Looking into the alternative scene

For my video it was hard to find other bands to sound like mine, so I decided to look further into the alternative genre. One of the bands I found which have a more heavy sounding chorus was 'You Me At Six' their style fits my needs rather well and gives me more ideas especially for genre and album art.

Another band with a similar sound and feel to my band and 'You Me At Six". The band is called 'Kids in Glass Houses' and looking at their album artwork its apparent they are going for a quirky/cool look at edited photos and don't have a picture of the band.

The Killers - Day and Age Poster Analysis

I am researching adverts for CD's and albums, to find out how to correctly promote my band.  And I have come to the conclusion that most adverts in magazines are just a larger image of the album cover itself. It manages to promote the product with a recognisable image.This allows direct correlation between the poster and the box art.

The words "Day & Age " are portrayed in the box art using  an aboriginal style of art. The moon in the sky represents a juxtaposition of the "Day" and the foliage on the floor looks like a desert. In their video for their single "Human" the main setting is the desert. But the lack of civilization in this image also may represent a previous age before humans got there.

Fat Boy Slim - Weapon of Choice Music Video

I have decided to talk about this video and comment on its use of camera angles. It also won numerous awards, such as a Grammy Award for Best Short Forrn Video. The video involves famous actor Christopher Walken dancing around a hotel lobby to the music of Fatboy Slim. The relationship between the music and the video is seamlessly fluid and although unrelated to the music it makes perfect sense. It was directed by Spike Jonze who used the dancing talents of Walken (who did go to dance school). As the music escalates and the song draws closer to the end the lyrics "Cos I drift off into the night, I'm in flight" as Walken dives off a balcony to fly about in the air. I also think Jonze purposefully decide on some of Walkens moves that relate to some of his films: Pulp Fiction uses songs such as "Surf Rider" and at one point in this video, he does a surfing stance. The simplicity of the idea is what makes this video special as well as Walkens deadly serious face throughout.

 Throughout the video the camera stays at a long shot following and tracking the subject the majority of the time. Zoom is also used occasionally but only to focus on Walken more as his dancing becomes more intricate. It is also edited so the flow of his dancing continues in to a more spontaneous feel. Its fresh and imaginative and caught may peoples eyes because of this.

Album Cover Review: The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth

This Album was released in January 2006, the track list is as follows;

1. You Only Live Once
2. Juicebox
3. Heart in a Cage
4. Razorblade
5. On the Other Side
6. Vision of Division
7. Ask Me Anything
8. Electricityscape
9.  Killing Lies
10. Fear of Sleep
11. 15 Minutes
12. Ize of the World
13. Evening Sun
14. Red Light

The album art is very striking and different from many other CD's. This may be because The Strokes were an alternative band and they wanted to come across as unique and different. It is no coincidence that the title and the name of the band are in the four corners of the box. This because the first scientists that explored what earth was believed it was a flat square with the "Four corners of the earth". This shows that the layout of the box art is more than relevant to the title although not instantly recognisable. I think the strikes may represent the strokes of music and sound they make, and the red line being the connection people may have to their music bridging the gap between the bands music and the tastes of their fans.

CD Cover Review The Killers - Sawdust

This album was released in November 2007 and had the tracks:

1. Tranquilize
2. Shadowplay
3. All the Pretty Faces
4. Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf
5. Sweet Talk
6. Under the Gun
7. Where the White Boys Dance
8. Show You How
9. Move Away
10. Glamorous Rock & Roll
11. Who Let You Go?
12. The Ballad of Michael Valentine
13. Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town
14. Daddy's Eyes
15. Sam's Town
16. Romeo and Juliet
17. Mr BrightSide

As you can see it has "the Killers" written in their trademark font and is set in the middle of the width and slightly above the middle of the hight to allow the image below to be more easily seen. The central image is of an arm which is made of wood and is splintered and decaying. While in the background there is a setting of a forest with golden/green leaves. These two images symbolise two of the aspects of life within nature. Nature is beautiful and pretty but nature will always and it will always return to that stage throughout the seasons, it will always be beautiful. The arm on the other hand connotes the frailty of human life and it splintering and decaying suggests that humans are not as interchangeable and adaptive, and mostly that we will all die at some stage. But as the arm is wood it also suggests that humans, while in there prime are just as, if not as beautiful as and a part of nature.

Heart in a Cage - The Strokes, video review/key features

Whilsit researching the alternative genre The Strokes is one of the bands famous for being in this genre.
The song is about a man who is in love with a woman but not being with her, he starts to feel claustrophobic in a large city as if it were a cage, stopping him finding her. All of his chances of seeing her are destroyed by their friends and people making fun of them.

The video grabbed me because of some of the ideas I have had for my video are similar with this one. I had the idea of doing the verse's of my song shot in monochrome, and when hes with his girlfriend switch to a more bright atmosphere. This video is filtered using monochrome and remains that way throughout giving the video a dirty grimy vibe, which is what I want to incorporate into my video. Also the protagonist in this video is alone within a constantly moving crowd with a zoom  that allows him to be seen but only the legs and feet of passers by, in my video I focus on the act of walking as my protagonist will be constantly walking. Its also clever as the othe members of the ban in this video are situated with famous american landmarks but are in open spaces, above the streets symbolysing that they are free. In my video I wanted the band to be seperate from the protagonist but playing to an audience that dont exist. Also the use of slow down and increase of speed in this video has influenced me to think about using this in my video.

The Alternative Rock Genre

The Fool by This Is Smith is an alternative rock song. Because of this I am going to talk about this genre and research other alternative songs and there videos.
The term "Alternative" was introduced in the 1990's to describe the movement of underground independant music rising in popularity. The music itself has a high variety because of the different social contexts different people come from. But independent music is called so because most artists/bands were signed by independent lables, however some bands because more mainstream such as R.E.M.
The most popular Alternative bands of the 21st century have been The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand and 90's bands such as The Killers and The White Stripes.

Mood Board of the Alternative Rock Genre.