Digipak Design Research: appearance of artist, style and video analysis- Charlie

    

For our homework over the summer, we had to pick an artist to look up, analysise their music videos and their uisual appearance and design a CD cover that would resemble the artist. This time, we are doing the same task for the artist that we are doing for our music video. For our group we will be analysing Miles Kane.

Music Video Analysis- Part 1: Genre

Miles Kane's first debute song as a solo artist was "Inhaler" which was released on the 22nd November 2010. Since Miles Kane has only been a solo artist for 1 year, it's hard to see any changes that have happened. However we can compare him to what he was like when he was co-frontman in 'The Last Shadow Puppets' and compare to what he appears like now.

When you look at videos of him before he left 'The Last Shadow Puppets' , there are elements that the artist uses that are visual in his more recent solo videos. An example of this is in two videos "Standing Next To Me" and "The Age Of Understatement" when his dress sense is very similar to what he wears now. He dresses quite formally in a suit and in these two particualr videos he wears polonecks underneath to add that slight element of casualness. This formal image is consistant throught all his music videos that he has been in both as a band and on his own.
He is known throughout the music industry as having a 'indie rock' theme and feel to his music. Because of his music genre he is very often related to other indie/rock groups such as Artic Monkeys who he supported on their this year, 'Oasis' 'Beady Eye' and ofcourse his previous bands ' The Flames' , 'The Rascals' and his part-time band 'The Last Shadow Puppets'. They all have the same general vibe and style of performance.

As i said before his style hasn't really changed dramatically over the past couple of years since he has gone into different bands that are from the same genre. I feel that since he has become a solo artist he focuses alot more on his performance and his guitar which he is constantly shown playing throughout his videos to sell himself, which his followers and fans expect.
The generic conventions in his music videos are of his plaaying his guitar as most of his videos are a higher percentage of performance then they are to narrative and whilst dressing formally, he has the appearance of a casual laid back guy with no outgoing special effects and simply either singer with or without a mic. This shows that he is purely concerntrating on the performance side rather then trying to impress the audience with complicated and impressive music videos that give the idea that image is better than music. He goes against this idea.


Part 2: Visual Style and Image

Although he does mainly focus on performance videos, some of his music videos are slightly different in the elements of mise en scene. In his video "Come Closer" the setting is bases around a man's bar with dancers and Miles Kane singing to the crowd in the pub and ofcourse the audience watching the video. The lighting is dark and there are red lights in the scene to add some colour and give it a slight atmosphere that is slightly dingy that you would expect from a man's bar, yet the music is quite upbeat. However in his music video "rearrange" there is only a 'green screen'  that changes the colour of the background and the occasional word blown up on the screen whilst they are playing. This shows that he prefers to show that the very basics of a video can still be as effective anslong as the song and the performance fits in with it, which it does.





His visual image is the same for every video which shows that he is showing a constant image that his fans recognise and know him for as it is his trade mark as being dressed in a formal style. This shows the representation as a everyday guy but not as indie everyday guy you see in other recent music videios by other artists. Other young indie artists wear your everyday skinny jeans t0shirts and hoodie and jumper that is know a common image for indie people.
Also , by looking at his image he is continuously compared and resembled to former Beatles member Paul Mccartney as they almost look identical in the way they dress and their simliar hair styles. A possible influence for Miles kane?

CD Cover Analysis- Part 1

For his first solo album, Miles Kane's CD is very basic and simple.The name of the CD is called "Colour of the Trap" , and simply has a black and white image of himself with his name print over in a light pink font and a dark grey background for both the front and the back and white font for the name titles of the back cover. This show a simplistic idea and that Miles Kane just wants people to recognize him and the songs he produces. possibly later on when we is more well known for his solo career could he then possibly add more detail and rely less on his appearance for his album.



Last Shadow puppets

If we look at some of "The Last Shadow Puppets" albums the ideas and layout is very similar. There isn't too much detail behind them and the imagery is simple yet you can interpret it in different ways. "The Age of Understatement" album has a woman sitting on the right hand side with her legs bent in knee highs and a loose shirt. The name of the band and the album title is in medium font on the top left. I think it suits in quite well with their genre as it isn't too fancy and it's intriguing and their target audience will understand what they are going for as the base themselves on their music not too much their image.



Arctic Monkeys 



Arctic Monkeys are also quite similar to Miles Kane as they portray themselves as your everyday band and they aren't out to impress people with fancy music videos and have small yet effective albums. One of their famous albums is "Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not" has a image of a guy in the centre of the cover having a smoke. With the back cover of him looking away shameful and the CD cover imprinted with cigarettes on it. Yet again it's a simple idea on the cover yet it almost tells a story with the male on the cover being possibly ashamed that he smokes. But, who knows? All of these bands are recognized as either Miles influences or his previous bands which shows similar imagery to portray his personality and his music.

The Rascals

The Rascals was his second band before going on to work with The Last Shadow Puppets and his solo career. The three of them in the band have almost the same appearance as he does with Alex in T.L.S.P with polo necks, jeans big coats and mullet hair cuts. Their album "Rascalize" shows the band walking down the street somewhere in London due to the surroundings with the usual outfits in black and white  with the bands name written in red in the style of spray paint with the title underneath. The name of the band makes them sound like young lads that are up to no good and having a joke around, whereas in contrast to what they look like and their music; they dress smartly, and has upbeat yet laid back indie classical rock genre to their music. A very juxtaposed image and title for the band.

Looking at all of these albums together it shows that throughout his career so far, Miles has continued to keep up the image that everyone knows him for to show that the music industry and possibly fame hasn't effected the way he looks, or himself as a person. He is still seen as a kind, laid back casual guy you could be in the street.


Part 2: CD Cover Idea

    


Here are my ideas for a Miles Kane album. I took some of the ideas from his first album and other images i could find of him and imported them into what I think would represent him well . I drew a picture of him playing the guitar for the front cover and basic purple font going down from the right hand side which I took from his album cover. I choose to do this because his fans know him for playing the guitar when he is performing at gigs and I think showing him playing goes with the conventions and ideas that a lot of indie bands go for and of course from his previous album. The back of the cover is very similar to his "Colour of the Trap" album except I felt it looked a bit empty so I decided to have them going from the top to the bottom of the album instead of cramming them at the bottom going across. The inside I got from a photo shoot he did for a magazine as is doesn't show too much about his appearance but focuses on him as a singer which fits in with what he wants to achieve. Finally for the CD itself, I took the font idea from T.C.O.T.T album cover and have his name put across it in purple font to show simple yet effective labeling.