Analysis of Digipack from a Different Genre: Ed Sheeran '+' Album

This is the front cover for Ed Sheeran's album +. Also there is an image of the CD as well. The first thing that I notice when about the digipack is its brightly coloured. This means it catches peoples eyes and helps grab there attention, in the hope that they will then buy it. It could also be a way of including light comedy; maybe referring to Sheeran's hair colour.

On the left hand side we can see that he has his name on the spine. This is clearly visible and means that people are instantly aware who's CD it is. Also the use of the image of himself on the front of the CD case means that it is another way of making the audience aware of who's CD it is. Also this is a USP of the album cover that could make people want to buy it. This image was actually a drawing by a person called 'Phillip Butah'. By having the image, it uses artist endorsement to help support the sales of his CD and also can be a marketing technique by attracting female audiences. Also the image is drawn to make it look like Ed is looking at the audience, or giving direct eye contact, making it seem like he is looking at you, which can help to grab the audiences attention.

The album name is in the bottom right hand corner. This is actually quite small and in an unusual place. Usually the album name is clearly visible and the main things on the cover, however in this instance it isn't. The simplicity of this album name reflect the type of music Sheeran produces and gives an expectation to what the audience can expect. Ed Sheeran has released his newest album which is called 'X' meaning maybe there is a link between the previous album and this one, meaning could  expect a very simple album name for his next album.

In the bottom left we can see some well known single names that are on the album, this gives the audience an example of some of the songs included on the album and can make them want to buy the CD in anticipation of more good music like these songs. Also it informs the audience of bonus materials that they can look forward to by putting the CD into the computer, making them want to buy the album rather than using other sources to listen to the music, for example spotify, sound cloud or YouTube. The reason for this is that the artist makes more money from people buying the album than they would from people streaming there music on other platforms.

The CD itself is black. This is a contrast to the bright orange. Also it means that the album name that is in orange on the top of the CD stands out. This informs the user the album title instantly.

It also has writing on the edge of it, this tells the audience about the record label, publishers and warns the user that the CD is copyrighted and is not allowed to be illegally copied or broadcasted.

The back of the album cover has the track list on it, giving the audience information of all songs on the CD. It also includes record dealer information along with website. The back cover follows stereotypical conventions and is as we would expect it to be with numbers and track lists next to each other. It is very basic which makes it very easy to read and understand, therefore making it effective and ensures it does the job its supposed to do which is helping the audience know which song is where on the CD.

 

I will use this research along with the other digipack's that I have analysed to help me design my own digipack. This is ideal as it will allow me to ensure I use similar conventions on my digipack that will allow me to produce the best possible digipack. Also by looking at previous digipack's, I can use some of the other artists ideas and incorporate these, along with my own ideas into my digipack that I will produce.

Analysis of Past Student Music Video- Mac Miller: Frick Place Market

Positives:

This particular video is very good. Throughout there are a range of shots and shot types, helping to engage the audience as it keeps it different and interesting to watch. Also this helps show that it is well planned and very well thought out. This will also show off skills and talents to the examiner which will help to gain marks. Also from a professional aspect of things, it helps make it look realistic and like a proper music video. Some examples of the various shot angles are high angle shots, low angle shots, mid shots and fish eye shots. Also we have a range of shot types such as long shots and establishing shots.

There is a good use of lip sync throughout. This helps make it look good, and adds to the professionalism of the piece. This is because it is hard to edit in time to the music in order to make the lip synch look realistic therefore, this is a good thing about this music video.

Also there are lots of costume changes. This is a key convention of most music videos. Nowadays artists have a tendency to wear lots of different outfits in there music videos. By the students using lots of different costumes, it again helps the realism of the student music video and adds to the verisimilitude of the piece.

As well as lots of costume changes, there are also lots of different locations. This is a good thing because it means they have went out and planned different locations, helping it to be unique and interesting to watch. Also it shows they have considered location and the effects this would have on the audience. It also helps portray different lyrics as the scene sometimes matched the lyrics, helping the realism. It also shows the examiner that they have went out and filmed in lots of different places, which will help them get marks.

