Album cover analysis

Oasis's debut album Definitely Maybe breaks most of the conventions of your stereotypical album cover as no one is looking at the camera as well as no one being the main focus, apart from maybe Liam as he is in the center. We see that Noel has an acoustic guitar which tells us that they are a guitar band but that is the only connotations we can draw from the cover.The font is quite simplistic and easy to read and the classic Oasis logo is also featured so it is recognizable giving the band a brand. The lighting is very naturalistic as this sticks to the simplistic style of the album. There is also a photo of former Man City player Rodney Marsh, this ties in with Oasis's down to earth Manchester roots.

(What's The Story) Morning Glory? is again quite an abstract album cover from Oasis. They use very bold simple text this time to make it stand out and again have their Oasis logo as to keep with the brand. The lighting is again naturalistic and shows two men (DJ Sean Rowley and producer Owen Morris) walking down Berwick Street in London. This street was chosen because there was a lot of record stores there at the time. The men are dressed in the same style as Liam and Noel Gallagher keeping to the indie conventions and are also shot out of focus.





Arctic Monkeys's humbug album cover shows all the band in shot. Much like Oasis's definitely maybe none of the members are the main focus, and drummer Matt Helders is taking a lot more of the focus than lead singer Alex Turner. The lighting is quite dark and an image of  one of the band members is repeated in the mirror. The photo image itself is faded over itself so we can see Matt Helders twice as well. The font is quite simplistic and not in the center of the frame at all, going against most album cover conventions. Also the title Humbug is not even featured on the cover which is quite strange for an album.





Again Arctic Monkeys album cover Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not does not feature the album title. Like Oasis's two covers it shows a logo that became a brand. Strangely this cover shows no members of the band at all. This is very different to most conventions as this was the Arctic Monkeys debut album and you would think that they would have wanted to get their image out to the public. The photo has been edited to black and white and is quite a dark image as the central character smoking seems to be quite down, which you would think would not be a good advertisement for the band.






Blur: The Best Of shows each member of the band in a profile shot that has been edited to look like a cartoon. It is very bright and colourful so it catches the eye. There is no text on the cover at all so it features no band or album name. This album stands out a lot more than the rest, it also breaks the dark bleak look of most of the other indie bands styled album covers. In my personal opinion I think this cover is a lot more successful than the rest because it is the most eye catching and I think I will take the most inspiration from this when designing my own album cover.

The Pitch
1- We would use the track 'Ritz to Rubble' by the Arctic Monkeys as this fits in with our genre and does not have an original video. There would be two narratives the first would be our band singing the song in a black and white edit using different colour's to make the instruments stand out. We would also close up on the individual members of the band and get shots from different angles of them playing. The second narrative would be the lead singer walking home from a rough night out with a black eye and a ripped up shirt, this would go with the song as it is all about the day after a night out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTSaUYSyvqI&safe=active
2- Our second pitch would be a parody video of the Wizard of Oz. We would cover the Arctic Monkeys old yellow bricks in costumes from the film (Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion). It would be a humorous video shot on green screen using clips from the film as the background.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLaeOrDmWQ4&safe=active
3- The third pitch would be a 'Bitter sweet symphony' style video where we would have the lead singer lip sinking Oasis's 'Acquiesce' as he walked through the busy streets of the town centre. We would use rewind and fast forward edits on the video to give the effect of time passing and going slower we would also use different colour tints on the lens to make the viewer feel different emotions as they are watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09zBftEqBN0&safe=active