Music Video Analysis - The Bird and the Worm - The Used

The Bird and the Worm music video by The Used is one of my all time favourite music videos. In all music videos you have the three aspects of video: Performance, narrative and concept. I find it is a very rare thing to find a decent music video that effetively has all three. The Bird and the Worm is exactly that, a combination of the three aspects to create a piece to be marvelled at in the end. The themes within the video are the idea's of paranoia. Having the most powerful enemy in your life is the darker person lying inside one's self and the conflict within your own mind. Another interesting concept idea of the bird and the worm is that it is part of the cycle of life. Whereas when the bird is alive and strong it preys on the worm, but when it is weak and finally dies, the worm eats the bird. There is a switching of the dominant species within this cycle. Both could be linked to the lighter and darker aspects of one's psyche, represented by the singer in this video having his lighter side with blonde hair and his darker side with black hair.

The video begins looking through an eye hole in a door. This invention in itself is so one can spy on what is going on outside the door, to view who is outside. The music does not play for the first scene. The band are walking through a crowd of people signing autographs. A dark figure in a hood approaches the singer. The singer turns to face him and the figure slashes him across the wrist drawing blood. The singer rushes past the crowd into the apartment and just as he's shut the door, we have a close up shot of his wrist and see the blood drain back into his skin as if it never happened. This is the idea of paranoia and fear really coming forth. The music begins from his entrance into his apartment. The performance aspect of the video takes place in a fictional room (I imagine would be in his head with his paranoid thoughts). As the vocals come in it flicks to a sideways medium close up of the singers head as he begins singing. He is in this fictional room. As we flick back to the narrative/concept side of the video we see him sit down on the sofa with his hood up, obviously shocked, scared and very unstable. We see this with the way he looks around while stroking at his hair, giving him a timid look.

We get a decent look at the fictional performance room in the next scene. It has a very dark and damp, horror genre appearance. The shadows of dead trees cover the walls and the ceiling. Lighting is minimal and dark, coming from behind and to the sides of the band giving the place a very eerie look. This could relate to his imagination and his mental well being. He is not healthy, there is something wrong about him. There is a real sense that the character the singer is portraying, is cearly suffering trying to hold on to his sanity. The lights glow brighter and then darker, really accentuating the tree's shadowing of the room, enforcing the eeriness of the place. Flashing lights add to the effect creating a harsh environmental atmosphere. This whole section of the video is the first chorus.

As the next verse follows we go back again to the dank apartment room, also rather dreary, drab and dull, to see the singer peering out through the eye hole in the door. We see for the first time the figure of the personified "worm". He moves unnaturally around the corridor outside the room. We cannot see his face. The camera flashes to an extreme close up of an eye staring directly into the camera. After this the singer approaches a mirror and looks at himself. After pulling down his hood we see that they are not the same people. One is his lighter version with blonde hair, one his darker version with black hair. After holding their hands to the mirror connecting one another, the black haired version tries to pull the blonde haired version through the mirror. A kind of tug of war ensues. This gives the impression of a loss of sanity and a battle within the singer's own mind, trying to keep control of himself in his own crazy world. Some of the glass falls on the floor but takes the form of water. Within we can see the singer's face. This could be a common fear for people with severe paranoia, to fear reflections and even that they can see others watching them in droplets of water, like eyes etc. This happens while frequently flicking back to the performance horror room with increasing flashes and shot switching. This is a similar scene to one a few seconds later in which both versions of the singer are wearing two of the same coat, connected at the tail, trying to pull in opposite directions, trying to win control.

