Showing posts with label lyrics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lyrics. Show all posts

Thursday, 22 February 2018

DIGIPAK - My Influences

not have Suede on it, as they have mostly always done and continue to do so, as well as indie acts Kraftklub, Interpol, Arctic Monkeys (numerous other      artists often also do it later when they have established their image, they can go for more artistic album artwork, Queen did this with Innuendo, Rihanna did it with Anti) Fifth Harmony continue to put themselves on their albums 

REAR COVER
Not have the length and maybe not even have a number, links that they can be played in whatever order like (so that actually is an interesting compromise with streaming culture)

or:
Really divide it like Night Thoughts was, that it has thematic and musical drifts, and thereby have them numbered.

SPINE
For artistic variety have the titles be in different colour and maybe even different case and font, as I have seen in examples like Kate Bush's Aerial.

INSIDE
Have some landscape shots of the city, need to choose what goes outside and inside. Like the landscape shots in Björk's Bastards


SOME FORM OF PROSE OR POETRY
A Sort of prequel and taster like the poem which was also featured in the trailer (could do the same with a trailer of mine). Package
Could also be very unconventional and not have the track listing on the black, and juts this letter

Then the track listing would be inside.


LYRIC BOOKLET
Each song is its own little world, with characters, like the Führerling in Sadie, Beautiful Ones remix bunch of kids? Can't Get Enough Nissi's character Attitude or Duchess the White Made-Up character 
If I can find a song about decadence, the rich, the privileged, and have really shiny photos of buildings like in Kirchberg.
Like George Michael's *Insert title* and David Bowie's Outside, but have the lyrics on the images unlike with George Michael's where they are separated.
Some of these can be gestured as short vids on Instagram and Facebook like Halsey did with Strangers. 
So generally create a fictional illusion, unlike a foreword about the Songs like in Rise Againt's Long Forgotten Songs which maintains the real world behind the songs.
Also have some landscape shots inebetween.
Should I number the pages (like I saw in Caravan's Palace)

Don't have them all vertical, have some horizontal, turned, like in Bowie's Reality, sort of done in Suede's Bloodsports. Don't make it look all neat and orderly, bit chaotic and unsettling for the fictional narrative this album has. 

Instead of having all the lyrics, have excerpts like in Lana Del Rey's Ultraviolence, without the title of the song
Then followed by 

SHOTS
High angles of buildings, to be edited in Photoshop to be cut off. 


FONTS
THE CURRENT SUEDE
Has mostly been used in white, but also in black.
I want to break away from this font, so rebrand it in a way.

ALTERNATIVES
Different simple, slightly non-serif fonts like with Kraftklub.

HONEYBLOOD - BABES NEVER DIE
Squiggly, slightly child-like font.

...













Have all the information that is usually above aside, leaves space for the tracks to go all the way down (Bowie did it with only the barcode with 1.Outside, Yeah Yeah Yeahs did with all the information:






...

Saturday, 16 December 2017

INDIE DP #3: Kraftklub - Keine Nacht Für Niemand

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE:
  • The colour of black in my case for Suede as general branding


ACT: Kraftklub
FULL TITLE: Keine Nacht Für Niemand 
                                           (No Night For No One, an intertextual pun on this album title)
YEAR: 2017
TYPE OF ALBUM: Third studio album
DESIGN: 
PHOTOGRAPHY: 

GENRE: Indie rock, Sprechgesang
LABEL: Vertigo (owned by UMG)

Un unwrapping video:

BRANDING
The choice of the colour red fits with the general look and rebranding, their previous album had been black, wearing black costume (the name even being In Schwarz = In Black).
They are now wearing red costumes, in all their music videos and their live performances (however as I discovered when I watched them live they take these off half-way through and underneath is their original classic look)

FRONT COVER:
The theme of the album title: "No night for one", meaning not getting any sleep, is represented through. This could be seen as a cultural code as it can be common to put matches between your eyes to keep yourself awake 
Same colour, font and case (upper), however very different in sizes.






