The Coral's Album covers

The Coral have had a number of albums, and the covers of these albums have been very varied. As part of our coursework, we have to create a digipak for the band's album. We have already decided we will have a six sided digipak, but choosing the designs is more complicated. With the covers being so varied, we are faced with both advantages and disadvantages. Of course the varying covers are advantageous for us, as it gives us more freedom to experiment with different designs, and create a unique and innovative cover. However, it will be harder for us to fit the cover with a stereotype of the band's covers, as they are all so different.

Below are pictures of the covers of some of the Coral's albums.

This album cover features the bright colours associated with the indie genre, but also suggests a slightly darker theme, possibly leaning towards the psychedelic rock genre. This is further illustrated by the blurred front cover. This is the fourth of the Coral's albums.

Roots and Echoes, the sixth album by the Coral moves away from the dark, mysterious image featured on the cover of The Invisible Invasion, and while it still uses the dark colours, features an image of the band, possibly because they are further established on the music scene, and by featuring a photo of them, this could be used as recognition.

This is the Coral's debut album, and features a very typically indie front cover. This may be used in order to attract indie fans, with it being the first album, and helps to give an idea of what to expect.

The Invisible Invasion seems to overthrow all stereotypes of the genre, with a complete lack of any sort of bright colour and a confusing image on the front. This variation between the album covers is certainly not a bad thing as it allows us to be more diverse when creating our own covers, although complicates things when trying to define the conventions.

Update of the Week

This week the group and I have started to carry out some audience feedback, which I will post at the end of the blog. We have also been considering what design we will have on our album's digipak, and think that we will probably choose something bright. We plan to do a six sided digipak and will be working on it together. We also plan to have our advert follow the same conventions as the digipak.

We have received some useful feedback, and any extra that people can contribute will be very helpful for us. The questionnaire is posted below, so if you have chance to leave a comment, please do.

Feedback from this blog:

1. Do you know of The Coral? Yes

2. If yes, do you like them? Yes, a couple of songs


3. If yes, what appeals to you about them? Their style and catchy songs

4. What would you expect to see on their album cover? Crazy stuff

5. Have you seen any of The Coral's videos? Yes, but I'm not too sure which one

6. What is your opinion of the videos? It was really weird. Didn't really like it

7. What genre would you associate with The Coral? Indie

8. What bands would you compare The Coral to? Charlatons, Zutons



1. Do you know of The Coral? Yes

2. If yes, do you like them? They're okay

3. If yes, what appeals to you about them? I like a couple of their songs

4. What would you expect to see on their album cover? Bright colors, eye catching fonts, "hand-drawn" pictures

5. Have you seen any of The Coral's videos? No

6. What is your opinion of the videos? N/A

7. What genre would you associate with The Coral? Indie/rock

8. What bands would you compare The Coral to? Paul Weller.. maybe?



1. Do you know of The Coral? Yeeah

2. If yes, do you like them? Yeah the songs on this blog are pretty goood

3. If yes, what appeals to you about them? They're just nice songs. wouldn't want to hear them too much though

4. What would you expect to see on their album cover? Something like that one by 13th Floor Elevators???

5. Have you seen any of The Coral's videos? Yeah Dreaming of You and In the Morning

6. What is your opinion of the videos? Yeah they're pretty funny

7. What genre would you associate with The Coral? ??

8. What bands would you compare The Coral to? The La's, Ocean Color Scene


1. Do you know of The Coral? Yes

2. If yes, do you like them? Yeah they're good

3. If yes, what appeals to you about them? Awesome songs, my kind of music

4. What would you expect to see on their album cover? Hippie like images

5. Have you seen any of The Coral's videos? Yeah most of them I think

6. What is your opinion of the videos? Pretty entertaining. Good laugh. Not much choreography though :(

7. What genre would you associate with The Coral? Indie

8. What bands would you compare The Coral to? The Zutons, The La's


1. Do you know of The Coral? Yeah but only since I read this blog like

2. If yes, do you like them? They're alright

3. If yes, what appeals to you about them? It's good music like

4. What would you expect to see on their album cover? Not sure

5. Have you seen any of The Coral's videos? Only the one's one here

6. What is your opinion of the videos? They were okay, but not really to my taste

7. What genre would you associate with The Coral? Don't know enough about them

8. What bands would you compare The Coral to? I'm guessing the Zutons since that's what everyone else said :)



Thank you to everyone who responded.

Kassie's feedback
1. Do you like The Coral? Why? And if not, why
not?

