The document discusses and analyzes the album artwork and packaging (digipacks) for three indie rock albums: 1) Kings of Leon's "Only By The Night" uses an eagle symbolizing their American heritage and nighttime imagery relating to songs. 2) The 1975's self-titled album features low-key lighting and speakers emphasizing their focus on music over image. 3) Arctic Monkeys' debut "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" portrays a working-class man, implying their target audience and themes of real issues over fame.

1. DIGIPACK ANALYSIS
INDIE ROCK GENRE

2. KINGS OF
LEON
Only By
The Night

3. The CD digipack designed for Kings of Leon’s album has some
very artistic vision induced into it, specifically the symbolic
eagle which is on both the front and back of the cover. This
eagles is also merged with the bands faces. This gives a clear
representation of their regional background as all members
are from the USA. This allows the band to market towards
Americans heavily and make big sales in the USA as well as
showing the world their pride of being an American rock band
using the symbolic eagle cover.
The colours of this album are very greenish with black fades
which I think are directly linking to the album name of “Only
by the Night”. This shows a sort of night vision view of the art
which is further supported by the crosshairs on the front
cover and next to the album name on the side of the Digipack.
This strongly supports that to utilise these colours the
producers used a night vision camera. This also informs the
audience that the album has certain tracks that incorporates
events that happen at night such as “Sex on Fire” and “Use
Somebody” which has panning shots of an American city at
night. This shows that Kings of Leon may have drawn
inspiration for the album artwork from their ventures into

4. However another interpretation of the eagle could be drawn upon
negatively, specifically by the back cover which shows us the eagle
with a large crosshair which seems to imply a gun is pointing at its
head which could be showing us messages suggesting of back
stabbing as the eagle is targeted from behind and generally the
back cover shows a much grittier and darker look which suggests
negative messages in comparison to the front which is smooth and
a lot lighter which portrays a more positive image.
The text used for this Digipack is similar to computer coding from the
font choice. This comes across as smaller writing and I portray this
as clever. The band clearly want to market their album with artistic
work as opposed to an album full of text. This shows they are
trying to sell their image to the masses which a wider range of
people can recognise.
The main think to notice for the placement of the artwork and
computer coding text is that they are both separated greatly from
each other and easily distinguished making it a lot easier to look at
and appeal to a wide range of people.
I believe this collaboration and placement could
inspire me to create a similar Digipack for my
music video

5. THE 1975
The 1975
Self-Titled
Album

6. For the Digipack there is not much that can be said. It has low
key lighting, which anchors the idea of Indie Rock as it is
stereotypical to the genre. The white light that outlines the
speakers also anchor the idea of the indie rock genre as it
is stereotypical for artists of this genre t be focused on their
music shown by the musical equipment of speakers. As
most videos of this genre include a performance element , it
is another way for the band to portray to their fans its all
about the sound.
As well as this on the front cover, highlighting the bands name
emphasises exactly who they are without getting in your
face. Its a simple yet effective way of composing a Digipack
to appeal to wide audiences. Its very interesting in the fact
that there are no band members on the front or back of the
covers, juxtaposing the amount of times they are composed
in the music video. This creates not only an enigma to the
new listener but also anchors ideologies about those who
create indie rock and how they want to present themselves

7. Another thing that is interesting between the two print
pieces of text is that they’re symmetrical in the colour
scheme, font style and the background image. By
doing this it creates a trademark for the band and gets
them noticed worldwide, as people will see this colour
scheme and instantly relate to the 1975.
The fact the colour scheme is black and white is also
significant as it again anchors the ideas of indie rock
as it is conventional within the genre as it connotes a
sense of isolation and being on the outer edge
translating to being different which of course what
“indie” means,

8. ARCTIC MONKEYS
Whatever
people say I am, that’s
exactly what I’m not

9. Whatever people say I am, that’s exactly what I’m not was the debut album for
Arctic Monkeys released in 2006. As a debut album it needed to make a
good impression of what the band were exactly trying to accomplish. The
strange name comes from a novel the singer (Alex Turner) was reading at
the time called Saturday night and Sunday Morning. The songs are very
much about going out on the town and the feeling of this, therefore this
informs the listener . This title stereotypes these indie people and so the
album can make them feel more involved.
The man on the front cover, not actually a band member, portrays how the
Arctic Monkeys see themselves. They see themselves as the working class.
They have done this to imply that fame has not gone over their head, and
they aren’t a stereotypical boy band. Also to define their target audience
which is predominantly more working class people. They also touch upon
real issue in their songs such as politics, bar rules and women.
The man on the cover , with a standard haircut, smoking and casual clothes
also supports their target audience of the working class and cuts across to
the listener that the album includes them making them feel like the band
cares about them. People are more likely to listen to a band if they feel that
the band cares about them.
The colour scheme of this Digipack is black and white which is stereotypical to
indie rock bands. It also symbolises darkness and depression unlike typical
boy bands which promote brighter colours. This also gives the potential
listener an insight into what the songs are about. A boy band may sing about
love but Arctic Monkeys sing about heartbreak and being kicked out of