INSIDE:
The opening track of the album, Band mit dem K, is an sarcastic take on the God-like status of bands, with lyrics such as "Through your bras onto our altar" "That's no spotlight, that's a halo". Also the lyric: "Meet us at the bar, we drink W-O-D-K-A" would seem to heavily suggest this whole image is a representation of that song, there can be a relationship between record sleeve and lyrics as well, like Goodwin said about music video.

...





Tuesday, 28 November 2017

PLANNING - Lyric Timing Sheet

00:00 - 00:35 INSTRUMENTAL INTRO
Good chances to use some 
At 00:24 it gets louder, erupting-like, at 0:25 we get vocals: "Ewoahoooh"

00:36 - 01:04    VERSE 1
01:05 - 01:06   INSTRUMENTAL
01:07 - 01:11  CHORUS - Lyric Part I
01:11 - 01:14 CHORUS INSTRUMENTAL
01:14 - 01:19 CHORUS - Lyric Part II
01:19 - 01:22 CHORUS INSTRUMENTAL
01:23 - 01:51 VERSE 2
01:50: Backing Vocal 
01:52 - 01:53 INSTRUMENTAL
01:53 - 02:06 CHORUS
02:07 - 02:10 CHORUS INSTRUMENTAL
02:10 - 02:26 INSTRUMENTAL BRIDGE
02:27 - 02:28 BRIDGE LYRIC: "One, two"
02:29 - 02:42 CHORUS
02:42 - 02:45 CHORUS INSTRUMENTAL
02:46 - 03:14 VERSE 3
03:14 - 03:16 INSTRUMENTAL
03:16 - 03:45 CHORUS at 03:45 final lyric 
03:46 - End OUTRO

Tuesday, 21 November 2017

DIGIPAK RESEARCH - Conventions Summary

RESEARCH FOR FONTS:

FRONT COVER 
  1. Act Name
  2. Album Name, question whether they are the same in size, font, colour, case
  3. Artist on there or not?
  4. You don' have the designer of the album artwork on there, the only exception I have seen so far is Andy Warhol, as he was an artist with great repute 
  5. You also will almost never have the name of the tracks on the front, I have seen two exceptions so far, Moloko's and The Pixies's Head Carrier
  6. Sometimes different parts of an album might be given seperate names 
BACK
  • Track Names
  • + Numbered
  • + Length (in brackets On and off)
  • ISBN-Number 
  • Cast + Crew of the Music in Smallprint 
  • Album Artwork Staff
TYPES OF TRACKS:
  • The full track or a radio edit 
  • previously unreleased demo (like Space Oddity on Sound + Version)
  • Cover of a different artists's song
  • A remix by a different artist (check whether it is often the same Big 3 or even the same record label)
  • A new mix by the act 
It is a strictly followed convention that the track listing will always be at the back, however there are two examples (I know of) where the track titles are at the front, Moloko's Catalogue and The Pixies's Head Carrier.

SPINE
Name of artist and album 

LYRIC BOOKLET

PRESENCE OF THE ARTIST
Can be on the front or not. For bands it is never the case that only the lead singer will be on the, even though some music videos only have the lead singer in them.

TITLES
Font
Bold, Italic or Underlined 
Size
Colour 
Upper-Case or Lower-Case
Straight or turned around anyway?

The name of the artist and the album, can only be one or

Even artist name doesn't have to be one word. 


CLASS NOTES:
Outer, front and rear
Inner, left and right

REAR 

Track-listing, with or without length of 

INSIDE:

Very common to repeat the track list.
Written, produced and copyright (+ year) on the inside 
Covers are listed among the tracks.

Bonus track

Quirkiness 

NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS 

Common aspect to have a bonus video: Live Performance, Making Of, Documentary, have a sticker on it.

The different brands: Virgin, Available on iTunes, CompactDisc, Barcode, QR Code, Copyright statement, long, must avoid screenshotting and pasting in an existing one.

The P + C for Copyright will be on there as well.
COMPACT DISC: Digital logos.

