Coldplay
Viva La VidaOr Death And All Of His Friends
Coldplay released their fourth album Viva La Vida (or death and all his friends) on 11th June 2008. The album was a Huge success, both critically and commercially, winning best rock album Grammy in 2009 as well as a nomination for album of the year and being the best selling album album of 2008. However, the success didn't stop there as by 2011 the album had sold more than 10 million copies.
Viva La Vida is the Spanish for "Live The Life" or "Long Live Life." This Refers to many themes of love death and life that run throughout the album. This also links to the front cover of the digipak, which is very conventional featuring the title of the digipak and an image which gives identity with the album, which features artwork from Eugene Delecroix's 1830 "Liberty Leading The People." The historic painting depicts the french revolution of July and a Lady leading the revolution holding a gun in her left and the French flag aloft in her right. She is the personification of freedom and liberty, leading the people over the fallen bodies. these themes of liberty and freedom are also explored in the songs of the album. The front cover doesn't contain the name or image of any of the group. This is conventional for a 'Super Band' such as Coldplay with a huge fan base to not need to create an image for new fans because that image is already heavily engraved with their brand.Coldplay
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The back of the album is also very conventional of a digipak with a simple song list, branding and necessary other things such as bar-code. The font and colours used for the text is formal and contains themes of royalty and wealth due to the gold colouring. This links to the front because in more modern times an archaic painting would be something owned by a higher class person and accompanied by gold in framing or decoration. The black background helps to continue the formal theme which is used because Coldplay have a very wide audience for their music and therefore need to tailor their digipak to all, and by avoiding bright colours and keeping to a more neutral theme they can appeal to all ages and genders.
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Well done, Cameron, this is a proficient analysis of the visual imagery, nicely detailed.
ReplyDeleteHTI:
Was the album only released in a digipak? How does that add to the overall message created by the design.
How will an audience be 'gratified' by the product - look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which are being met by the product?
How is an audience meant to relate to the image on the cover - as part of that revolutionary crowd?
You also need a comment on aspects of representation in terms of revolutionary movements - although you do talk about the themes being represented, so you should at least add the word 'representation'. Marxism would be a good theory to talk through - the cover seems to be telling the audience to not just be the media controlled masses.