The XX - Analysis

Artist: The XX
Album: Coexist

Digipack: This is the album artwork for the xx’s album coexist. It is a fairly plain album cover there is nothing really to it. It is a plain white background with a cut out of an X in the centre. I believe that this is the most important aspect of the album, that the simplicity of it all will draw people in. The X will represent the name of the band more than anything. One of their main songs off the album is “angels” and that as a music video to it. The image/pattern within the X on the cover looks as if it is taken from the video of that song. The song “angel” creating the message of something pure and innocent and the background colour of white backs up that message. It creates a strong powerful meaning, not only to that song, but to the whole album. And it has been done in a very subtle way. The artwork is not big, bold and in your face. It is toned down compared to some other album artworks. It only uses a few colours, that makes it good in that sense and by using a limited amount of colours it still manages to carry a good strong message with it.

In our album artwork we also plan to make it a fairly plain cover. We don’t want it to be a really bad mix of lots of different colours. We want to keep it plain and simple. Similar to this one. We want to use a limited colour scheme, colours that link well with each other and colours that represent the artist and most of all appeal to our target audience. When it comes to creating the artwork we will most likely be conducting a questionnaire on our target audience to determine what colours will appeal to them when they are looking at album artworks on the shelves. And from the results we will choose the colours for our artwork. It is important to us that we appeal to our target audience but also represents the artist.

I think unlike this cover we will have the artist on the cover. She will be the focal point of the cover. We will aim to dress the artist in an outfit that best describes her. One that shows her style with a quick glance. As well as showing what she stands for and what she believes in the outfit will also have to represent our target audience. The artist will have to somehow, in the way she dresses, appeal to her audience in more ways than just her music.

Advert Analysis: This is an amazon advert for the xx’s album ‘heart skips a beat’

The advert is dominated by one main image and the text is placed around that image. It is an image of a back alley which has a large piece of graffiti on the wall. On the floor there are old cables and an old, broken bike. The scene made out in the image reflects the image of their band and appeals to their target audience: gritty, young and down to earth people. Its nothing flash and wildly in your face colour wise, and I think this is done to show the pace of their music.

I think that all of this can be transferred into our music video. We can choose a location that reflects the background of our artist. The scene we set can show what sort of background she came from. It’ll give an indication on what she has had to go through to get to where she is now. We can use a colour scheme that represents her as an artist and will also appeal to our target audience.

The xx  - Angels

This is a song by the xx called 'Angels'. I think that this artist is very similar to the one that we have chosen, Daughter. I think that we can use this video and make comparisons to what we should be doing in our music video. The song is a very slow paced song and that is given off with the fact that there is only one take throughout the video. It is like you are looking at the sky through murky water. All that happens throughout the video is that there seems to be a ripple effect from the water. This could indicate that she is trying to break free from the water and be with that person she wants to be with, but she just can’t quite get there. As there is no people in this video I can’t really comment on the mise en scene that is used. Only that there is the sky as the main location. Which reflects the name of the song. Because in the sky is where the angels live and that is where this person wants to be.

There aren't many things we could potentially use from this video. We will be using a lot more takes than there is in this one. However our takes will be lengthy takes as it is a slow song and it wouldn't fit if there were lots of fast jumpy edits throughout the song. It will be a slow paced video, but not to the extreme that this is taken to. Unlike this video we will be using a range of different camera angles and using different camera movements. We will be using close ups to show the emotion of the actors in our video. Because we want to portray loneliness in the video we will be using a lot of wide/master shots to really emphasise how alone she really is. Also we will use some P.O.V shots to show how she sees and perceives the world.