Textual analysis of a band website

http://www.slideshare.net/adamlievesley123/textual-analysis-of-a-band-website

previous music video

This is a music video promotion I have previously filmed for some of my friends that are in a band. We had a day in Nottingham skating, wandering and then a recording session in the Electric Mayhem music studios. 

http://vimeo.com/96952398

Textual analysis of an album cover

Textual Analysis of an album cover.

This is the album cover for Nirvanas second studio album released in September 1991.

This Album cover is one of the most famous and recognisable album covers of all time.

Nirvana is an American rock band formed in the late 80s early 90s. This album cover was designed by the bands front man Kurt Cobain and art director Robert Fisher.

The cover is very simplistic with a plain non distracting background of the pool. This focuses the attention on the two key aspects of the cover the baby and the dollar bill on a fishing hook.  Then the album has the band’s name in the bands recognisable font and the title of the album underneath in like a wavy font to represent being under water. The bands font used for their name is used as it is instantly recognisable even though there is no other visual reference to the band.

The cover is a strange photograph not usually a style that is represented by the American rock genre. However I believe there to be an underlying meaning or two to the photograph. First of all the baby is naked which I believe to mean that in life everyone starts out equal and then society and upbringing mould them into the people that they are going to be in the future.

Second there is a dollar bill hung from a fishing hook in front of the baby I also believe that this means that as soon as a baby is born its life is ran and dictated by money and that it will spend the rest of its life trying to catch it but as represented by the hook it is a trap and can result in a lot of things going wrong.

Due to the album being very different from normal conventions especially due to it it featuring a 3 month old baby’s penis. I believe is why they used it. It makes it memorable and creates a little buzz around the band and the album so people buy it to see what it’s all about. 

Textual analysis of “Malevolence condemned to misery”.

Textual analysis of “Malevolence condemned to misery”.

 

At the start of the music straight away the video demonstrates genre characteristics of a hard-core metal band. This can be seen from the Mise en scene of items of clothing that they wear. They have branded clothing which are associated with the hard-core metal scene. They also wear skinny jeans short shorts and trainers. They edit it by flicking between two scenes using parallel editing of a house party and a gig. The gig is significant as live music is a large aspect of the hard-core metal scene.

The camera uses a low ISO to create a low exposed shot to furthermore enhance the hard-core metal feel of the video as Goodwin outlines in his rules of a music video theory.

In the video band members and fans are seen wearing the merchandise of the band displaying the bands name and also artwork similar to which appears on the album cover. This gives a link between the music and the visuals.

There are a lot of hand gestures to his head as the song is all about how he feels about society which gives us a relationship with the video and the lyrics further enhancing the meaning.

At the breakdown parts of the song the camera using fast camera movements and a mixture of close ups and wide angles show the fans “pitting*”  they are notoriously brutal in this type of genre as a way of people expressing themselves; asserting dominance and really about having fun to the music.

Another part of the video that represents it as a hard-core metal band is that all of the people in the video are head banging which is a very recognisable and associative feature in the rock genre.

*pitting- pitting also known as mosh pitting is  a style of dance whose participants push or slam into each other. It is most associated with “aggressive” music genres.

The History Of The Music Video

Start of A2 Media Blog

This is the start of my A2 Media blog In it I will show the research and planning behind my music video. This will help my music video be the best it can be targeting the correct target audience.