Interesting album covers

1) Gangstarr - Mass Appeal



2) Slick Rick - The Art of Storytelling



3) Aretha Franklin - Greatest Hits

4) Blur - Best of

5) Jimi Hendrix - The best of

6) David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

7) The Beatles - Abbey Road

8) Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

Radiohead's politically named album Hail to the Thief released in 2003 is effective as on the cover (and extending 3 more pages on the insert) controversial words and phrases are written o the cover. The title itself refers to George Bush.

9) The Libertines - The Libertines

This is the album cover for the self-titled Libertines album and i think it works well as a cover as it reflects the dirty/rough and underproduced music on the alubm.

10) Blink 182 - Blink 182

Although a much more simple cover this cover for the self-titled album by Blink-182 became a major symbol for the band which was duplicated on lots of merchandise involved with the band. It is a good example of branding and a cover without people or an image that was sucessful.

Typical features of these album covers:

-The band or artist

-The name of the artist and album

-Iconography of the band in the form of symbols or logos

-Artwork

Distinguishing features:

-Blink 182 and Radiohead do not contain images of the band and rely on selling and being a memorable album cover with a iconic band symbol or artwork
-The Beatles' does not contain the band's name or the title of the album and relies on the image of the band

-Aretha Franlin's best of is simple as it will be sold on the quality of her voice and significant appearances on her album (Elton John, Whitney Houston, The Eurythmics)

-Slick Rick's album relies on his image of a 'storyteller' as a book and quill dominates the cover and contrasts with his bling and eyepatch

Functions of the covers:

-To promote the members of a band or artist and the lifestyle they lead (Gangstarr + Libertines)

-To create an iconic image? Do the artists have the intention of doing so in the case of Blur and The Beatles and so deliberately refrain from adding too much text/distractions?

-To ultimately link in the band with the kind of music they play to create a following that is loyal to the music and the band

-By creating an image of the band making sure that people assosciate the music with those people with instant recognition to and make fans more likely to go and see the band on tour as well as just listen to them

Another possible choice

After looking more in to +44's song Make You Smile i began to really like the idea of a conversation style song so i looked into the song Nothing Better by The Postal Service.

Possible single

The song:
At the moment this is the song that most appeals to me to make a music video for. The song meets the criteria and i think it is a good choice as it would allow a lot of creativity in terms of making the video.

The song is called Make You Smile by a band called +44:



Unfortunately the sound quality on this video is not particularly good but the others on youtube were videos created by fans. I do have the mp3 and cd at home so that wont be a problem for production.


The band:
The band's genre is indie rock and there are 2 guitarists, a drummer and a bassist/lead singer. At the time when this song was written and recorded in 2006 the band was without the guitarists and more electronically produced alongside vocals from Carol Heller. Her featuring in this song makes it potentially a more interesting song to work with for the video and potentially something that seperates +44 from other indie bands which would also make marketting easier and more interesting. There has not been a video of this song created despite it's sucess presumably because Carol Heller is no longer involved with the band.

Early creative thoughts:
The main reason for my gravitation towards this song is due to the interplay between the male and female vocalists and the strong story played out by the simple lyrics. Therefore i think the video would be sucessful if it drew on this and a possible idea could be to film with two seperate bands, either with different members altogether in each- one with a female lead and one iwth a male lead, or the same band but just have one male lead and one female lead to switch between the two during the video but have them meet or merge in someway at the end. In terms of cutting and relating the shots to the music the song is very good as it has a strong drumbeat throughout and often the guitar chords are only played once on the fourth beat- potentially this would make it easy and effective to cut between shots in the video.