Sometimes they'll be exclusives with Apple, Exclusive Edition to Amazon 

Play.Com, Major Online Retailer 
You can find Barcode Generators.
QR Code can link to the shop on your website.

There often is a link between front and rear cover, doesn't have to be an exact match.

One option is a flowing image, like Faithless.
Copy the blurbs on previous released from you artist.
Could do a second one, Remixes Album.
Get Shot Variety in
Suede's Bloodsports, lyric booklet was also a poster.

Parental Advice


Don't use a white barcode, machines are designed to look for black.

SPINE

Artist + Album Name
Record Label Logo
Catalogue Number (Not the ISBN)

Second Logo

Something "Damn Punchy"

Small Detail: Small MP3 download extra.
Elliptical images, while the subject is moving
Branding for website, what's the background gonna be like?
Take time and care with fonts
Download fonts, try them out and get audience feedback.
Any informal style, lots of paper stuck up on notice board.
What kind of story are you telling, it's story + attitude 

1. STRONG, STRIKING VISUAL THEME

2. ALL OF THOSE SMALL DETAILS

How is going to impact on website, on branding?

Photoshop Tutorials.

LYRIC BOOKLET EGS
...


...

Find some shop, brand, establishment or any writing which is the same as the name of the album, one of the songs or some of the lyrics. Could have the act looking bemused/surprised at this consequence


Crossed-Out Lyrics

...




The extra written lyrics could be like a work-in-progress, with the last edits seen through crossing-out (or Bowie-like cut-ups). That is very unconventional for track listings and lyric booklets.









Thursday, 19 October 2017

ARTIST RESEARCH - The Music

The style, the themes/issues/topics that are spoken about in the lyrics, and the tone of the music.

In 2013 a BBC interviewer said. "Not a concept album, because that's not cool."
I think he does like concept albums, as seen in this article: 
When we got back together it was important we didn’t end up just playing the festival circuit. Anyone can turn up and play the old songs but we wanted to move forward and make new material that stretched us creatively. Making Bloodsports and the reception it received suggested we had a future, that people were still listening.”
Mat Osman, Suede’s bassist, agreed: It’s gratifying to know that people still care. The warmth of the reception since we got back together has been genuinely heartening. You realise how precious it all is and it has encouraged us to be braver. I’m really proud of this record, I think the last three tracks, the end sequence, are as good as anything we’ve ever done.
I couldn’t have come back without an album. After a couple of years doing greatest hits tours with Suede we got to a point where I was like ‘we can’t do this anymore unless we’ve got new music’. It just feels like you’re going round in circles. I failed to be able to look at myself in the mirror with any respect so it was very important for us to make ‘Bloodsports’ to justify carrying on. I don’t think we’d have carried on otherwise, we’d have called it a day again. It was a lovely thing to find out we could make great new music together and this has led on to ‘Night Thoughts’ and hopefully I’d like to think we could make another record after ‘Night Thoughts’. It feels very exciting being in Suede at the moment, it feels like we have a renaissance happening, creatively.
A detailed analysis of some of the lyrics (click here)

Brett Anderson talking more about his songwriting
Looking at the murky corners of life, for me, has always been where I’ve got it right as a songwriter, documenting the darker and more twisted things in life. There’s always friction, you can always find friction in any relationship and for me it’s about documenting those elements of friction. A lot of it is about decay and ageing but also parenthood as well, becoming a father and your relationship with your kids and how that mirrors your own relationship with your parents. Having a child myself made me think about my role as a son. Songs like ‘I Don’t Know How To Reach You’ are almost a comment on my and my own father’s relationship, how these relationships break down. Inevitably there’s an element of looking back at the past.
Goes against the effect of digitisation which sees audiences not listening to albums in full put streaming out of order.



Quite sexually graphic at points:

So give me head, give me head, give me head music. 

In this live performance, Brett sings the line "Shaking their bits to the hits"
as "Shaking their t**s to the hits*

Issue with school setting, will be censored. Need to find the closest compromise. 