At the breakdown of the song we briefly see the singer get dragged INTO the sofa, into a whole new world of water. He is fully submerged within the apparent lake within his sofa as the song starts building to the second part of the breakdown. Into the apartment now without the singer in it, the other band members walk in and there seems to be a distortion of gravity within the room. They are leaning against the ceiling, bouncing things of the walls and climbing around trying to gain balance. In the room approaches a man with a feathery head dress hanging off him. This seems to be a possible version of the "bird" character. We see flashes of a "worm" character in the water world the singer is in, but only silhouettes. This gives him a very creepy atmospheric presence. At the start of the second part of the breakdown, distinct by its sudden build up and climax, the music takes a heavy turn. Through this heavy turn, we see the worm in darkness, illuminated by sudden flashes as he crawls towards the camera and flailing around on the floor. This is quite a horrific scene as far as music videos go and almost twisted. We see his face only a few times, his mouth seems to be covered with some sort of scaly cover. Almost as if he can't talk, he can't express himself, he is alone and totally out of his mind. Through sporadic camera shots from long shots, mid shots and close ups to enhance the atmosphere of horror, he crawls with eyeless sockets as we see flashes of the singer trying to escape his watery prison in the sofa. As he emerges, the darker version grabs him and forces him back under. A truly tortourous experience.

As the breakdown ends, we get a close up of the singer in the performance room singing towards the camera. His hand actions and facial expressions really deliver the concept that he is going crazy. For this section only the lyrics are heard with a small accompanyment from small minor instruments (not played by the immediate band in their performance room). This creates a creepy build-up to the final chorus. During this final chorus, the flashes are at the most they've been in the duration of the video, the band members are acting more aggressive, flailing with guitars, smashing away at drums and the singer leaping around with crazed abandon. The singer in the narrative/concept part of the video is dragged out the sofa and laid on the ground by the "bird" character and given successful mouth to mouth resussitation. The "bird" effectively saves him. As he regains conciousness, the "bird" is gone. After sitting up on the sofa, now intact, the "bird" character returns, offering the singer a metal tray with what appears to be a chicken on it (or at least some form of bird). This brings up the idea that when the bird is dead, when left to decay the worm will have it's feed (the idea that sometimes you are on top, sometimes you are at the bottom, and of the cycle of life).

The finale see's the band in their performance room performing more aggressively than even the breakdown, all members screaming into their microphones, hammering hard on their instruments, with flashes, going berzerk and quick cuts over to the worm still crawling around in his dark dank place. The narrative character of the singer looks through the eye hole in the door one final time to see the worm crawling about in the corridor once more. With a flash to a mid close shot of the worm beckoning him outside. The singer runs to the corner of the room behind the door and hides from the band members who come in afterwards looking for him (I imagine after him running through the crowd to get to his room at the beginning of the video to see what was wrong with their friend's sudden strange behaviour). They don't see him and leave. The idea that the whole music video has taken place in the singer's mind during the duration the time it took his friends to walk from one side of the corridor to the other really plays on your mind. It gives you a taste of the insanity this music video offers. The last shot is an extreme close up of the worm eye flickering about as the eye hole is shut for the last time.

Music Video Analysis - Coming Undone - Korn

The Video opens to a Camera shot racing forward through a desert past the band name and the song title, spelt out in what appears as huge rock formations. This makes it very recognisable to the audience. The song theme is generally about what the title makes it out to be - "Coming Undone". Metal songs usually have the theme of stress and problems and life going wrong, out of your control within the songs of that genre. The only difference is that this video takes that concept a step further and visually displays the idea of the world falling apart around them. During the first verse the band are seen playing in the desert. The video is constantly in performance form and there is little narrative outside the concept of the world 'coming undone'. This video can be considered strongly conceptive. We begin to see cracks shooting up towards the sky, like a fissure or earthquake would make. They increase during the first verse up until the chorus.

As the chorus hits, the sky begins to fall around the band performing. Chunks plummet and smash around them and they sing "We are coming undone". This continues until the whole day light sky as broken away completely and reveals a night time sky underneath with hundreds of stars above them. They continue performing through the second verse as white cracks start shooting downwards in the form of lightning that is struck and frozen in place. Even when we see a crack appear the lighting flashes mimicking the idea of them seeming like lightning. There never appears a reason why this might be happening, but i believe it is either the impression that the music is so metal and heavy that its destroying existence around it, or that life is taking a turn for the worse and is literally just falling about beyond their control. Common themes within the metal genre. Shadowing the first verse/chorus of the song, as the chorus hits a second repetition, the night sky begins to descend around them crashing down and falling apart to reveal a solid white background.

