefore showing that each member of the band is as important as the other. The band is dressed in the conventional clothing for this genre for example skinny jeans, long hair styles etc. The idea of this album cover is very simplistic yet it works as it is easily recognisable because of the large plain, bold, capitalised font showing the name of the band and the name of the album ‘Razorlight’. The text shows continuity from the main image as both are very simplistic and clear. The main image of the band/artist is a long shot in black and white which is very conventional for music album covers. This has given me the idea to make my album cover simplistic with a black and white main image and very clear font. Other examples of this kind of black and white album cover are Beyonce’s album ‘I am Sacha Fierce’, The Kooks’ album ‘Inside the Inside out’ and Adele’s ‘21’ (all show below).