Analysis of Magazine Advert - Coldplay

This is a magazine advert for the Coldplay album 'Mylo Xyloto'. It is important to say that an image of the band is not on the advert due to the bands popularity. Instead, they choose to have a cover which shows the album and possibly the theme of the album. With all the bright colours and absurdness, you would assume the album is very artistic and maybe puts across the message the band want to have fun with this record and break from their previous concept album 'Viva la Vida'. With the cover its as if the band no longer need to advertise their image because they are so famous across the world. They don't have to appear on the advert because their target audience will be aware of who they are and how popular they are so they will already know what their image is.
The advert includes a new logo for the band to show they've moved on from their previous album. It also includes the quote 'The Album'. This means that the fans of the band have been waiting for this for a very long time and also shows that this is The Album and will be the only album the you have to buy because it is that good.
The advert includes typical conventions such as when the album is released, the latest single issued, website and record label the band are signed to.
Vida la Vida (2008)                          X&Y (2005)

A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)     Parachutes (2000)

If you look back at the band's albums, there is only one that actually has the band's name on it and that is their debut album. You would assume then because their debut was so popular they wouldn't have needed their name on the other three albums because there would be a lot of promotion and hype about them coming out.
The style of 'Mylo Xyloto' is vastly different from any other album released by the band. You see with the first three there is one predominant image that takes up the page with a solid base colour as the background. For example with debut Parachutes, there is a a black background and then a spinning globe on the front. With Mylo Xyloto, they break those conventions with no image taking the front of the album but using the album title instead. Its this distinct image that make Coldplay's albums stand out from every other stadium rock band.

Secondary research - Digipaks

Digipack

By Heather McDonald, About.com

Definition:

Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipacks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background.

Digipacks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipack" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging.
Digipacks have pros and cons:

• They look nice, and many bands and labels like to use them for aesthetic reasons. The three section digipack sleeves opens up more design options because there is more room. However, they're more expensive than traditional liner notes and jewel cases.
  
• Digipacks don't crack like jewel cases do, but they will rip and eventually the paper begins to peel apart and separate.
  
• The trays in digipacks break much more often then in jewel cases. There's not as much protection since the outer portion of made of paper, so the teeth that hold the CD in place crack and fall out easily.
  
• When the teeth of the tray does break in a digipack, the CD falls out of the bottom of the digipack, because unlike jewel cases, there is nothing to hold it in.
  
• Digipacks can be more environmentally friendly than jewel cases because they can be made of recycled paper - however, they aren't always in fact made in this way.
  

Digipacks look great, but if you're just starting out and money is tight, looking for ways to cut your manufacturing costs is important. Stretching your budget to because you like digipacks aesthetically is not a good investment.

Questionnaire Results

The results I got back from my questionnaire were very helpful. Most of the questionnaire's I got back had some very valuable information. This will be useful when it comes to choosing the location for the music video and seeing how men and women should be portrayed in the video.

Example answers of the questionnaires

Examples of magazine adverts

For me, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds incorporates everything I would want in my advert. For example you have obvious things like the title, when it is due out and the record label Gallagher is signed to. The advert also includes a QR Code. QR Codes are a two-dimensional bar code that contain information which usually feature URLs that take the consumers to a certain website which relates to the subject they are placed on. Decoding the information within the QR code can be done with any camera-phone that has the QR reader software. The advert also includes the website of Gallagher and the singles released from the album.
Aspects all adverts have in common:
-Name of the artist and album
-Release date
-Singles included
-Record label the artist is signed to
-Website

Bitter Sweet Symphony Analysis

The music video I'm analysing is Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve. It comes from the album Urban Hymns and was released in 1997. It was directed by Walter Stern who has worked with other artists such as Massive Attack, The Prodigy and David Bowie. The video is about a man walking down a street but in a straight line so he bumps into and knocks people over in the street. This signifies that the protagonist (played by Verve singer Richard Ashcroft) has a way of making his own way in life and stopping at nothing to achieve his goal and to do it by any means necessary. At the end of the video the rest of the band follow Ashcroft and the closing shot is of them walking don the street with that gang mentality you see in bands. The video comes across that Ashcroft is going on a journey, meeting and confronting people in society and life. The people could also represent the target audience of the record and the types of people that would listen to their music.
The lyrics and the video clearly connect with each other. For example, one lyric goes, "I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now/But the airways are clean and there's nobody singing to me now". You can't hear any of the noises being made by the outside world in the video, all you can hear is the track being played so Ashcroft could literally me the melody is cleansing his mind. 'There's nobody singing to me now', Ashcroft doesn't interact at all with the people he comes across in the video which signifies he uses music to shelter himself from everyone else to make sure no-one is bothering him.
Being as the video was released in the nineties, and the style of music that The Verve play, this would come under the category of BritPop. Male bands in BritPop were bands like Blur, Oasis and Suede who had a very distinct target audience of men who were patriotic and proud to be British. This is shown in the video through the body language of Ashcroft which makes you think he doesn't care about what anyone thinks of him with the swagger of his walk resembling that of Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher. The editing of piece is made to resemble that of Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy, where it is just one shot following a woman down a street. Stern replicates that but then also sometimes cuts to things like Ashcroft's feet as he is walking and shots that show his point of view and whats going on in front of him. Stern is known to be a collaborator with Massive Attack, directing the video's of two of Massive Attacks most recognisable songs, 'Teardrop' and 'Angel'. What Stern has created with The Verve is one of the most recognisable British music videos and in Richard Ashcroft, cemented him as a brilliant frontman and one of the cornerstones of the BritPop movement, alongside Damon Albarn, the Gallagher brothers and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lyu1KKwC74

Manic Street Preachers contd.