During the bridge to the third and final verse, the concept is taken a step further as from an aerial shot we can see the ground begin falling away beneath them. Switching to an extreme long shot of the band, it gradually shows them standing seemingly on nothing, surrounded by white all around them. During a midshot of a the lead singer holding his hand up to the camera and singing the lyrics "I'm...trying to hold it together" we see his hand has begun to unravel itself as if it were strips of paper coming apart. We cut to more shots of the other band members and we see them begin to unravel as well. They continue playing until their unravelling cripples them to the point when they are falling in on themselves and eventually unravel into nothingness. This has quite high levels of serious concept philosophy almost as this concept is very similar to the ideas of ashes to ashes, dust to dust. No other music video has done this before. The originality of it keeps it very well remember and renowned amongst metal lovers.

Music Video Analysis - The Flood - Escape the Fate

The first scene of the music video shows a red car pulling up. Looking quite vintage and relatively rich, we expect the people within the car to immediately be relatively powerful in terms of either status or in the current situation. They pull up in the rain, get out and we see the band members disembark. This scene is filmed as an extreme longshot so we can see everything going on. They begin opening a large freight cargo container, at this point no music is playing. This draws the audience in, makes them curious as to what the plan are doing or planning. Inside the freight container we get a longshot of the interior of it as the lights turn on. We see the drum kit at the far end and the microphone at the front, giving away the purpose of the container, for the band to perform. The band members shuffle in, take up their instruments and positions and the song commences seconds after that. As the main riff of the song gets well underway the camera shimmers in and out of focus, empowering the sound of the band and the vocalists screamed lyrics, making them seem like some kind of physically powerful force. Camera angles vary dynamically, showing low angles looking up at the guitarist dive bombing his guitar (a term used amongst guitarists for holding fingers down on the fretboard and rushing down the length of it creating a sustained noise going down in pitch) and the drummer hammering away at the drums. The band take on very animalistic and almost feral appearances, showing their possession by the heavy music they love so much. All these small things work towards drawing the audience into the music as soon as possible, whilst watching this music video, and seeing the energy within each member of the band and their aggressive nature shadowing the music.

During particularly more heavy parts of the song for instance when the lead singer screams or the bassist leans over and screams, the camera again goes out of focus, to empower the vocalists. All the band members are wearing black and from the low angles used, it makes them all look very dark and imposing figures against the lights in the cargo container. The cameras flick from shot to shot, going in and out of focus frequently to almost disorientate the audience, to overwhelm them with things going on. It soon cuts to a shot of the lead singer in the rain and we get a medium close up shot of him singing, head hunched, making him look quite sinister in the rain. This style of quick changing shots, sudden close ups and switching in and out of focus continues to assault the audience in the same way until the breakdown.

The going out of focus for the breakdown starts to take a pattern, rather than doing it at the climax of the vocalists screaming etc, it now takes shape and follows the heavy "headbanging" riff. When the drums, bass and guitar all hit as one during the breakdown, the camera goes out of focus, again serving to make this part of the song seem that much more powerful. At the climax of the breakdown as the lead singer holds a prolonged screamed note, the camera shakes and remains out of focus. This is the most powerful part of the song, in terms of music AND visuals. When the breakdown finishes, we cut to a shot of the drummer hitting a cymbal and standing to grab it (drummers would do this to have a shortened version of a hit cymbal sound, used during a song when a sudden stop is needed), then a swap to a medium close up of the singer from the side holding his mic stand off the ground. At this point only he can be heard for the first line of the chorus, shortly followed by the rest of the band dropping back in after this emphasis of lyrics. With this it returns to the normal methods of the camera focusing and unfocusing with close ups and quick movements. Towards the end of the music video there is a low angled long shot of the whole container which effectively uses the camera to track back while zooming forward to had a distorted effect to the container's walls and the band members.
The video comes to a close with the guitarist having a close up of the final notes strummed and the singer in the rain on a fade out to black.

'Blood Of Heroes' - Myspace

Click here to visit the band's Myspace page!