Friday, 13 October 2017

PRE-PRODUCTION: The Chosen Track

CONTEXT:
During the recording of the fourth studio album Head Music where this track is from, Brett Anderson wanted to experiment with new music genres and decided to take it more into electronic rock, away slightly from glam rock. He was still aiming for the charts as one can see with the poppy single She's In Fashion. The band are at their largest line-up and the one they are currently in.

THE LYRICS:
I feel real now walking like a woman and talking like a stone age man 
I feel real now talking like buddha and doing it againI get kick I rip it up kick it up take it like a teenage tough 
I feel real now talking like sugar and shaking that stuff 
Singing I can't get enough Singing I can't get enough 
I feel schizo every so psycho kicking at an old tin can 
I feel real like a man like a woman like a woman like a man 
I make dead space feel like a headcase take it like a teenage tough 
And feel real now watching those wheels and shaking that stuff 
Singing I can't get enough Singing I can't get enough  
Singing I can't get enough Singing I can't get enough 
I feel real now walking like a woman and talking like a stone age man 
I feel real now talking like buddha and doing it again 
So give me this and give me that smother me and give me some of that bad stuff 
I feel real now talking like sugar and shaking that stuff 
Singing I can't get enough Singing I can't get enough  
Singing I can't get enough Singing I can't get enough

RESOURCES:

  • Wiki entry. 
  • My playlist featuring the two music videos and multiple live performances, plus some very basic lyrics videos and montage UGC videos.
  • Songmeanings, 4 entries:, only 2 comment on what they think it's about, very superficially:




UNCLEAR WORDS

Schizo, urban slang, meaning:




INTERPRETING THE LYRICS
"Dancing like Buddha"
- A religion with no God, the protagonist goes against the hegemonic/dictatorial force that controls everyone, it should probably be while all the ones behind her are obeying/dancing like HUMBLE. Have them prey like Mennonites 

BUDDHA RESEARCH:
https://www.diamondway-buddhism.org/buddhism/buddha/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopmusic/12131199/Bowie-wanted-ashes-scattered-in-Bali.html

Link to Bowie
Watch out, it's The Torygraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/david-bowies-buddhist-david-rang-me-up-and-said-i-have-a-very-bi/

BRICOLAGE IS MY WAY

INSTRUMENTS
When the drums come in, you could cross-cut between clapping, the drums and something happening in the narrative, what could the protagonist be doing?


THE ORIGINAL VIDEO

ALBUM: Head Music
YEAR: 1999
GENRE: Electronic rock
Electronic rock phase
Music they were influenced by on this album as a whole:


DIRECTOR: ...
LABEL:  Nude Records
SINGLE?: Yes, fourth and final.


BACKGROUND/CONTEXT


  • What was the act's current image at the time of the video's release?



*Insert embed code*

PERFORMANCE, NARRATIVE OR CONCEPT?
Often you'll see a cross-cutting between performance and narrative, however there are examples of interaction like the Ärzte not only being in the same space as the narrative but also singing directly at the characters in their vids for Schrei Nach Liebe and Junge.
Andrew Goodwin's Notion of Looking?

EXTRA SOUND:
We might even get some of another track played, in Arctic Monkey's Why Do

TITLES:
...

NARRATIVE ENIGMA:
...

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LYRICS AND VISUALS:
...

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOUND AND VISUALS:
....

GENRE SIGNIFIERS:
...

INTERTEXTUAL REFERENCES:
...

OTHER NARRATIVE THEORY:
...


BRANDING:
...

REPRESENTATION:
GENDER: ...

ETHNICITY: ...

SEXUALITY: ...

CLASS: 
...


ABILITY/DISABILITY: ...

AUDIENCE REPRESENTED/TARGETED:
....



Thursday, 12 October 2017

CHANGING THE TRACK #2 - From She To Can't Get Enough

Guns 'n Roses, layering themselves, Welcome To The Jungle and Don't Cry
Iron Maiden - Can I play with madness.

