DIGIPACK ANALYSIS

I N D I E R O C K G E N R E

KINGS OF

LEON

Only By

The Night

The CD digipack designed for Kings of Leon’s album has some very artistic vision induced into it, specifically the symbolic eagle which is on both the front and back of the cover. This eagles is also merged with the bands faces. This gives a clear representation of their regional background as all members are from the USA. This allows the band to market towards Americans heavily and make big sales in the USA as well as showing the world their pride of being an American rock band using the symbolic eagle cover.

The colours of this album are very greenish with black fades which I think are directly linking to the album name of “Only by the Night”. This shows a sort of night vision view of the art which is further supported by the crosshairs on the front cover and next to the album name on the side of the Digipack. This strongly supports that to utilise these colours the producers used a night vision camera. This also informs the audience that the album has certain tracks that incorporates events that happen at night such as “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody” which has panning shots of an American city at night. This shows that Kings of Leon may have drawn inspiration for the album artwork from their ventures into different nightlife aspects.

However another interpretation of the eagle could be drawn upon negatively,

specifically by the back cover which shows us the eagle with a large

crosshair which seems to imply a gun is pointing at its head which could

be showing us messages suggesting of back stabbing as the eagle is

targeted from behind and generally the back cover shows a much grittier

and darker look which suggests negative messages in comparison to the

front which is smooth and a lot lighter which portrays a more positive

image.

The text used for this Digipack is similar to computer coding from the font

choice. This comes across as smaller writing and I portray this as clever.

The band clearly want to market their album with artistic work as opposed

to an album full of text. This shows they are trying to sell their image to the

masses which a wider range of people can recognise.

The main think to notice for the placement of the artwork and computer

coding text is that they are both separated greatly from each other and

easily distinguished making it a lot easier to look at and appeal to a wide

range of people.

I believe this collaboration and placement could inspire me to create a similar

Digipack for my music video

THE 1975

The 1975

Self-Titled

Album

For the Digipack there is not much that can be said. It has low

key lighting, which anchors the idea of Indie Rock as it is

stereotypical to the genre. The white light that outlines the

speakers also anchor the idea of the indie rock genre as it

is stereotypical for artists of this genre t be focused on their

music shown by the musical equipment of speakers. As

most videos of this genre include a performance element , it

is another way for the band to portray to their fans its all

about the sound.

As well as this on the front cover, highlighting the bands name

emphasises exactly who they are without getting in your

face. Its a simple yet effective way of composing a Digipack

to appeal to wide audiences. Its very interesting in the fact

that there are no band members on the front or back of the

covers, juxtaposing the amount of times they are composed

in the music video. This creates not only an enigma to the

new listener but also anchors ideologies about those who

create indie rock and how they want to present themselves

Another thing that is interesting between the two print

pieces of text is that they’re symmetrical in the colour

scheme, font style and the background image. By

doing this it creates a trademark for the band and gets

them noticed worldwide, as people will see this colour

scheme and instantly relate to the 1975.

The fact the colour scheme is black and white is also

significant as it again anchors the ideas of indie rock

as it is conventional within the genre as it connotes a

sense of isolation and being on the outer edge

translating to being different which of course what

“indie” means,

ARCTIC MONKEYS

Whatever

people say I am, that’s

exactly what I’m not

Whatever people say I am, that’s exactly what I’m not was the debut album for Arctic

Monkeys released in 2006. As a debut album it needed to make a good impression

of what the band were exactly trying to accomplish. The strange name comes from

a novel the singer (Alex Turner) was reading at the time called Saturday night and

Sunday Morning. The songs are very much about going out on the town and the

feeling of this, therefore this informs the listener . This title stereotypes these indie

people and so the album can make them feel more involved.

The man on the front cover, not actually a band member, portrays how the Arctic

Monkeys see themselves. They see themselves as the working class. They have

done this to imply that fame has not gone over their head, and they aren’t a

stereotypical boy band. Also to define their target audience which is predominantly

more working class people. They also touch upon real issue in their songs such as

politics, bar rules and women.

The man on the cover , with a standard haircut, smoking and casual clothes also

supports their target audience of the working class and cuts across to the listener

that the album includes them making them feel like the band cares about them.

People are more likely to listen to a band if they feel that the band cares about them.

The colour scheme of this Digipack is black and white which is stereotypical to indie

rock bands. It also symbolises darkness and depression unlike typical boy bands

which promote brighter colours. This also gives the potential listener an insight into

what the songs are about. A boy band may sing about love but Arctic Monkeys sing

about heartbreak and being kicked out of nightclubs. The colour also represents the

Arctic Monkey’s “down to earth” persona