CD Album Digi-Pack

Front Cover




Back Sleeve




Under CD




Back Cover

Music Video - 'Trust' - Storyboard

Music Video Evaluation

'Trust' - 'Blood Of Heroes' - Music Video

Star Profile - Linkin Park

Linkin Park are an American rock band (from California) that was started up by 3 high school friends in 1996. Linkin Park released its debut album - Hybrid Theory - a utilisation of the two musical genres nu metal and rap metal. At the time (2000) this was still a relatively new genre and got big publicity for its radio-friendly, yet densely-layered style. At this point, being relatively new, Linkin Park had that fresh look to them. They all dressed in casual-smart clothing, with several members featuring excentric hair styles. The drummer Rob Bourdon and the turntablist "Mr." Hahn especially would dress in closer to casual clothes but still sticking with colour schemes and had that alternative rock-ish look to them. At this point they had co-ordination within their appearance, but not too much of a common dress theme.



Their album concept cover from "Hybrid Theory" was mean't to represent the band's merge of two big genres, seemingly combining hip hop and metal, two genres that did not neccessarily go hand in hand with one another. The concept art on the front is a soldier running forward with a flag, with the artwork of additional insect styled wings on his back. Around this artwork are random graphiti stylings of writing, sticking with the grimey/alternative almost industrial look to the bands original appearance.



In 2003, Linkin park released their second album - Meteora - another combination of the two hard hitting genres which continued the band's great success, topped the Billboard 200 chart and went on to become the most successful album in the history of the Modern Rock Tracks chart.



The album cover style changes with this album. Using similar darker grimey colours, the cover creates an interesting concept of the act of graffiti. This sticks to the first album cover of the band's, with the graffiti writing decorating around the main concept artwork but takes it a step further. A very simple and smooth but somewhat compelling and indepth cover, represents the music within perhaps. The clothing and physical appearance themes the band uses for this album have completely changed. Whereas in the first album they seemed to be trying to find their theme in terms of black smart/casual clothing, something to show unison within the band, they now seem to have gone effectively in the opposite direction, at first glance at least.



The bands appearance and image changes for their second album. Linkin Park have deferred from their original appearance from their debut album with the smart/casual black shirts and hoodies to casual clothes matching the colours they use within their franchise, album covers and band artwork. Blues, greys and browns are commonly used, as seen in what they wear above. The lead singer Chester Bennington is not even wearing a single item of black clothing. This casual appearance shows how comfortable they are with their current status and allows them to be easier to be related to by their fans.





In 2006 Linkin Park began work on their third and latest current album, Minutes to Midnight. It ended up being delayed until later in 2007. The band announced before release that this album would stray from their original musical genre of nu-metal and that they would be trying something "new and different" for them. With this came changes in their physical image, the bands logo's and CD album cover artwork styles.



In Linkin Park's previous CD album cover artwork, darker and dull colours have been used, Hybrid theory using an animated concept for their cover, meteora using a smaller image of a graffiti-artist. This is the first album cover featuring the band themselves on, in the form of their silhouettes. This album cover is alot brighter, despite only using black and white shading on it. The figures of the band members are stood in a melancholy state against a white background. Above them is the new band logo of Linkin Park in bold black font. This simple usage of colours, figures and fonts grabs the attention of the audience effectively and quickly. It can be recognised at a distance easily.



As seen in this picture, the band's image has changed significantly. In contrast to the previous album image's of the band the difference can be seen very clearly. On the back cover of the Hybrid Theory album, various members of the band have rather excentric hair styles, colourings etc and are not wearing particularly similar clothes (some wearing grey hoodies, others wearing black button shirts). The band goes even further out of sync of similar clothing for meteora, wearing casual clothes, relatively dull in colour, hoodies, denim jackets etc. However, Minutes to Midnight see's the band take on their first unison of clothing and image style of the members. They are all dressed in black, including their hair colour. They've drifted back towards Hybrid Theory's more smart/casual appearance, black jackets, button tops, shirts and jumpers.

Linkin Park has remained a band with a serious look to them. Never in their album cover pictures have they been smiling or doing any of novelty or humour. They maintain eye contact with the audience in their pictures to add to the serious effect. Their clothing styles have changed throughout each of their albums as discussed and seen, moving from smart/casual (but still with that theme of rebellion) to the more casual dress (to seem alot more down to earth and serious) to then finally change again back to their original smart casual appearance however without the excentricity of their hair styles, giving them even more serious-ness in their image.