The colour scheme of the Digipak contrasts with the themes of the album. For example, on the front of the album you have the grotesque picture which is quite off putting for the consumer but then the background to the album is white which is a colour normally associated to goodness, purity and innocence.
The physical appearance of the person on the front cover is quite disgusting to look at, which links into the taboo subjects discussed on the album. The facial expressions pulled also look very sad and glum which puts across the message the person doesn't want to be there. This could be the band saying we don't want to talk about these issues but we feel that they must be addressed somehow.
The title of the album is The Holy Bible which when it came out would've caused controversy among the christian community with first the album name itself, but also the themes explored in the album. This signifies that the band are not afraid to cause controversy and do this in many ways, but mainly through their use of the album cover.

Analysis of a Digipak - Manic Street Preachers

This is a digipak of the album The Holy Bible by the Manic Street Preachers. The design and art direction of the album was done by Richie Edwards. The album is quite controversial in many ways, for example calling it The Holy Bible and also with the grotesque picture of the woman on the front of the album. The album itself deals with taboo subjects like drugs, sex and death. The front cover photo was done by artist Jenny Saville who the Manic Street Preachers have collaborated with numerous times. The Manics released an album in 2009, Journal for Plague Lovers, which had Saville's work on the front cover also which caused controversy.

This cover was banned from Tesco, ASDA and Sainsbury's stores in the UK because they thought the cover was 'innopropriate'. "We felt that some customers might consider this particular album cover to be inappropriate if it were prominently displayed on the shelf," Sainsbury's music buyer said. "As such, the album will be sold in a sleeve provided by the publisher." This puts across that the band, for both Journal... and The Holy Bible, made the albums to cause controversy and make an artistic statement. A quote from singer James Dean Bradfield from the Manic Street Preachers, 'We're not going to censor it or anything ... It is what it is'.

Sourse: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/15/manic-street-preachers-album-supermarkets

Questionnaire - Primary Research

This is a quesstionaire I made to pass out to other media students in my college. This is the first part of my primary research.

Secondary Research 2

This article is fromk the Daily Telegraph newspaper and talks about why certain music videos were unsuccessful with the public in the 1990′s, for example, videos by bands such as Duran Duran. Being as Duran Duran were a popular band in the 1980's, the music they performed was spearheaded by electronic sound and the artist I am using is influenced by Duran Duran, this is a useful piece of information

So, why were music videos unsuccessful during this time period?

The were a number of contributing factors relating to the decline of music videos in the 1990′s. One of the reasons for this was the fact that music videos were seen to be repetitive and unoriginal, “once such tricks has been seen, and seen again and absorbed into superficial films…therefore effects became dissipated”. This made music videos seem boring to the public, and producers were seen to have run out of ideas.

Another reason was that overall access to music channels was significantly low; Only 25% of people had access to music channels, “Only one British household in four subscribes to either (satellite and cable T.V)”.

During this time period, music videos were not considered to be a serious form of entertainment, with critics not even considering them as being “an art form”. This shows the overall disregard for music videos, and there lack of importance in popular culture. A court case even ruled that adverts are the same as music videos, and were considered to be lower than films in terms of entertainment, so as a result, were paid low wages. They were seen as adverts as “It’s not interactive. It’s not personal.” This shows the lack of relation between the audience and the music videos, disallowing the video to target the audience in a personal way, as they did not target specific people, therefore being seen as generic, and  “merely seen as pictures on top of a song.”

From reading this article, it led me to research into the advancement of music videos, and their rise in popularity through the years;

What led to the rise in popularity of Music Videos?

• Music Videos have generally become more interesting
• The advancement in technology
• Technology has become more cheaper (e.g. new digital)
• A rise in general access to multi-channel television, which consists of a large range of music channels
• Free distribution for music producers and labels (through the internet e.g. sites such as YouTube)
• They are taken more seriously due to the ammount of artists and directors who have the ability to build a reputation through their videos
• The invention of Mp4 players
• Mirrorball collections of Director’s work
• Music Video distribution through music outlets such as iTunes

Secondary Research

http://sayidaksa.articlesbase.com/music-articles/pop-music-history-and-facts-revealed-582463.html

This is a link to the website sayidaksa.articlesbase.com. It is an article about the history and facts of pop music which is helpful for me in doing my coursework task which is to make a music video, digipak and a magazine advert for the artist featured in the music video. The song I have chosen is in the pop genre