Greenday analysis

1. DIGIPAK
By Olivia

2. Cover
The band’s name ‘Greenday’ is seen in white, highly contrasting with the
black background of the cover. The band’s name also takes up nearly half
of the cover (including the CD name ‘american idiot’), connoting the
importance of the band. These factors also make the cover eye catching
and make people aware of who the CD is by. The red colour of the image
and name of the CD denotes that the album may be about anger or love. It
could also be about heartbreak with the link of the red colour and the
image that is a bleeding heart being held in a hand. The red colour could
also be denoting that the album is about courage which would also nicely
link with the image of the hand held up in courage. The heart in the hand
could be a message of putting your heart or feelings at
risk when having courage but having the power and strength to do it. The black background tells us that the music could be
quite dark and heavy to listen to which would link to the genre of ‘Rock’. We can tell it’s a rock genre by the factor of the
colours black, red and white, which are seen commonly used in this genre. Tracking back to the name of the album, ‘american
idiot’, it is seen as an reference to themselves in the band, who are all american and calling themselves idiots. This humorous
name will be another factor that catches the attention of their audience because of the visible funny and careless side to them
as well as the reference to themselves that a lot of fans will have witnessed as they are known for their idiotic actions on stage.
The font used on this cover connotes the kind of mood they are also portraying. The cracked looking words puts across an
aggressive persona allowing the audience to expect that kind of genre when buying the album.

3. CD
The image is cartoon, while the image appeals to men who stereotypically
like blood and gore, it is not actually gruesome. This stops the album from
scaring away female and younger listeners. Again the CD is mostly black,
reflecting the convention of rock music as quite dark. The tracks have
been listed again on the disc, the isn't a typical convention for most
digipacks, however green day have done on this album to further show the
importance of the songs to them and to also keep a reminder to the
audience as to which song is which track. It may not be essential to have
the song list on the disc but on this disc, the band have given the songs
priority on the disc, showing furthermore the importance of the songs.
The band's name and album title is also shown again on the disc to
promote the band's star image, but maybe also so that the people know
what disc is in the CD player without having to play the disc. There is once
again the hand pictured on the disc, in this image the hand has the pins left
dangling in its fingers. This shows that they have thrown the heart away,
and aimed to set it off.

4. Back Cover
On the back cover the same colour scheme is used, being red black and
red again showing the simple way they chose to express the bold
obvious genre and mood. They added on ‘parental advisory’ note at the
bottom showing the kind of inappropriate or explicit kind of music
that is on the album which is typical for them as an album. They have
continued their typical layout of their CDs to ensure that they are
recognised as a band and by their fans. The cracked looking font is
used again connoting that the whole album is going to be the same
type of mood/ aggressiveness throughout the music. Text is usually
black on a white background, by switching this around Green Day are
showing that they don't play by the rules and are more exciting than
other bands. The grenade pin follows the trend set by the front cover,
this bit of synergy could also mean that the grenade on the front cover
has been set off and that is the pin remaining from it and whichever
analogy you take the first image as, has been set off now that the pin is
out of the grenade. At the bottom of the album there is also the
copyright information, since that is not very important in trying to
draw people into buying the album, but is necessary to have on.