This location is on the streets somewhere, and the background shows some graffiti.

This location is against a green screen.

 

Another  different location, in the car.

Another location on a train track. In these 4 screenshots, the audience can see 4 different locations which makes it interesting to watch for the audience.

Negatives:

To improve on the music video it needs more narrative to it. This is because although there are lots of different scenes and lots of different locations, it is hard to pick out a common narrative or to understand what the actual story is. Therefore, to improve it, they need to make it more obvious to the audience what the actual narrative is. This will help to engage the audience and keep them engaged throughout.

Also, although very minor, at times there were some framing problems.

The music video that I am analysing is below.

The Purpose of a Music Video

The main purpose of a music video is too

• To help the artist’s and band’s tracks be heard globally, on a mass scale.
•  To help promote the band, providing a visual representation of the band.
• To ensure people remember the song and video ( A very good example of this would be the song 'Thriller ' by Michael Jackson. This is because everyone remembers the song and the dance.

• Music Videos are a platform for film makers – film makers associated with artist
• To invoke a reaction ( A prime example would be Miley Cyrus 'Wrecking Ball'. The video to this song has been in the media and lead to controversy regarding the singer.

• To provide the audience with an incentive to see the band live
• To lead to more sales
• They’re used for an extension of income, keeping the artist or band in the public eye, after the album release. Ideally increasing sales of their album.
• To link a song to a Film/TV series (An example of this would be the Friends theme tune, 'I'll Be There For You' which everyone now tends to put with the TV series 'Friends'.

• Entertainment purposes

By carrying out this research it will help me to understand why I am making a music video, which in turn will help me to ensure that I can progress and make a music video that is doing what it should be and meeting all the aims of which I should aim to hit based on what a music video is expected to do.

Music Video History

Music videos are used to help enhance a piece of music. The idea of them are to help sell the artists song. The reason for doing this post is to help understand the importance of music videos and how they have developed over time. I will include key music videos that changed the way we as an audience view music videos and how artists used music videos to better effect to help sell there music.

Most mainstream music videos are very expensive to produce. This is because they have the money to be able to produce good, high quality videos as they have the money and technology to be able to produce these. These sort of high budget music videos usually belong to well known, successful artists. Some may include each of the following or just one aspect:

- Performance Clips/Showcase Artists Talent
- Animation
- Images accompanying the Lyrics

Independent companies don't have as much capital in the business, and therefore can't produce as extravagant music videos or not at all. Therefore we can expect less from these sort of artists.

Before any music videos were released, the first machine that was able to record sound was made. This was called a phonograph.

An example of a phonograph.

Music then started to develop quickly after they were able to record sound. The music industry grew as technology improved.

There were 3 main era's is music video history. These were:

Pre-1981
1981-2005 which was the MTV Era
Post 2005 which is the Youtube Era

1930's- Len Lye produced a music video called 'Colour Box'. It was produced and funded by the Post Office and because of this, they actually used this music video as an advert for themselves to by including things within the video that connoted back to the post office. (e.g- parcel weights)

1940's- The ability to listen to music at home, opposed to just live performances. This meant a new industry was slowly created. Also video jukeboxes were produced, these were called 'Soundies'.

1950's- This was the birth of youth culture and teenager. This was the era of rock and roll and in particular artists like Elvis Presley. This sort of music originated form Blues. At the time, rock and roll was against the rules of society and was seen as people rebelling.

1960's- Mainly comprised of The Beatles. At the time, due to artists like The Beatles and Elvis Presley not being 'allowed' and due to this BBC did not broadcast this music, it lead to pirate radios being set up out at sea. At this stage, performance videos were first shot live.

1962- 'Scopitones' were released in France.

1969- The first music festival was held. It was known as 'Woodstock'.

1970's- Disco Music and Punk was the new 'in thing' for music. There was a music video breakthrough as Queen released 'Bohemian Rhapsody' which was a totally unique music video and changed how other artists produced music videos leading to more daring and unique music videos being released.

