Album Posters Analysis

In order to create a poster to advertise my band I figured I will have to look at other music promo posters to see what worked and looked good. The first poster I looked at was for Jay Z's album 'The Blueprint 3'. The poster is simple yet striking as the poster just contains the basic information of the artists name, album name, and release date, but seeing as its red writng on a black background it makes it very eye catching, and seeing as there is not a lot to take in, it's easy to remember the information. Because of all this, I quite like this poster I think its pretty effective.

The next poster I looked at was Sonya Kitchell. Her poster seems to convey a relaxing and elequent atmosphere reflective of her music, with it being a close up, black and white picture of her face. A bit like Jay-Z's poster all the information is in a simple, accessable text but this one contains a little more information like the record label and singles it contains. I do like this poster but I dont think it's mood would suit my band.

The final I poster (actually was a DVD) looked at was the well recognised 'Definitely Maybe' by Oasis. This cover contains the whole band in a slightly artistic pose/setting, portraying the style the band wish to give off. This probably my favourite out of the three and I would quite like to base my poster around this, quite a peculiar photo with a lot of mise en scene.

Digipack

This is my digipack for my bands upcoming album entitled 'Starslight' also the name of the single being released. The drummer from the band designed this album cover and he took it upon himself to make the cover have the most irrelvant attachments to the bands songs/song names. He came up with what you see now on the left, when asked what the ideas were behind this the drummer of BCW responded:

"So for a while now I've had this thing of like, making rhyming slang literal, you know? Like a forever long art project. And with these last few months what with the band really taking off, recording the album, getting ourselves out there and that, we've constantly been "cream crackered", you know, knackered. So I thought instead of relating the album cover to a lyric or a song I'll do it to a feeling we've all been having. It's just a middle-aged man falling asleep half way through eating some crackers, but the phrase is in there. It's like, subtle but not, and I think it's cool."

Spike Jonze - Weezer - Undone "The Sweater Song"

This is a video by acclaimed music director Spike Jonze. It's of Weezers debut single 'Undone "The Sweater Song"'. This video has aspects of things I would like to include in my own music video, for instance, the whole video is a performance piece, just the band playing in a music video studio as you can see the blue backdrop and I was planning for my video to be a performance as most debut videos are as it introduces you to the band. I really like the atmosphere of this video, I think it creates a really independent, unexpected calm much like the 'stoner rock' genre Weezer were associated with. I like how the premise of the video seems really basic, and then a volta is brought in half way through completley adding another layer to the video, here of course I am talking about the influx of dogs running through the set.

Another thing I like is how the song is like a gradual build up, realeasing itself at the end and the video kind of accompinies that, as after the dogs run in the music isn't really played in sync with the bands actions, except for the lyrics and the band just kinda go a little crazy, conveyinga build up if adreniline to the viewer as when I watched it I could feel myself building up with the music. This is something I would love to be able to do in my music video.

I also love how the video is one take with no different shots whatsoever, the camera starts of through corridors twisting around making the viewer feel slightly uneasy, with a strange conversation in the back round, and it finally finds the band, and the only movement it now does is slight pans or zooms in, but no different shots.

I think it's a really cool video and well definitley try and incoperate some of its ideas into mine.

Creating My Music Artist

• Name: Blind Cat-Walks.




• Blind Cat-Walks is a four piece band hailing from a south-east London suburb consisting of a drummer, bassist, rhythm and lead guitarist. All members are between 18 and 19 years of age, all male and all mainly British with some foreign influences from older family.




• Their target audience is mainly the current generation but hope to appeal to anyone who takes the time to listen to them.

Members of Blind Cat-Walks come from the areas Welling, Bexleyheath, Belvedere and Sidcup all areas on the edge of South-East London and Kent. Blind Cat-Walks was created when three of the members who went to the same school decided to share each others musical interests together, and being that they could all loosely play their instruments, organised jamming sessions. A few months later looking to expand their music they hunted for a bassist and found one through a mutual friend. With the lineup complete, BCWs music started to become more and more refined and there was an obvious chemistry between the group.

Soon BCW started to try and get into the local gig circuit around their area playing pubs in Deptford, Lewisham, Swanley and even a pub in Sheperds Bush. Scraping money from the few gigs they were getting paid for BCW managed to afford a short recording session where they managed to lay down six tracks each song taking one attempt, creating the raw sound which would turn into a signature trait of theirs. These first six tracks became the bands debut EP 'Blind Cat-Walks' and earned them a small, but devoted following as copies travelled around the South-East of London. Then in early 2009, after playing a small gig consisting of only 8 people in a small pub Hackney BCW got their break. By pure chance a representative of Fearless Records was in London, not on business, and had come to the gig with a friend. He approached the band straight after the show however, stating he was blown away and wanted to fly the band away to California as soon as possible to sign them up and record some tracks.

As good as this sounded BCW were not to set on leaving their country so soon and would rather record on their own soil. Slightly taken a back the Fearless Records representative managed to give them a recording contract and organised a studio in London where they could begin work. Now, BCW have an album recorded entitled 'Star Slight' which will release after their first single of the same name.

Although they haven't been around for long, BCW have created something of a following mainly because of their energetic live performances. The buzz they create at shows has earned them respect all around the place as they have a total disregard for conventional shows. This attitude they have has proven that BCW is all about the music and are not very fussed about how they look, they keep it very casual with jeans and a top.

• BCW have a MySpace with downloads of their songs available, a FaceBook group and an official website that can be found through the Fearless Records website, also containing the bands songs.
• The lead singer of BCW will be appearing on the next series of BBC2's 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' and the whole band will be performing on 'Later....With Jools Holland'

• Although not really wanting to target certain type of person BCW target audience will probably be teenagers through to adults in they're late twenties.
• The drummer of the band is thinking of designing the digipack of the bands album as he has a strong interest in art.

Glogster

The video below is of a song by Blur, titled 'There's No Other way', it was the bands first top 10 and 40 hit in the UK and was a minor hit in the US. I kinda got the wrong idea and instead of choosing a music video I particularly enjoy, I chose a song instead and I was pretty unfamiliar with the music video. After watching it a few times I can't say I was that impressed with it, it's a pretty basic video of the band playing in a room about ankle deep in water just grooving along. One aspect I did like about the video was the opening shot where the screen is kinda, submerged in water and I think Damon Albarn has his head dunked in the water so you can loosely see it. This shot is repeated a few times few the video and I think it's quite cool. Also, the whole video is shot with a sort of golden/yellow/orange tint to it, I don't know the name of the effect but I'm sure you'll know what I mean by watching the video.

Onto the negatives, I can't help but feel this music video makes the song drag a little, which isn't very good as beforehand I enjoyed the song. I think, it's just a bit boring and not original in the slightest however, I do have a music video I do enjoy to post soon.

Brief

For this project i have to create a music video. This must demonstrate technical skills and conceptual understanding, towards how music videos are made. I must show an in depth understanding to my chosen artist, and have a critical evaluation to the final product.