"Megadeth - Trust"

Lost in a dream
Nothing is what it seems
Searching my head
For the words that you said
Tears filled my eyes
As we said our last goodbyes
The sad scene replays
Of you walking away.

My body aches from mistakes
Betrayed by lust
We lied to each other so much
That in nothing we trust.

Time and again
She repeats lets be friends
I smile and say yes
Another truth bends,
I must confess.

I try to let go, but I know
Well never end til were dust
We lied to each other again
But I wish I could trust.

My body aches from mustakes
Betrayed by lust
We lied to each other so much
That in nothing we trust.

God help me please, on my knees
Betrayed by lust
We lied to each other so much
Now theres nothing we trust.

How could this be happening to me
Im lying when I say, trust me
I cant believe this is trueTrust hurts
Why does trust equal suffering.

Absolutely nothing we trust.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivqKTwmCmks

Meetings

Wednesday 09/09/09 - Meeting 1

Me and Chris could not agree on a particular song for our video. We sat down and listened to alot of songs within the music genre we had decided (rock - metal). From this, we began considering a Megadeth song - "Trust".


Thursday 10/09/09 - Meeting 2

The class sat down and each group took turns to go through their current ideas. With the use of feedback, everyone was helped to further decide or develop upon their original concepts and ideas. Suggestions were made and possibilities were considered and all in all, people were able to add a bit more detail to their plans. Miss Brookes elaborated on my boundaries of the useage of clothing (for example erotic clothing within the genre). After discussion, me and Chris agreed to use "Trust" by Megadeth song for our video. We are now beginning to form our concepts and ideas for the video around the song.


Friday 11/09/09 - Meeting 3

Chris had looked into whether or not "Trust - Megadeth" had a video already as we could not find one on youtube when we looked, however we had heard the mention of a video. Chris had found that a video definitely did exist and saw it but told me it was not anything special or well known. After discussing this with Miss Bond, we decided to continue with the video regardless. We started looking into other videos we liked the ideas of. "Eat You Alive - Limp Bizkit" was one of these. We liked the idea of how the song began in the video with it coming from the perspective of a girl tied up in a chair, with the camera blurring into focus to give the impression that she had just been kidnapped. We are going to continue looking into videos.


Tuesday 15/09/09 - Meeting 4

We were already aware that we might jeopardize marks for picking an already existant music video. Because of this, me and Chris decided to come up with an extra alternative for a video each. His song of choice was "Megadeth - Addicted to Chaos", a song relatively similar to "Megadeth - Trust". This mean't that we would not have to alter the video too much. My song of choice was "Pantera - Walk", another song of rock metal genre. We have plans for using an abandoned house in Kelvedon Hatch which belongs to a contact of Chris'. All three songs could have videos that would benefit from the usage of a run down house in the middle of no where. We are now beginning the process of getting all the songs lyrics, seeing how they line up with time and we will shortly begin forming out video story boards.


Wednesday 16/09/09 - Meeting 5

Alex is absent today. It has been confirmed that 'Trust' is the song we are going to do. Chris started on the annotation of the lyrics of 'Trust.'


Thursday 17/09/09 - Meeting 6

The entire video narrative is decided and the lyric annotation is complete. I wrote a letter to the producer of the original 'Trust' music video asking for official permission to still use the song.


Friday 18/09/09 - Meeting 7

Chris rung the owner of the building we wanted to film at but the price and hours he offered us to film were impractical to our schedule and insufficient. I went away to research into other locations for our filming and contacted one of my private contacts about a particular piece of property that looked very promising just beyond South Weald. Chris also agreed to this location and showed alot of interest. Storyboarding begun today.


Monday 21/09/09 - Meeting 8

After finalizing some of the details about our new location - a derelict nightclub located just off the motorway past South Weald, and confirming permission with my contact, we have decided on the members of our music video (band member-wise) and are discussing a date to begin filming. We still need to cast the part of the protagonist/villain/captor in our video.

Wednesday 23/09/09 - Meeting 9

We completed out risk assessment and continued work on our story board. We have thought about the potentially scheduling our first filming session in the next 2 weeks, likely to be Sunday - 4/10/09.