2. What sort of artwork would you expect on the cover of their next
album?

3. If you've seen one of their videos, what's your opinion on it?

4. What genre would you class them as?

5. What sort of people would you expect to listen to The Coral/this genre
of music?

6. What other bands would you compare them to?
Answers:

1. yes, folky, easy listening

2. them stood with vinyl's/some sort of vintage photograph

3. razorlight style, typical British video, streets of England

4. alternative/folk

5. vintage/retro/indie people

6. Razorlight, The View
1. yes, individual sound, catchy

2. complicated, random images

3. strange but in a good way, almost low budget but it works well

4. indie/folk

5. people who are into less mainstream music

6. Mumford and Sons, Supergrass
1. yes, pleasant, easy
listening

2. something psychedelic looking

3. they're just themselves, no unnecessary extra nonsense

4. indie/folk/soft rock

5. early to mid-twenties as they've been out quite a while. ordinary
people, who are slightly dis earning perhaps, selective

6. The Kooks
1. yes, jazzy, cheery

2. bright swirls, camper van

3. the colours are nice, busy yet very simply done

4. indie/pop

5. shiny happy people (?)

6. Supergrass

The Indie Fan

Since the Coral not only come under psychedelic rock, but also indie, this is a brief profile of the stereotypical indie fan.

"I am a typical indie fan. I love bright colours and listening to my favourite bands. I am a generally happy person, enjoying my music and taking a positive out look on life. I enjoy bands such as The Coral, and other mainstream indie bands such as The Smiths and The Cure. I love wearing retro clothes, and going to gigs with my friends. I also enjoying watching indie films as well, and hanging out with friends."

Quick survey

Hello again! As part of my coursework, I need to carry out some primary audience research, and one way I can achieve this is by asking my readers to complete a questionnaire. I may be publishing several in the coming weeks and if you have a moment, it would very much appreciated if you could fill one in for me.
1. Do you know of The Coral? If no, thank you for your time.
2. If yes, do you like them? If no, please continue to question 4.
3. If yes, what appeals to you about them?
4. What would you expect to see on their album cover?
5. Have you seen any of The Coral's videos? If no, please continue to question 7.
6. What is your opinion of the videos?
7. What genre would you associate with The Coral?
8. What bands would you compare The Coral to?
Thank you for taking the time to complete this questionnaire.

The psychedelic rock genre

What is it?

Psychedelic rock is an electronic sounding music genre, and tends to heavily feature 12 stringed guitars, as opposed to the ordinary six strings in order to create a jingling noise in the music. It tends to feature melodies and instrumental solos.

Psychedelic rock could be considered the bridge from blues to progressive rock to heavy metal. Unlike other rock genres, psychedelic rock is more mellow.

A little bit of history..

The psychedelic rock genre arose in the 1960s and the first group who used the term were the 13th Floor Elevators and used it in the album title the Psychedelic Sounds of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators.

Members of the Beatles also began experimenting with this type of music in the 60s.

Some people would include modern day bands, such as The Coral under this genre, as they have many of the key aspects of this genre in their music and album artwork. However, when trying to fit the Coral into a more mainstream genre, they are often described as an indie band.

Analysis of The Coral's Dreaming of You

The video starts with a short clip of each band member in a narrow room, where the walls are covered with photos of the band. This shows the band as trapped and anything happening outside of this room may be what they are dreaming about, but the title of the song suggests it is a specific person.

The video changes, the band are still trapped in the corridor, but this time they are not just playing their instruments but dancing, whilst a bear dances behind them in some shots. This is a convention of the genre which tends to feature some unusual images. At 41 seconds into the video, the band leave the narrow room and are shown on motorbikes travelling down a road, which this time suggests freedom, and suggests they are now maybe in a dream world. When out of the narrow room, the film is sped up, but still cross cuts with the normal speed clips of the band inside.

At one point of the film, the band and the bear are shown arriving on the beach, and the video is at regular speed. The video is confusing and doesn't seem to feature an actual story, which is intended to leave the viewer considering the video, and maybe encourage them to buy the album, since it stays in their head.

About the band

The band who originally sung the song we intend to film our music video for are The Coral.

The Coral were formed in 1996, in the UK. The band mixes the psychedelic and modern rock genre into their recordings. The group, which has six members met at high school. Ever since then, they would practice songs at each others houses until they were signed by Liverpool label Deltasonic.

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The band are James Skelly who sings and plays guitar, Paul Duffy and Bill Ryder also on guitar, Lee Southall on bass, Nick Power on keyboards, and Ian Skelly on drums. However, Bill Ryder left the band in 2008, leaving them with just five members for their most recent album.
Their debut album of 2002, entitled simply The Coral reached number five on the UK charts. They have released four albums since, entitled Magic and Medicine, The Invisible Invasion, Roots and Echoes and Butterfly House respectively. They have also released a singles collection after their first four albums.

Visit the Coral's official website here.