1981- MTV was first aired. It was designed to be a space filler on the station, however it led to a revolution. Initially, British music dominated MTV. This meant that British artists could thrive, as a result Madonna broke onto the scene. This then led to other woman copying her, and many woman still follow conventions that she set back in the 1980's.

The first music video was shown on MTV. Music Television was launched on August 1st 1981. It is an American owned channel. When MTV first started its main target market was young adults, however as the TV station developed they changed and marketed more towards teenagers and adolescents.

The first music video to be aired on MTV was The Buggles 'Video Killed The Radio Star'. This was influential as it was the first video to be accompanied by moving images to be shown on TV. The song was then No.1 in 16 countries. Over time, this would be the start of an era that would continue to present day. The video below is the music video that was aired on MTV by The Buggles.



During MTV's early years, they were quite desriminitive towards black people. There were a select few who were shown, however the majority were rejected. The first non-white artist to be played on MTV was The Specials 'Rat Race' which had both black and white people in it. This was the 58th video to be played on the station.



1981- This was the year that the Walkman was released.

1982- The CD was invented and released.

The next major event occurred in 1983. This was when the king of pop, Michael Jackson first got airtime on MTV with his song 'Billie Jean'. Prior to 1983 Jackson struggled to get airtime due to his colour. However after feuds with CBS a music record label, MTV agreed to play black artists music on the channel. This was then known as the song that 'broke the colour barrier'. At the time, the main director for black artists was a man called Hype Williams.


MTV went on to start the MTV awards (Video Music Awards). The first one was in 1984 and was a benchmark for the music channel itself. The awards given are called 'Moonmen'. The first awards show was opened by Madonna performing her song 'Like a Virgin'.

The next benchmark for music videos was Dire Straits song 'Money for Nothing'. This was released and got its first airtime on MTV in 1985. This was the first music video of its type that included animation. This was therefore a breakthrough in music videos.



After this, music videos started to incorporate different aspects from different music videos and common themes were followed depending on the genre of the music video. This is now known as iconography, and is what as an audience we can expect from a music video in particular genres.

1992-2004 was the time in that MTV started to add credits to the end of songs. This included directors names and other information like this.

The most popular music video of the 1990's was 'Sabotage' by the Beastie Boys. This was nominated for 5 MTV awards, however was unsuccessful in actually winning any of these awards. In 2004, it was also rated in a Rolling Stones magazine as #480 out of 500 of best songs of all time. The music video has to date 20,282,370 views on YouTube.


2000's- This was the time of Ipods, reality TV shows such as X-Factor and the internet which allowed for the birth and growth of music platforms such as ITunes, YouTube and Spotify. This allowed for digital screening, digital viewing and also lead to issues such as piracy.

In 2005, YouTube was created. This was an online service that allowed people to upload videos onto it. Many artists now use this to present day as a way of showing off there music and music videos and a way of aiding there music.

An example of this is the song 'Gangman Style' by PSY. This video is the most viewed music video on YouTube. I personally think the reason for this music video being such a success and then in turn the song being a success is due to the very simple yet catchy dance routine that ended up going global. The video has had 2,083,625,879 views and was released in July 2012. The song was then followed up by the song 'Gentlemen'. This video also included a dance routine and helped it to become a success. The second most viewed music video on YouTube is Justin Bieber's 'Baby'. This shows that the music industry is very diverse, and there is not a specific way to be successful as these two video are very different as you can see below. PSY included catchy dance routines, whilst Justin Bieber instead used lots of shots of himself and included a narrative of him and a girl.




By researching about music video history, it has helped me see how music videos have changed over time, however the main principles and generic conventions have stuck. This therefore means that when producing my music videos, I should take inspiration from successful music videos that I've looked at above and see how and why they have become successful as this will help me to go on and produce a good quality music video myself.

Extra Research: Music Genres & Music Videos

Music videos nowadays have reduced budgets compared to previous times. The budget for music videos rocketed, after the production of one of the most prolific music videos, 'Thriller, Michael Jackson'.