Friday 25/09/09 - Meeting 10

We have decided the date of our first filming session to be sunday 4/10/09 and are eagerly awaiting it. We know what we need to bring (drum kit, 2 electric guitars, bass guitar, 4 members of band) and are planning forms of transportation. We would have planned the shoot for the day after tomorrow of sunday 27/09/09, however our drummer has recently been in hospital for an operation and is still recovering.

Tuesday 29/09/09 - Meeting 11

We begun our filming schedule for filming this sunday. The plan is to focus on the performance side of the video, showing the band playing together. Chris (acting as guitarist) will arrive with Andy (bassist) and the bass guitar, an eletric guitar and the drum kit. They will arrive before myself and Matt to set up the drum kit. Me and Matt will meet them there with drum sticks (2 pairs, to be safe incase one set breaks) and the other electric guitar. All is planned and we await sunday.

Work completed on animated storyboards. (Link of story board needed)

Friday 2/10/09 - Meeting 13
Wednesday 30/09/09 - Meeting 12


Planning for the day of filming. Chris is going to pick up Andy and the drum kit on Saturday night, Andy is going to stay over Chris', we go to the location in the morning and set up the drum kit. I am going to pick up the tipod from Lila tomorow and Matt will meet me in the morning and we will arrive at the filming location together.

Sunday 4/10/09 - Meeting 14 (First day of filming)

When Chris and Andy arrived they inspected the premises and set up the drum kit. When myself and Matt arrived we begun filming, starting with shot 5. We filmed all the bands hots used in the introduction, first verse and first chorus.

Monday 5/10/09 - Meeting 15

We uploaded the footage from out first day of filming and begun choosing our favorite takes. We've decided to start filming again on
11th October. Steven Wager's dad will supply transportation for Chris, Fiona (our actress) and the drum kit. In exchange for this Me and Chris will act in Steven's music video.

Wednesday 7/10/09 - Meeting 16

We have confirmed that we can get transportation from Steven's dad and Fiona is avaliable. Today we chose our CD cover and band name: 'Blood of Heroes'

Thursday 8/10/09 - Meeting 17

Today we focused on updating our blogs. Chris called Andy who will call him tomorow to confirm if he is definitely avaliable for Sunday.

Sunday 11/10/09 - Meeting 18

Today focused primarily on filming the performance/drama based scenes. We had problems with a lack of time to film and unpredictable weather.

Tuesday 13/10/09 - Meeting 19

A lot of shouting and argueing about the previous meeting. Chris was concerned about the quality of the footage filmed and felt as if not enough time had been allowed to film. I felt as if Chris was deliberatly ignoring any suggestions. We went thorugh the footage but were unable to upload any due to problems with the software. After viewing footage on the camera I thought it looked pretty effective and useful afterall.

Friday 16/10/09 - Meeting 20

Continued work on the blog and planned what was expected to be our final shoot to obtain our final bits and bobs of footage for the performance side of the video.

Sunday 18/10/09 - Meeting 21

Third day and final day of filming up at the site. After resolving our problems about the last shoot, we arrive with positive attitudes about finishing this video. Our positive attitudes held through even when we discovered that several of the bolts needed to support and hold together the drum kit had not been brought. We used our fine enginuity and quick-thinking initiative to replace the needed bolts with bendy twigs and sticks to balance and keep the drum kit in one piece. All remaining footage needed shot.

22/10/09 - Meeting 22

Uploading of all our footage onto the computer begins and we start to become familiarised with Adobe Premiere.

Meetings 4/11/09 - 20/11/09

During this time period, all time spent in class editting video.

Meetings 8 - 9 - 10/12/09

I am absent for the first of these three days. Chris made a start on the myspace and the album cover digi-pack. We finished off these tasks messing around with different possibilities and adjusting the levels of contrast and brightness.

