Digipack analysis

Mumford and Sons - Babel

Of Monsters and Men - My Head Is An Animal

The Lumineers - The Lumineers

Simon and Garfunkel - Old Friends (Box set)

Mumford and Sons - Sigh No More

For our analysis we decided to focus on the albums above as we believe that they consist of properties that depict what the true genre of folk really is along with contemporary factors. According to Gunther Kress genre is some form of text that is created through the 'structure of a frequently repeated social occasion', which means that they are derived from repeated patterns that are done over many years by different people. These patterns include stock settings, stock characters and stock themes, all of which are known as codes and conventions. As for the chosen albums, the majority have followed this theory as they display many images that are common iconography for the folk genre, such as banjo's and acoustic guitars which are shown in the Mumford and Sons album Sigh No More. 

The albums also conform to generic principles with their positioning, camera work and the characters shown. As for the majority of the album covers, the characters were positioned either in the centre or slightly to the right of the frame which shows that their are some connections among all album covers as it makes it much easier to draw the audiences attention to the band which makes them more recognizable. Furthermore, all of the albums but one show either the band as a whole or part of the band which enables the audience to put a face to the people that they're listening to, as well as selling an image of the band. As the bands/artists are shown on the front cover it follows Propps theory of character functions as they are portrayed as the 'hero/heroes' as they are the main people who are creating the music and who the music will 'follow', thus giving them a higher appeal to the audience. Apart from The Lumineers, the other albums chose mid-shots or long shots as it allows the audience to get a decent perspective of both the artists and the surrounding that they're in which aids the fact that they are not trying to sell themselves but just the music, which is a normal trait among folk music. 

 

As mentioned previously, there are some exceptions within the folk genre, such as the Lumineers album, which take the traditional folk genre and decide to twist, play and experiment with it which is one stage of genres according to Christian Metz. The imagery of this album is abstract and challenges the normal iconography of folk music. Within the other albums there were images of either instruments or characters or something that links it to their style of music, however this picture of a woman and girl have no relevance to the style of music which may confuse the audience as it challenges their typical expectations of this genre.

The colors used throughout the five chosen albums ranges massively from inverted black and white and normal black and white to bright normal colors used in the Mumford and Sons albums. These colours ultimately could represent the type of music that is being played throughout the actual album. An example of this would be Mumford and Sons album, Babel. This album cover displays lots of colours which makes the cover stand out to the public, this is also represented within their music as well because they have quite bubbly and outrageous music ensemble within their album.