Album covers, adverts and digipaks...oh my

The above are examples of Kitty Daisy and Lewis existing album cover and magazine advert. The black and white images make the whole thing look old fashioned and vintage, but there is a simplistic and arty look to it as well with the font.

The advert for Metronomy's second album captures all member of the band in a clean cut but vintage looking way. Their clothing and hair is typical of the styles that marry with indie music and their fans, and the blank background makes the whole image look bold and edgy.

The album cover itself is quite beautiful and simple. The colours and image of the palm tree gives a kind of psychadelic beach look (supposed to be very 'in' at the moment)

What's in an indie music video?

At a contrast to drum and bass videos, which tend to involve more heavy drug taking dark alley way strobe light action, indie music tends to base it's videos around more happy and care free subjects.
The genre of music usually appeals to listeners who don't want to conform to 'mainstream' music and lifestyles, think outrageous outfits from charity shops, thick rimmed non prescription spectacles and scruffy jeans. For this reason, music videos that accompany such under ground indie and alternative artists have an iconic arty feel, with throwbacks to vintage eras and abstract imagery.
Take for example the music video for 'a thing for me' by Metronomy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYB2Mqs24ss&ob=av2e

The video involves old skool 'sing along' subtitles at the bottom of the screen, arty characters holding humorously straight faces whilst acting out the words. The whole video, from retro setting and props to eccentric costume, illustrates the indie lifestyle and imagery such listeners would like to be involved in.

A brief upset and a swift change of direction....

As illustrated by the above cat, my group suffered a minor 'sad' this week. Unfortunately one of us has had to leave the group due to time table changes, silly teachers, lack of organisation etc so we are quite literally one man down.

Mild panic ensued for roughly half a lesson, we feared the end, were ready to end it all but then realised that perhaps this change was help in disguise. Although we have completed sufficient amounts of drum and bass research, we decided that with the member of our group most interested and inspired by that genre gone, we could re start our project based on a different stimulus. The previous research we have done is not utterly worthless, as it just shows the breakdown of a different musical style and how fans of that music introduce it into their lifestyle. The remaining group members, myself included can relate to the new choice of 'Indie' or 'Underground' folky type music a lot more.

Video interviews..

We set up two interviews with people who enjoy listening to Drum and Bass, to get a more personal insight into their lifestyle and why they like the genre of music...

Video interviews continued..

Responses to the survey...

The general reasons people said they liked drum and bass, were because it is a fast paced and dancy genre of music, that fits in with a life style of going out and dancing etc. one person said,

              ''It's a very liberating genre of music, and also very good for getting in a "hyped up" mood.''

The last three questions, who are your favourite drum and bass artist, what's your favourite music video and song by that artist and what would you put in your own music video gathered similar results from every person. Amongst the favourties were Chase and status, Pendulum, Andy C and DeadMaus. Favourite videos and songs by those artists included 'Pieces' our chosen song.

The things that people wanted to see in a music video or would include in their own were, party scenes, general ruckus, girls and an overal dark and edgy feel.

Audience research survey

A link to the audience research survey we created on surveymonkey.com.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LT5X3CV