CD Covers

Bullet For My Valentine - "The Poison" - Album Cover Analysis

This album cover is very effective in putting across the concept of the band name for the release of their debut album. The background of the cover is black, with the only other colour (besides the band name/logo in white) in it being the colour red (which usually represents anger/violence/blood). The red is used to show the light on the girl lying dead with the splatters of blood on the floor. This makes the body the most visible thing to us on the cover. It arises the immediate question of how did she die? Murder or suicide? We can see the shadow of her assumed lover over her corpse. We suspect that somehow he is the cause of her death, whether he was the one who actually killed her or he did something that pushed her to kill herself. His right arm is being used to lean against the wall as if it has pained him to witness this sight of his dead loved one. Personally I feel pulled towards the possibility the girl committed suicide as the way the gun in the band’s logo has been positioned next to the out stretched hand of the girl. Coincidental or well planned co ordination of the album cover makes it look as if she’s been the one to use and drop the gun.
Another aspect of the cover to think about is the position of the man’s shadow on her body. It looks like the girl is lying naked on the floor aside from her shoes. This gives the idea that the man was a part of her, was what kept her safe maybe, warm, comfortable. Now she is dead and likely to be because of him. All of this gives us the strong impression that all this emotion and violence is reflected in the band’s music.

Brad Paisley - Mud on the Tires - Album Cover Analysis

Brad Paisley is a pop country singer and is predominantly a solo artist. The majority of his songs are about the various aspects of life related to romance, happiness and growing up. He has been known to stray from these themes occasionally for duet songs. The album cover for Brad Paisley’s album ‘Mud on the Tires’ shows him in a white suit and hat sitting down in the mud in front of his red truck with his guitar. The red truck symbolises his Americanism as a country singer and his guitar is also red to coincide with this colour scheme. The instant message we get from him sitting covered in the mud playing guitar with his ruined pristine white suit is that he does not care; he has a visible passion for the music he plays and guitar, money is of little importance to him and he is all for enjoying his life in the ways that make him happy. From this alone we get quite a hint of what kind of guy he is; care free and a lover of life. There is no fancy concept or art work, just the metaphoric meanings behind the picture. To add to the effect of the white suit, most people would say white is quite a particular colour to wear as the slightest marks or patches of dirt are extremely visible. This is taking a mockery of as he is literally caked in mud.
Something that also adds to his image and explanation of what kind of person he is and music he plays is his guitar model. His guitar seems to be a similar model to that of a Gibson ES355, a very stereotypical guitar of a jazz/folk/country artist. An alternative metaphor for Paisley’s suit is its colour. White is usually a symbol of moral correctness, purity or innocence. The suit he is wearing signifies that that is what he should be. However the mud that has ruined his pristine clean suit are the things he has had to do to fulfil his life and live it to the full that others might consider a staining not only of the suit, but of morals and good ethics.

Fightstar - "Grand Unification" - Album Cover Analysis

My first album cover of analysis is ‘Grand Unification’. This is the debut album from the alternative band Fightstar. The first thing we see in the image is the figures of two females (one child and one adult). We get the hint that they are Japanese as the adult female is holding a Japanese style umbrella and wearing Japanese styled gowns. The two figures have their backs to us, looking forwards, out and around them. We see the general sight that they do; they are surrounded by the destruction of skyscrapers and large buildings and the flooding of a big city. The two females are positioned on an elevated piece of ground up a stair case, but even then only just out of the reach of the waves beneath them. This is quite symbolic and could be one of the examples of the unification. They have nowhere to go and are perched on the edge of destruction. However they seem to have accepted what is going on around them and are just holding one another’s hand. We assume from this that they are mother and daughter. It looks as if they seem calm because of this, the fact that even though there is all of this destruction encircling around them, because they stand unified together, it does not matter, as long as they are together.
The sun in this image also stands out effectively. Because of its orangey glow it gives us the impression that it is the evening and the sun is setting. This presents a rather tranquil atmosphere, despite the destruction the sun shines down upon. If this does not appear to the viewer then the glow could be seen as a particularly ominous effect instead. The suns orangey yellow dim glow creates the imagery of an explosion. This goes well as the sun illuminates the state of destruction that has befallen the city in the background. It seems that even though all the destruction has taken place around the two, the whole world seems so peaceful. This might be the effect the ‘grand unification’ between the mother and the daughter. As long as they have one another, nothing else matters.

Music Video No. 1