Homework: Max Davies: Album Advert Analysis

I was looking through a few magazines at adverts which related to The Prodigy and really caught my eye.  I have mountains of magazines as I subscribe to magazines like Q, NME and MOJO, all magazines I love and have great features. The music Q focuses on is mainly mainstream Rock with other genres which people are enjoying. NME focus on new and upcoming Rock and alternative acts, having many interviews with unsigned bands. MOJO is one of my favourite as it has many features of old 1960’s Rock and talks about the past, bands like The Doors or Pink Floyd.

After flicking through a few magazines I came across The Horrors advertising their new album ‘Skying’. It was the back page of the September 2011 issue of Q. I thought Horrors similar to The Prodigy as they both portray the punk image.

The Horrors are 5 man, English band formed in 2005. It is made up of Faris Badwan, Joshua Hayward, Tom Cowan, Rhys Webb, Joe Spurgeon. There genre is Post-punk/Psychedelic and are signed to XL Recordings.

The album being advertised is ‘Skying’, which was released 11 July 2011 and is the bands third album.


Album Cover:

For this advert they have used the album cover, this is so people can get a recognition of the album and hopefully remember it when they are in the shop. This is convention of album adverts, however some artists use different pictures.

The image is very simple but effective and relates to the album name ‘Skying.’ Skying could relate to drug use and being ‘high in the sky.’

The image is very peaceful and relaxing, maybe a message to the customers that its an album they can relax to.

However the picture is simple but the effects are huge feature of this, they use a contrast of colour with reds and greens. Again eye catching for the magazine reader.

It is very psychedelic feeling from this advert, something which relates to the music the album offer.

The Font used is simple but bold and takes up the main part of the picture.

The advert is split up in two, one the album cover art and then the album reviews and the artist name.

The album reviews is a convention for this as it gives the reader a reason to go buy the album. The reader are giving a rating from a reliable source like magazines (Q, Uncut) and newspapers (The Guardian, The Independent)

The Horros album is giving 4/5 stars through out, so this is something they will want to present and let the reader know.

Another convention is showing when the album is out, in this case the album is ‘out now.’ They may do this now to boost sales.