Our Music Video

Evaluation Q1 -How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?

How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?

I feel that we have achieved our aim of not only targeting younger age groups to expand our target market, but also reached the original target market. We have used one method in particular which ties in with our aim, this was to show the band in a casual dress, in the original video by the Hoosiers they are seen to be wearing very smart indie clothes, i have identified this by looking into and researching indie clothing. I feel we have elaborated a casual sense of dress into indie genre and throughout our ancillary tasks to help us achieve our aim.

I made the album cover which combines an original feel with casual clothing. The fact that we have shown our album cover in the video not only advertises our band and our music video but allows us to advertise on another technological platform. This also helps to establish the bands dress sense by showing casual clothing in the album cover and the video. We have now imprinted a view of The Big Beat into our consumers minds which is a technique used in almost every platform of the media. Mainly seen in the news where 'youths' are imprinted in the minds of the public as 'trouble makers' and 'druggies', where as in the real world there are only a minor few who show these behaviors.

Our poster shows some aspects of our album cover, this ties in with the Hypodermic Needle Model, where we are simply imprinting our album cover in the minds of our audience meaning they subconsciously remember it without processing or challenging the data., which also maximises the use of advertisement and band recognition. Along with our website the poster shows dates and gigs in local areas along with how much it is for entry.

I think that my initial research into music videos really helped me to understand and develop what to focus on and what shots to film, i think i needed this skill as i was filming, preparing the shots and editing; i think my research into lighting helped me to focus on a certain subject or area in a shot. I also decided on costumes to wear, which was very important to make sure we achieved our aim.

Our end product has been developed using planning and time management which are vital to achieveing our aim. We have taken the Uses And Gratifications theory into account when planning our values in the video because audiences use the mediaa for a "personal Identity" purpose meaning the learn values from texts. The moral of our video was to make the right decitions for yourself because you cant turn back time, as with what happens in the video. Josh decides to take a very laid- back attitude in the video and with shots of him and the band this then cotridicts his 'young life' by becoming a singer.

When i researched contemporary music videos i found that not one is nearly the same as the other. I like the way 'Hurts' conduct a music video as in some respect we took on their way by filming up close footage of josh miming. However i feel that the very unique way of filming and mise-en-scene they use would be hard to explore whilst on a very low budget.

I feel that each ancillary task has been thought about and is relevant to our band, and overall our music video takes on a subject that is very important to young people. So combining a band that dresses and acts like a young person with the subject 'choices' that young people can relate to we have created a combination of album covers, posters, websites and a video that differs from contemporary music videos.

We have chosen our audience very well and have adapted some shots to try and widen our audience further, like hurts we have chosen to add cheek bones and a close up of a male face to try and appeal to females, which again is stated by the Hypodermic Needle Model- whereby our audience are manipulated by our group ( the creator) of a music video.

Evaluation Q2 - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Firstly we identified our audience and then conducted a questionnaire that was specific. this allowed us to take on their views to try and adapt our video to the requirements which falls under the definition of customer orientated marketing,

You can see evidence of this in the first few shots where images are flashed of choices made at school and higher education. This was from our findings during our audience research.

Questionnaire Question
What do you consider to be an important choice at this age?
Answer  - Boy aged 16
Options for higher education and beyond

We also asked our audience if they preferred to see the artist in their music video
90% of the people we asked said they would, from this we have adapted our music video to show the band throughout.
Our questionnaires have also helped us to find out whether or not our audience would consider buying the song if we took their views into account, All 20 year 11 pupils said they would buy our song if we did this.
I believe our music video gives young people a change to relate to their life in a media area where it hasn't been changed and mediated to the extent people change their beliefs and turn into a mischievous 'youth'.

We have also learnt a lot from friends due to their age group being in our target audience, both before and after filming we had positive and negative views, and overall enabled us to adapt our video further; not only by quicker cutting, but adding shots like the coin toss and trying out new effects. We also added close up shots of our actor due to a comment made by one of my Friends " i think if you take more close up shots then more women are likely to buy the video because of things like male cheek bones being shown" We then shot some extra footage to take her view into account. You can see this when only parts of Josh's face are shown miming to the song.

Overall we have learnt that you can adapt a music video to all of your audience preferences- However you can change some shots only a slight bit which changes the feel of a music video, to advertise to different sexes.
We have managed to take on male and female aspects of advertisement, audience likes and dislikes found from our questionnaire. Our young age male group are known for wanting cars and being independent, we've shown some scenes of cars so that there are many subjects in the video young males can relate to, and see themselves in the actors shoes! Showing the Representation Theory, in how our music videos allows our audience to relate to themselves and represent their young life.
For females as Ive spoken above, we've learnt that they prefer close-ups of male faces, which we have also adapted into our music video.

I have learnt that our editing has been consistent throughout our film and has enabled the viewer to keep up with the references and storyline. Also our idea that we have chosen goes well with the song. This feed back has come from people in our target audience so the comments below are relevent to who we aimed our product at.

"Holly Addison The shots of the band is lit really well, with effective shadows!
good variety of shots, and cut well to the beat of the music
edited really well, with lots of fresh and quick cuts!
good job!"


