Digipak Analysis

The name of the artist is displayed on the front cover of the digipak above the name of the album itself. This connotes that the artist is well known and are selling the music rather than themselves. The image on the front cover is of the band itself possibly during one of their performances, although you may not see their faces, the target audience is aware of who they are and what genre of music they produce. Furthermore the image further emphasises that the genre of their music is house/electro house and that the Swedish House Mafia performs live. An establishing shot is used to show the crowd gathered in front of the band which suggests that they are very well known.

In addition to this the band is facing their live audience and their back to the viewer of the digipak. This connotes that they are more live performance based band.

The title of their song is emphasised and is more visible in comparison to the name of the band and we can see the performers are holding their hands up and pointing upwards, this gesture is also a direct visual link to the name of the song being “One” which during 2010 was their lead single and was in the top charts for a very long time. From this one can gather that the reason for not advertising the band as much as possible, they are reliant on the fact that everyone is already aware of them and their music. Furthermore there is no dominant image present but instead one can assume that the three of them are shown as ‘one’ dominant image which further emphasises the title of the song and suggests the three members of the band being one. The target audience of this CD cover is most likely to be young adults that are out partying and are most likely to hear the song at dance clubs or during gigs.

Also looking at the music video for the following song, all the points that have been mentioned are indeed true. Seeing as in the music video there is only performance present with no narrative, something we would expect from the genre of the song. Furthermore the band is not part of the performance, this connotes that their songs are most likely to be played by a DJ in a club which the female performer represented in the music video.

Another CD cover I have looked at is The Script – For the First Time. The focus of their digipak is completely different to the previous one. The target audience can see the band as a whole with the lead singer being in front, the guitarist and drummer in the background, this emphasises the lead singer suggesting his importance to the band. The genre of the music is Alternative Rock, pop rock and indie rock. This can be gathered not only from the style of their music but also from the clothing, being dark clothing with light coloured t-shirts. In addition to this the background of the image being a field during a sunny day makes the band stand out in their dark clothing. The name of the band stands out the most in contrast to the name of the album itself. This implies that they may not be well known and are focusing on advertising themselves rather than their music at the current time. One can assume that the main focus of this CD cover would be to inform the audience of ‘The Script’ and make them consider listen to their music.

The target audience of ‘The Script’ is most likely to be male/female ranging from age of sixteen to thirty, so more or less young adults. This is suggested by the actual genre of their songs that may not appeal to a more elderly audience. Furthermore the song ‘For the First time’ was a massive hit during the 2010, this would be during the stage when the band was only starting becoming famous, so placing the name of their lead single on the CD cover would attract the audience seeing as they are most likely to be familiar with that specific song.  

In addition from watching the music video for the following song, one can gather that the band is more performance based however there is also narrative present that can relate to the target audience and possibly created solely for entertainment purposes.