Watch a video of The Coral performing live
The Coral are playing Glastonbury in this video, which is quite a large festival for the group to have played. This performance is simply the band singing on stage, more like a typical performance by a band, unlike some of their less mainstream videos.

Our song - In the Morning

This is the Official music video for In the Morning by The Coral. The video starts out as a blur of images, some of the Coral performing in an open field. The images confuse the audience, a sign of the psychedelic rock genre.The colours of the background are quite bright, both features of psychedelic and indie. The band are dressed like a typical indie group. The video is sped up to continue to confuse the viewer, and this and the theme of the bright colours and blurry images is continued throughout the video. The video is shot in a way so that it looks like a cartoon, and has not been made like a traditional mainstream music video. However, this is fitting for the independent look of the video, and may help us when we come to making our own version of this video.

At around 50 seconds into the video, the background changes so it looks like it has been shot at night, but it is still a cartoon like background that has been used, continuing the theme from earlier in the video. The band continue into what seems to be a street, again in cartoon. This gives the video a unique and different feel, as images of the bands are pasted on top of the cartoon background. At around 1 minute 20 seconds into the video, a bandmember starts following an older lady around, and then this theme is continued in the background, as a creatures creeps up behind the band. As the creature reaches out to the singer, it is as if the band are part of the cartoon, instead of being stuck onto the shot.

The video becomes more confusing as the band enter a grave yard, and there are skeletons all around in the sky. At one point one of the bandmembers dances like the skeleton, again emphasising the unity between the cartoon and the band. The band are then shown in a dark room, with a few cartoon elements being shown at points, to avoid parting entirely from this theme, but they no longer appear to be part of a cartoon.

Just before the video enters the second minute, the shots return to the field shown at the beginning as a form of closure. At the end of the video, the band run into the distance, and finally disappear, and the video fades to black.

Introduction

Hello! My name is Ali and I am an A2 student at York College. This blog is for my media coursework, but I also study Sociology, Business Studies and Film Studies at the college.

On this blog, I will be presenting my A2 Media Studies coursework. For this coursework, I will work in a group of four where we will make a music video, a digipak and a magazine advert. I will publish these on my blog and also enter my written analysis here.

I am doing this coursework in order to gain 50% of my A2 media grade. I require a good overall grade in Media in order to continue my education with a progression to university next year. Once there, I hope to study media once again in order to one day teach media at GCSE and A-Level.

I have chosen to use Blogspot for this blog as I am familiar with how to use it, having published blogs here in the past. I also believe Blogspot makes it easier for readers of my blog to comment, as you do not necessarily have to be a member unlike some other blogging sites. Also, as Blogspot belongs to Google, search results for the blog should appear quickly, unlike other sites I have used in the past such as Livejournal.

I have until Christmas to finish this coursework. I intend to use all the time given fully in order to gain the best grade possible on results day. I believe there will be plenty of time to complete all the tasks fully, so long as the time is used wisely, and lesson time is devoted to what we need to do as a group.

In order to complete the coursework to the best of my ability, I believe I will need to use a wide range of resources to help me with my initial research. In order to make the best video possible, I will study other students' videos on YouTube, and the videos of famous musicians in order to gain a grasp of what sort of techniques work and which do not.

In order to find suitable locations to shoot the video, we will probably go out and visit possible locations, in order to be able to compare them at the end and choose the best. Those locations that we do not get the chance to visit before deciding where to shoot, we may look for images on Google Earth, so we are able to see what they look like.

When choosing actors and performers for the video, we must first consider what we want the star of our video to look like, as not everyone will be suitable, and those chosen will not only need to look right, but will also need to be confident in front of the camera. It may be possible to ask people from the Performing Arts section of the college to star in the video, or to ask friends.

For getting the video “out there” when it is finished, there will be a number of possible ways of doing it. One way to do this will be to upload the video onto YouTube and then embed it into my blog. I also intend to share it as a link on Facebook, and possibly ask some of my friends to do this too, in order to gain maximum feedback, which should help with analysis on how I felt the project went.

I hope that the project will go well and that everything will run smoothly throughout the course of the next fourteen weeks. For this to happen, careful planning will need to take place as soon as are placed in our groups, as it is important that all aspects of the coursework are finished on time.

From this project, I hope to gain an understanding of new areas of the media. These will include how to make and edit music videos, and also how to create a digipak and magazine advert. Aside from what I will learn about the media, I also hope to gain more skills that will come from working in a group, such as teamwork skills and working to deadlines together.

I hope to ensure that the project runs smoothly and finishes on time by setting deadlines and meeting them. I will also ensure that I check all of my work, and in the case of the video, watch it repeatedly, in order to make sure that all of the work has been completed to the best of my ability.

Thank you for reading and I hope you will continue to check out my blog in order to see how I am getting on with my coursework!