Photo shoot of the band looking clean


Gender fluidity

Have her dancing enough
Grime on the face, dancing
Have some element of Male Gaze
Flashbacks to post-apocalypse

Multiple scrapes and escapades. 


PRACTICAL SUGGESTION

People cooking out food, flames and fire, cooking meat

TRAIN SITUATION:


THE GROUND IN CLAUSEN:

Horrible looking passage way

society 


Glimpsing members of the band.

"I Can't Get Enough"

Band having a sci-fi look.


Want to have other people

Dangerous

Energetic, teasing them.


Band could be glimpsed at points.

Have her singing with the band, jumping in




Stealing food, vignettes.

Drinking horrible, disgusting water, a little bit of cola for discolouration. 

Bare shoulder, leg, show the leg first narrative enigma.


Bagboy, leaves instead of


The end of The World's End, shuddering around the fire.

Product placement, pile of trash, battered can of coke.
soft drink product, ginger ale, classic zombie


END WITH AN ANNOUNCEMENT THAT EVERYONE HAS TO RETURN TO, that's a classic hook, that it's a world, there's more to come.

Links t







Thursday, 5 October 2017

ARTIST RESEARCH - The Band's Members

BRETT ANDERSON

(don't confused him with the American baseball player)
Role: Lead vocalist, 
Doesn't like the culture of pop due to their "Lack of ambition" (1993 documentary tape).

Is very bookish, literature he likes include:

Films he watched:
Jean de Florette & Manon de Sources, "watches them on a loop"

SOURCE: Kate Bush 2014 documentary

Musily influenced by Kate Bush.
I associate this image with some of my favourite songs that I know in my life

Hints that he prefers the remaining songs on an album to the singles:
The second of The Hounds Of Love, that's really where the magic is for me, I mean the first half is a collection of the singles almost, but the second half is...incredible sort of series of songs.
Also likes vinyl, holding Hounds Of Love vinyl.

DRUG ADDICTION, like Bowie and Dave Gahan
Anderson, now 37, looks considerably healthier than you might expect for a man who was addicted to heroin and crack "for ages": "I just really, really enjoyed drugs. I gave up by myself. Didn't go to rehab, just stopped doing it. Did it the hard way, which is the best way, because you feel the pain. You're never going to do it again if you have to go through that pain."

INTERVIEWS:

Would it be appropriate to have product placement in the video when this is what he has to say about advertising;
I have a pet hate of advertising. I know I'm as much part of it as anyone, but the cynical level, like McDonalds's manipulating children... I think that's deeply sinister.
Mocking product placement like maybe with tea and other typical British associated objects mocked. Need to find that quote "Advertising is the pornography of capitalism" Also have an overpositive MacDonalds-like advert on screen, brainwash the population with drugs and other positive stuff like in Brave New World.

Is very pro-active, creatively, in this Independent article he said "Suede need to make an album"

Soon to publish memoir, NME report.


Justin Frieshmann says there was something of TS Eliot's Prufrock: 
"downtrodden Englishman with an incredible kind of romantic interior life"

RICHARD OAKES

Guitar, Occasional Pianist Backing Vocalist 
Songwriter
Has another project going (read more here)
Got into the band after Butler left, read about the story here.


MAT OSMAN

Bass player
Today does a lot of the interviews with Brett, is he an untypical base player that has a more 
Brother of BBC broadcaster, presenter of Pointless Richard Osman


SIMON GILBERT

Drums
MTV interview 
Goes against the stereotype of gay men being flamboyant and effeminate, faced 
Was however vocal when the lowering of the age of consent for LGBT+ people was debated in Parliament, spoke at the House of Commons (watch here)


NEIL CODLING

Keyboardist, Backing Vocalist, Songwriter
In 2008 a YouTuber made multiple UGC tribute videos, before the band got back together 


FORMER MEMBERS

Justine Frieshman, Look is similar to early Anderson
"I think in the 90s it's very hard to not do music that's self-referential...I think it's impossible to be truly groundbreaking."
Bernard Butler, articles about the two's strenuous relationship: