Usher confessions digipack analysis

 The first thing that becomes apparent when analysing the usher digipack is the religious connotations that are plain to see , firstly the name of the album is confessions and aswell as being a religious refference it also indicsates the artists musical intentions and this theme of confession and apology is echoed in the songs on this album , the font used is an austere one and is not dissimilar to fonts used in roman catholic churches , The catholic references continue into the mise en scene as the atrist clearly appears in a confession bothe this use of props indicate some sort of guilt and is parelel to the overall message of the album , The artist is wearing an expensive looking diamond earing this has two different meanings the first is that it is a visible show of wealth and shows the atrists succes and secondly the diamond is a preciouis stone with its own symbolism and that is strength and purity which works as a contrast to the confessional side and shows the artist has a good soul but has possibly done some things he is not proud of.
The back cover brings up several more themes the artist is pictured topless and displays a very athletic physique this serves two purposes firstly it cements the artist into the masculine archetype which is a very important in R&B as so much of the song content is about relationship between man and woman .The second reason the artist is pictured topless is sex appeal which is a must have for any R&B star . The second thing to look at on the back cover is the huge amounts of gold on show this shows his succes in the music genre . Colour plays a very important roll in the back cover with the contrast between light and dark being most evident which shows the contrast between the negative and positive in the atists persona . The track list is moved to the side and requires the reader to turn in in order to read , this helps make the digipack more engaging . A final point on the back cover is the record label name ARISTA is printed in white and is in contrast to the dark surrounding of the rest of the shot .

chris brown digipack analysis

The first thing to look at when analysing Chris browns front cover is the artist himself ; he is wearing an expensive looking suite which connotes success and wealth he is also wearing glasses which symbolise intellectuality and the expensive looking diamond earring is a symbolic nod to the theme of bling in r&b  . The camera angle is looking up at him which shows the importance of the artist however the artist is not breaking the fourth barrier and his face is away from the camera .The background in the picture is obscure but there is light coming from behind him which resembles the opening of a theatre curtain which conveys the fact that he is always in the glare of the media. Text and language plays a huge role in the album cover , The album name which is fortune is written in white and in varying fonts sizes and languages. The white blue colour contrast is symbolic of technology and modernity and the differing language conveys the artists ambitions of international recognition. The album name is written in an unknown  alphabet which can be seen to be some sort of futuristic glyphs conveying the imporance of technology and that the artist wants to be considered futuristic .

 The back cover of Chris browns album fortune continues with the theme of modernity and language which can be seen as the substitution of european numbering in place of chris browns future numbers .Another important aspect of the back cover is the way in which the artist is shown , the sex appeal is much higher in this photograph the artists clothes are tighter and he has his sleeves rolled up and he appears without his glasses. The position of the artist is also important he is facing more towards the camera and is looking far less formal than the front cover this suggests that there are two sides to chris brown , a slick and intellegent bussiness type and in contrast a more primal and less formal side .

Digipack analysis drake back cover

 The back cover is of much less importance in Drakes digipack , the theme of black and gold which denotes the duality of his life , the font and letter positioning are of little importance . and the artists record labels appear relatively small . The overall plainness of the back cover of the album is probably to draw more attention to the artist who is on the front cover.

Digipack Analysis Drake front cover

 This photo is the front cover of drakes album entitled take care , the picture has been rigorously organised to convey several key themes , the first and most obvious is the theme of success this is obvious from the amount of gold in the shot , The artist has allot of gold jewellery on he also has golden table pieces and is sitting in front of two expensive looking paintings. All of this misce en scene is deliberate and is indicative of the stars meteoric rise to fame . Although gold is the predominant colour in the picture it is seconded by black this contrast shows another key theme in the drake digipack and that is the negative aspect that his newly found fame has brought him.
Another important aspect of the picture is the artists demeanor he is looking down once again showing the down side to his lifestyle this is a very important theme in the album and is echoed in the lyrical content . The camera shot is a mid shot but the camera angle is neither high or low which says that although the artist is very rich he is no better than anyone else and that money has not made him a better or happier person.
The picture also contains some occultist symbolism which has become almost common place in R&B and rap  the symbol i am talking about is the golden owl which is a symbol said to be used by many secret societies such as the Illuminati although this may appear an obscure reference it is a gimmick widely used by artists of this type of whom jay z is the most prevalent.  

Beyonce music video Halo analysis

In the beginning the the word sound is emphasised as the sound in musical sound stops this is very interesting and is known as inter textuality a possible convention we could use in our song .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnVUHWCynig

The word halo is clearly addressed to the male character in the song .
The lyrics " I've got my angel now " are about relationships and is very relate able for the audience.
When she sings "its written all over your face" she looks at the face of the male actor this represents her seeing something that others do not signifying the intimacy of their relationship.
When singing the line " hit me like a ray of sun" it appears that she is thinking deeply as she is on her own, this gives a sense of introspection suggesting a powerful psychological impact upon meeting this man , the lyric also works  intertextualy as a beam of light hits her face whilst she sings this.
She appears at ease and relaxed with the man in this video which goes against the typically independent and fiercely feminist this shows that she is truly in love and comfortable around this man .  
The lyrics " surrounded by your embrace " she is hugged by the man and this lyric is made visual 

Rhianna man down narrative

The video starts of with an opening sequence of a train station and in it Rhianna shoots a man , this immediatly identifies her as a villain , The next scene is her walking around a town she appears to be freindly and popular and conforms more to Vladimir Propps princess charachter , she is shown smiling and embracing children . The shot then changes to the artist looking upset with dim emotive lighting on a bed , and the lyrics explain her regret for the shooting , the subsequent shots show her throughout the day maintaining the princess role which carries on into the evening , where she is assaulted by what turns out to be the real villain of the story and on learning this rhianna turns from the princess into the hero defeating the villain.

drake statistics analysis

The demographics found on Quantcast for the artist Drake show us alot about who our target audience is; the first categorie assesed is gender the results showed an almost equal amount of male fans to female fans which is promising as it enables us to make our target audience unisex . The second catagorie was age the results of which were not atall suprising with 18-24 being by far the largest fanbase followed by 18 and under confirming that we are looking at a young adult target audience.The third catergorie was children and the results showed a similar number however there were slightly more fans without children.
The next catagorie was financial status , the most common group was also the poorest which we presume is more to do with the age of the listener than their class.
The education catergorie was interesting with substantionally more people without colledge education listening to drakes music. Finally the categorie dealing with race showed an overwhelming majority of african american fans . In light of this evidence our target audience are black men and women aged 18 - 24 who are childless and did not attend colledge or university.

Drake statistics

To find statistics about a current R&B star we looked on surveyor website Quantcast.com Below are statistics about age , gender , financial status , race and education of drake listeners and fans , and also an index of how points are awarded ,

This compares audience composition of the site to the entire Internet population. The higher the index number, the more concentrated a site is in a particular demographic.
As an example, if a site indexes 100 for age 18-24, that means a given visitor to it is as likely to be 18-24 as any internet user chosen at random. An index of 200 means the visitor is twice as likely to be 18-24, 50 means half as likely, and so on.

	Male			98
	Female			102
	< 18			124
	18-24			190
	25-34			98
	35-44			82
	45-54			74
	55-64			58
	65+			42
	No Kids			108
	Has Kids			92
		internet average

index
	$0-50k			121
	$50-100k			83
	$100-150k			73
	$150k+			69
	No College			114
	College			94
	Grad School			72
	Caucasian			81
	African American			248
	Asian			105
	Hispanic			98
	Other			167

Conventions of R&B videos

After researching R&B videos i have found several themes and conventions . The first is the appearance of the artist , they are often pictured in smart clothes such as a shirt and suit trousers . There is often a very big emphasis on material wealth with shots of money jewellery and cars being commonplace .
Another convention is the ethnicity of the artist R&B has always been music performed mainly by the black community and most r&b singers are black or mixed race . Other conventions are an emphasis on dancing with the artist often dancing in the video of the songs .
Whilst R&B was originally a music enjoyed by a mainly black audience as its success has grown it has broken racial barriers and is now enjoyed by people of all races. The age group for contemporary R&B is a young audience 13-25 however more traditional rhythm and blues style is likely to be enjoyed by an older audience .