At this time, the opportunity was a lot higher, as support from record labels was a lot more. During this era, there was a lot of money still in the music industry and record labels could therefore afford to spend lots of music videos. In comparison to nowadays, music videos budgets are now about a fifth of what they were ten (10) years ago. There are many reasons why music video budgets have dropped, the main being because of the online age coming around, this therefore meant homemade music videos can be produced a lot easier, meaning it can be done for cheaper. Also anyone can easily post music videos online, meaning there is less security and therefore music videos can be accessed easily for free, meaning there is no money coming back to the record companies. Also piracy is a big issue, as it means that people can stream music for free, this means that they can view the music video for free online, and also then stream the song itself for free without buying the track, as a result meaning the record labels again aren't making any money, reducing there total capital and therefore there budget for spending on the production of music videos.

R&B Music Videos- These sort of music videos tend to be the most expensive music videos to make. When we watch these sort of videos, generic conventions of the genre that us as an audience expect to see are expensive cars, large houses and alcohol. This means music videos for this genre tend to be very expensive to produce and therefore only large mainstream record labels can afford to still produce these sort of music videos.

Rock Music Videos- This music video tends to consist of simulated performances from the band, and/or lots of clips from the band performing in recent concerts that have been edited together to form a montage of clips. These music videos are usually cheaper to make, and will usually show off the band and there ability to play live music (often showing members of the band playing different musical instruments).

Country Music Videos- Tend to be set outdoors and will usually have the band or artists in the shots. Often very performance based. These are again cheaper to make and will often be produced by smaller, niche record labels.

Pop Music Videos- These music videos are usually performance based. Often we will see the band in similar clothing that makes them look like a band. Incorporated in the music video will often be a dance routine as well.

Extra Research: Models within the Media

There are various different models in the media which all try to explain the effects media has on an audience. There are four main media models which are explained below:

- Hypodermic Needle Theory is a theory that suggests, ideas that the media pose are directly injected and consumed by the audience. An example would be when a newspaper is telling the audience who to vote for.

- Two Step Flow Model is a theory that suggests the audience aren't directly influenced by the media. Instead the theory says that individuals are influenced by them who surround them who they look up to and admire (an example being a friend). An example of this would be someone watches a music video, they say they like it, and in turn the person who looks up to them would then go and watch it, and agree, even if they didn't like it that much. This is based around the idea people can be influenced by others who they look up to and admire. 

- Cultural Effects Theory approaches the idea of media influencing it's audiences very differently. This theory suggests that media does influence people, however it is a slow process that builds up over time by consuming more and more of a certain idea that the media is pushing. An example of this would be that the world is heating up by Global Warming. The audience then starts to believe this over time as more and more articles and opinions on this matter are shared in the media. However, we don't know this for fact and it could just be that we are going through the geological time scale and we are always changing temperature as we pass through stages in the geological timeline. 

- Uses and Gratifications Model argues that the audiences use media as a way of meeting needs. There are four main stages that this model says people need, they are: 

• Information
• Personal Identity 
• Social Interaction
• Entertainment

The theory suggests an audience watches media products in order to fulfill one or more of these things. 

Extra Research: Censorship on Music Videos

Censorship of music is where either songs as a whole, or just certain words have to be blanked out, or changed in order to enable audiences to be able to listen to the music without it potentially offending certain audiences.

Therefore, in order to allow for music to be played ans therefore consumed by audiences, it is common for the institution that is the platform between music and the audience to censor certain things, such as profanities (swear words). Also some artists may release two versions of the song, one usually being a clean version, which therefore allows it to be played on the radio, television stations and other music platforms. It is in the interest of the artist to be able to have there music played on every platform possible, as it means more people will in turn hear there music, so most artists will ensure if there song could be classed as offensive, a clean version is also released.

Other ways of ensuring music stations won't refuse to play artists music is by artists doing some of the following:

However, although most artists try and ensure there track can be played on every platform available, there have been many tracks that have been rejected and not aired by large music platforms, for example MTV. An example can be found below.

