The Feeling - Twelve Stops And Home Digipak Deconstruction

This is The Feelings debut album Twelve Stops and Home which was released on the 5th of June 2006. The band is English and from London. this album had twelve songs on it to correspond with the title.

The cover here relates to the title in a way. The title uses the word 'home' and the front cover, insert and case are comprised of mainly things that you would associate with home. There is a key, a pen, playing cards and what appears to be a glasses case, these are things that you could find in a bag that you would take with you when you leave your house. It could represent taking a part of your house with you. The link between the title and the visuals displays Goodwin's first theory.

The cover is very attention grabbing with the use of bright colours and fits in with the genre characteristics. Most pop-rock bands have pop out covers that stand out in the stands. This also fits into Goodwin's theory under the genre characteristics rule.

There is no real notion of looking on any of the covers that I have looked at. I think bands want to appeal more to a unisex audience so that they can sell more albums. However this may not be the case the record label is probably the one saying that there can't be a half nude woman on the front of an album as they will be accused of being sexist.

Voyeurism could be the key here as all of the things on the cover and in the fold out are about life and the daily life of people.

The Kaiser Chiefs - Yours Truly, Angry Mob Digipak Deconstruction

The Kaiser Chiefs released their album Yours Truly, The Angry Mob in 2007. The cover and contents of the digipak are very simple. They are a perfect example of what you should expect to find in any digipak.

The cover of this album is very simple. There is no special graphics or extreme photography. It's simple get pictures of the band members individually (we know this from the depth and distance from one another) and put them in a line at the bottom of a blank sepia tone canvas. Add in a fancy title with the same font as the band name.

The digipak insert is one of the most standard typical booklets you could find in a CD. The are a few photos of the band doing strange things and the lyrics of the songs are on the panels opposite them. It was once said (and I will refer to this in a later post) 'insignificant photo shoot' was the only term to describe the photo's in the insert. I find this to be completely true. I mean what relevance does eating beans have to do with anything in this CD?

The yellow like colour of the cover allows for the audience to feel relaxed with the CD and the music. If it was fluorescent yellow or bright yellow it may provoke a different reaction.

This digipak fits in perfectly with it's genre characteristics. The digipak itself is again held together with staples.

The Hoosiers - The Trick To Life Digipak Deconstruction

This is The Hoosiers album The Trick To Life released, a year later than The Killers Sam's Town, in 2007.

This is one of the cleverest album covers and digipaks I have ever seen. The band came up with a simply genius way to appeal to their audience. Change the colour. There were four different album covers. Each had exactly the same graphics and information but the colours were different. There was a choice of red, yellow, green or blue. My favourite colour being green I bought the green one. However now my favourite colour is red so a bad choice in the long run.

The inside of the digipak is what you would expect to find inside your typical CD. I guess to some people it may be considered as being a little more 'main stream'. The insert has a little legal section towards the back and the rest of the digipak is just the lyrics to the songs. In fitting with the style and main theme of the CD the images are all cartoon graphics. The graphics relate to the songs and the lyrics/story that they tell.

The cartoons themselves are very meaning full. Each one is a grey, round faced person. This is so that they do not distinguish any social or ethnic group from others and it means that they are not being discriminative.

The Images relate to the Lyrics like rule 3 of goodwin's theory states.

This pak was alos held together by staples.

Digipak Deconstructions

I am going to deconstruct six digipaks to see what makes them good inserts for compact discs. To deconstruct them I will be looking at various aspects of the booklets and covers such as pictures, text, colours, font and content.

The first digipak that I am going to deconstruct is from the CD that The Killers released in 2006. Their album Sam's Town was a massive success.

The cover and back panel of the digipak illustrate an image of people camping in an out back somewhere. Judging by the sand like floor and the grasses I'd say it is somewhere in central lower America like New Mexico.

The colours that they have used are only black and white. All of the covers and main sections are in grey scale giving the CD the edge against others that try to pop out from the stands. Sometimes when there is a lot of colourful competition it is best to stay back in the greys and you'll manage to stand out that way.

The CD has a ram's head on it signifying that The Killers are not to be messed with or crossed. It also shows that they command respect.

Inside the digipak there is actually a few more colours although the main theme still remains in grey scale. There is a red border to those panels which have some writing on them. Unlike most digpak's, the panels in the digipak that do have writing on them aren't song lyrics. The writing on these panels is all legal terms and thank yous. These thank yous allow the audience to connect with the band but not directly. The vast majority of the audiences name's are not on there and it is only a select few that are.

The main theme of the pack is Native Indian American vs. American Western Cowboy. This is why the cover and photo's are set where they are, the background represents Indian ground that was taken over by the cowboy's for ranching purposes.

The digipak is held together with staples as opposed to being a fold out like some digipak's are.

There is definately a notion of looking on the front cover with the woman in the swim suit.

Copyrighters Permission

I have sent this email to the Warner Music Group to obtain copyright permission for the use of the song.

"Dear Sir or Madam

For our ‘A’ Level Media Studies coursework we have to make a music video to accompany a song. For our project we would like to use Hard to Beat by Hard Fi and are seeking your permission.

The resulting music video will not be used for commercial gain, will be hosted on a private coursework blog and also rendered on to DVD for the attention of our teacher and the coursework moderator. Should we not hear from you to the contrary within 14 days of the date of this email we will assume that your are happy for us to use this music under a fair use arrangement.

Should you require any further information please contact our teacher, Mr Scargill on scargill@guilsborough.northants.sch.uk

Yours faithfully

Matthew Harris"

Digipaks

A Digipak is described as the insert in a compact music disc.
It is usually a cover for the disc casing and most of the time will contain lyrics to the bands songs.
It may also contain the copyrighting information for the disc and the information on the band. There is a good chance that there will be some thank yous from the band.

The Why of Hard Fi

I first heard Hard Fi on the way home from a friends house in her dad's car. It was a CD so when she asked what I'd like for Christmas I said the same CD that's in your dad's car. Of course then I had no idea what band it was or what the songs were called.

This was in 2007 and I was completely unaware that the band was the same band I liked from a compilation CD I had bought in 2005. Now 61 was released in 2005 and when I bought it I took a particular liking to tracks 11- 17 of disc 1. One of these songs was Hard Fi - Hard to Beat.
So I guess one could argue that it was my subconscious that recognised the music style in the car.

One of the reasons that I liked Hard Fi so much when I heard the album in the car was because of the type of car and my friends life as it were. My friend was Emily Burkimsher and her dad had at the time got a BMW 3 Series. My family could never own a car like that and at the time I was setting out my aspirations in life. I put two and two together to come up with the conclusion that this is the kind of music that successful business men listen to in their nice cars and set it as an aspiration to one day do the same.

So the real reason behind this song is because I think I can create a better video for this than I could for The Funeral and a video of the same quality of video as Walking on Sunshine.

I had a rough idea in my head to try and get down to London to shoot the video for both Walking on Sunshine and Hard to Beat.