Potential Songs

• i really like the idea of doing a track off of kelly clarksons last album breakaway, esp some of her slower songs because they tend to have a narrative behind them making the idea of doin a video to it seem slightly easier. hopwever a problem with this is they tend to be over 3 minutes long
• another quite nice song is pinks 'love song' off the 'try this' album which is a very short song and doesnt have an official video for it

Collision Course Album Cover

• This cover is pretty typical of a cover for a linkin park album cover as mike shinoda - one of the vocalists and guitar players in the band - is always on the project design team who also cover the design of their album covers. He draws anime so it isnt surprising that the album cover has an anime feel to it. The colour of the whole cover gives it an earthy feel as the prodominant colours are brown and orange. there are also quite a few musical images for example a keyboard, mic, speakers, guitars...

• there isnt much text on the front cover jus the artist name and the name of the abum. the name of the artists is larger than the album name. the linkin park is also bigger than jay z's suggesting they had more of an input... they are both the same font style - stencil - but different colours. artist names: blue and wite, and album colour: orange. all the text is in the centre of the cover as well. any extra info is put on a sticker. on the back cover the headings are inthe same font as the text o the front jus a smaller size and in black. the rest of the text is similar to arial and either blue or black

• On the front cover the text is infront of the images, however on the back the images are interrupted by a white 'splash' which is covered by the text. on the inside cover on the first two pges the pictures are the background for the text, however for the rest of the booklet the bottom of the pages are especially for the text and the rest of the pg is for pics of the band members etc.

• The artists and their record labels are mainstream esp jay z who produces music himself etc. the cover shows the fact that they have the money because of the fact that the package not onlii contains a CD bt also a DVD as well qas d fact that the cover is a cardboard, 3 folded cover and the animation runs throughout the cover and is also consistent to the inside cover.

• the potential target audience is oviously quite a modern audience ie late teens to early 30as mainly because of the anime-grafitti crossover. the grafitti represents jay zs supports while the anime feel is for the linkin park followers.

Album Covers #2

How id catagorise covers....by:

• year
• genre
• artist
• record label
• prodcer
• artist (designer of cover)
• target audience
• independently produced/mainstream

Album Covers #1

Typical Features

Front:

• name of the artist
• name the album
• picture of the artist/symbol tat represents the artist
• information about the tracks on the album, eg any bonus tracks and the names of those that have been released off the album (britney album shows the fact that 2 brand new tracks are included and because enhaced CD was quite new in 2000, it shows that it has the 'Lucky' video as part of the enharced CD, the Dutty Rock album by sean paul shows which other artists feature on the album for example Sasha on the 'im still in love with you' single)
• if it has 'explicit content'
• if a DVD is part of the package like the LP and JayZ Collision Course album

Back:

• tracks and their number
• bar code
• artist/record label website
• record label symbol
• info about copyright
• where it was manufactured
• picture of the artist/symbol tat represents the artist

Inside cover:

• pictures of artist
• track info eg who wrote the lyrics, music, who produced it, length of track, who published it
• a message from the artist thanking those close t them/who helped them get to where they are now
• previous albums

Album Covers

According to wikipedia:
an album cover is a cover used to package commercial audio recordings such as the printed cardboard covers that were typically used to package 12" gramaphone records from the 60s through to he 80s whent the 12" record was the major formatg for distribution of popular music.

The cover serves 3 main purposes:

• To protect the record, whose grooved surface was delicate
• To advertise the contents, as the record had little room on its own record label.
• To convey the artistic aspirations of the original artists

The covers i will b looking at are:

Release Date: 26-6-2006

Release date: 23-5-2005

Release Date: 29-11-2004

Release date: 1-9-2003

Released date: 25-11-2002

Release Date: 9-12-2002

Release Date: 16-05-2000

Release Date: 16-11-1992

Release date: 7-9-1987

Release Date: 1980

Different Music Videos: Genres

THE GORILLAZ - They are an elctro/rock band who could also be classed as alternative rock. Their videos are pretty interesting as they are alsways in a cartoon format and they tell a story thaat is loosly connected to the actual song. Heres an example:



NICKELBACK - They are a rock band and like many other rock bands their videos always feteaure the band playing the song either in a concert or in a recording studio. this video as well as the video for theie other song Far Away are an example of this:



MISSY ELLIOT AND CIARA - both hip hop and r'n'b artits have dance as a major part of their video. This is common for most videos of this genre as seen in other artists videos like

The Loose Control video by Missy Elliot is a great example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_jlcMVI5xE

As is Ciaras Like A Boy:


BRITNEY SPEARS (early years) - Pop videos as we know it (old school pop like Nsync) have very cheesy dance movement that exaggerate the lyrics in the song:


nsync are the epitemy of the old school boy band as they have a bunch of girls dancing around them as well as having the cheesy boy band moves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIwm9jUjLvk
this song in general sums up the pop genre and the video jus emphasises the ideas they talk about in the song

Previous A2 Student Music Video

This is an example of a video done by a group of A2 media students from another school. Before i watched this video i thought it would be really difficult to do a video for a rock song as rock is just mainly associated with heavy metal. But after viewing this video i realised that it would be possible to do a video for a pop rock song rather than a genre that is heavier.

Independent UK Record Labels

• Artists Against Success Records is a UK based independent record label that has released records from MJ Hibbett, Plans & Apologies, and The Chemistry Experiment. They usually work with indie or alternative rock bands.
  
  Their personal company quote:
  
  ‘Welcome to the world of Artists Against Success. Here you will discover the ways of VALIDITY, where Brave New Ways of being a record company are utilised, such as Treating the ARTISTE like a Human Being, Telling the TRUTH, and DEFYING the PREVAILING ORTHODOXY of the Record BUSINESS.....One day THE KIDS will rise, and all record companies will work this way. Until then, read on, and ENJOY this, our NEWS.’ http://www.artistsagainstsuccess.com/
• Trend Records is a small record label with its own recording studio about 15 miles west from Aberdeen and 7 miles east from Aboyne in Scotland. The company is owned and ran by Thomas Button and Michael Fawcett. It started in 2004 by Thomas in a very small garden shed. About a year after that much better studios were built and bands started to get interested then Michael joined the company in late 2006 then the company really started. They have recorded bands like ILLICIT, Tucano and Armour Against Fate. They have had record deals with Toxic Distortion and DJ liam c. There website is http://www.trendrecords.co.uk/ and www.myspace.com/trendrecords
• Gwarn Music is an independent record label which was created in Manchester, England in 1991. It was founded by former 52nd Street guitarist Tony Henry to release his then new music project FR’ Mystery (lead vocalist Lorna Bailey) after talks to sign the act to WEA in London broke down. The label was initially independently distributed by local city record shop Manchester Underground, before New Order manager Rob Gretton invited Henry to bring the label under the wing of his then new imprint Rob’s Records in late 1994. This was the second time in over ten years that Henry and Gretton had worked together. Gretton was 52nd Street’s A&R Manager at Factory Records.
  Gwarn Music is now the sole owner of all 52nd Street's master copyrights released through Factory, A&M (US) and Profile Records (US) in the 1980s.

What i have learnt from this is the fact that many independent record labels seem to work with band associated with very niche genres such as indie and alternative rock or grime. This means in order for us to become successful with our coursework we will have to work with either an artist/band that arent that well known or find a song that isnt very well known. This will also help us keep our video quite original as it wont really be compared to any recent or well known videos for that particualr song.