Sex Pistols- God Save The Queen. It was released by Virgin Records in 1977, this coincided with the Queens Silver Jubilee. Some stations considered the lyrics to be offensive and therefore did not play the track. The main station being BBC Radio 1 that banned it from airplay.



Other songs have to have some words changed or cut out in order to be played on some music stations, this is more popular than banning a song completely. Some examples of this are:

Kayne West- Gold Digger. It was released in 2005, the song lead to controversy regarding a certain line in the song. The lyrics were 'She ain't messing with no broke nigga'. Many stations, due to the racist term, would not play this, and therefore the lyric was changed to 'She ain't messing with no broke bloke'. This then made it acceptable to play.

James Blunt- You're Beautiful. This song had expletive lyrics in it, which were changed from 'She could tell from my face that I was f*****g high' to 'She could tell from my face that I was flying high'.

Lady Gaga- Finally, Lady Gaga's song 'Love Game' was one of the most controversial songs to recently be played on radio. Some of the lyrics can have potential sexual suggestions to them, for instance, 'I wanna take a ride on your disco stick'. This lead to certain radio stations having bad press, regarding the times they were airing this song (during peak listening times and times when younger audiences tend to listen) and whether it was acceptable or not to do so.

Other reasons for censorship are:

Religious Issues- Lady Gaga, Judas. It was banned from playing in Lebanon, a country in Western Asia as the lyrics were seen to be offensive to Christianity.

Political Issues- In D12's song Rap game, Eminem uses lyrics which can be interpreted as him threatening to destroy the White House and also to kill a member of the United State Congress. This is illegal and meant on both his explicit album version and radio version, this had to be censored. 

Music Video Censorship

Not only the track itself have to be censored, sometimes the music videos for these songs have to be censored as well. The main reasons for this is if music videos contain anything related towards drugs, sex, nudity, violence, weapons, homophobia and racism. Some examples of this are:

Robbie Williams Music Video for the song 'Rock DJ' which was released in 2000. The ending to the music video was censored as it saw Robbie removing his prosthetic skin, however this was seen as being 'heavy gore' which could potentially harm viewers. Therefore, this was heavily censored.



Rihanna's music video for her 2011 hit 'We Found Love' was censored after viewers complained about distressing and potentially harmful and influential scenes to younger audiences that she attracts and is a role model too. The music video contained scenes of Rihanna getting undressed, throwing up on the streets, the use of pills and drugs and moving images of her and her boyfriend, at the time Chris Brown, fighting. This therefore lead to music video platforms censoring it, for instance MTV changing and censoring parts, while French authorities actually banned the music video from being played in France before 10 pm on television.



Some music videos have actually been banned from being played at all, MTV for example have banned certain music videos, examples include:

'S&M' by Rihanna was initially restricted from certain times of being aired, however was later banned due to 'suggestive sexual scenes'.


The song 'Justify My Love' by Madonna was banned from being played on MTV. This was due to sexual scenes and references as well, however, the music video later became a 'bestselling' video single when it was released as a VHS (Video Home System) which allowed audiences to buy and view it if they wished too.



Music Videos are nowadays similar to films. They get age ratings based on the music video, making it easier to stop younger people from accessing explicit images. Currently there is only 3 UK record labels who participate and are carrying this process out as part of a 3 month trial into the system. If this overall seems to have been successful, we could see it being bought in across the entire music video market. The main problem with this system is that it is hard to enforce such a rule, and to carry this out for every single music video.

Overall, this helps me when making my music video because it helps me understand how censorship is important, and the problems that can arise should your music video not meet expected standards and therefore not be aired on music video platforms such as MTV. It means when producing our music video, I must ensure nothing offensive or any of the other reasons music videos can be banned or have specific air time hours which leads to reduced airtime and therefore reduced total viewings. If this was to happen, it could affect the way the music video engages with audiences and instead of engaging audiences and make them want to see it, do the opposite and deter them as they may find it offensive.