"Beth Walton wow well done on the editing, all the quick cuts work really well particularly towards the end:)
you got a good balance between the band shots and the story too"


"Naomi Cassiopeia Lloyd-Wakeman well done guys this is a really great video :) love the smoke machine at the end :)"


"James Scfc Thomas this is awesome :) well done, i like that the video relates to the music too, and the editing in this is really effective, watch out steven speilberg ;)"


"Ellis Baker really different, interesting shots and fast-paced, works really well!"

Evaluation Q3 - In what ways does your media product, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Contemporary music videos are changing all the time and are producing more symbolic references than ever before. I have chosen a video below that i feel is one of the first videos of its style. I cant identify what the style is other that saying it conform to the male gaze theory.



Looking and observing this we have clearly challenged contemporary media music videos by choosing to show a story in our video.
We have clearly challenged the current band approach to conducting 'Choices' and i feel have managed to take on the views of our target audience and put their preferences into practise.
We have also used symbolic references such as cheek bones to show attraction, and the rewinding of the clips show how you cant make the same choice twice, and that you only have one shot to do what you want at this age.
Also the banging of the symbols and the slamming of car doors symbolises the singers frustration with making the right choice.
Other symbolic references include, the throwing of an application form , this shows he has to many options to choose from and is frustrated about being forced into a decision.
So from symbolic references we have developed a contemporary way of producing music videos, because the modern media uses these references, unlike older music videos that blatantly show what they want in a video.

One of the ways i could approach this question would be to talk about my endless research into the original video, trying not to copy ideas and shots because my main ideas was to differentiate from the Hoosiers. However the last shots from the original video are mainly taken up of the band therefore i developed this and constructed my final shots around this idea. including many elements from my own imagination taken from the subject we specified ' young peoples choices'.

There is also much 'tongue in cheek' evidence in our video this also conforms to the Hoosiers video, specifically when the man plays his keyboard at the start and his actions on screen do not match the music notes in the song.

I also tried to take some aspects of their indie pop genre into our video, this is seen when the camera is seen to move from the interior of the singers car and zooms back out the back window.

This then makes me come to the conclusion that we have taken aspects of historical and contemporary music videos to symbolise and show a young persons troubles, along with being able to attract them to buy our product by taking their and some of the original bands' views into account. however we have both developed and challenged forms and conventions of contemporary music videos.

Evaluation Q4- How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,planning and evaluation stages?

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,planning and evaluation stages?

Firstly we have used computers to research The Hoosiers, and also plan and evaluate our project.
The Internet has been extremely helpful by helping us to gain audience feedback from YouTube and facebook, and also enabling us to research different lighting techniques such as three point lighting, which was used in a combination of shots.
The internet has allowed us to produce a website that advertises band concert dates, gigd, posters, clothes, and other products. Today the internat is one of the main ways of advertisement and comunication, therfore i feel we should exploit this to make full use of it, and its free uses, such as weeble where you can make a website for free.

For me the most important technology i used was the i mac.

I edited all of the video and found i movie software extremely usefull and frustrating at the same time. different effects and transitions have enabled me to create a video that is 8gb, mostly due to quick cutting and experimentations with transition effects.

Due to our song choice being so up-beat and ending suddenly i needed to make sure our final shots where just right- therefore i used a tried out many different effects to have full effect along with the sudden ending. during this process i used the internet to find out how the original song ended at try and crasp some transition techniques. however our version of the song was slightly different, and the original did not finish as suddenly, therefore compared to the hoosiers i searched more difficultly to fit the music with shots and effects in our video.

Youtueb helped me considerably when trying to confrom or differenciate from contempory industry norms.



Youtube also helped us when trying to gain audience feedback, and promoting our band.

overall we have used a list of technologies ranging from older ones such as the video camera, to new editing sofware and applications such as i movie.

Day 1 -Filming

Day 1

Today we have filmed our band miming to the lyrics of our song, most of this is when the band are singing. we arrived at our venue at 9.00 and started to set up. We used lamps underneath each member to make them stand out, we also used three-point lighting to try and create the perfect light for the band and enabled us to control direct lighting that creates unwanted shadows.

We played the song through speakers, this meant the miming was easier to follow. We placed the camera in 10 different places so that in the editing process we had enough camera angles to show, some of these shots  included:  low to high, mid shot, close up, long shot, a swoop shot and an over the shoulder shot.

The weather didn't have an effect on today's filming because we used a music venue that was indoors.

Day 2 -Filming

Day 2

Today we filmed the next third of our video, this included mostly outdoor shots. We had a slight problem today, which was that the weather was unpredictable; meaning we had to be on guard for any change that would be obvious in our video. We improvised on some of the props that we used, below is one of the sets; a computer chair that we used for the swooping shot, as you can see there are block paving on the ground which meant we had to film numerous shots to get the overall effect we wanted, and to try and minimise any obvious slanting in our final video

Today we also filmed the first few inside shots, like yesterday we used three point lighting, to try and minimise direct light that creates unwanted shadows. We also controlled natural light with curtains and turned all ceiling lights off, to make sure we could control the light to the best of our ability.



As you can see i had to get into some arquard positions to gets the shots i wanted and planned for. ( above me on the top of my fridge )

Day 3 - Filming

Day 3

Today we filmed the school and car scenes, as well as the close up shots of Josh's face so that we can appeal to females.

Lighting was key in this close up shot to show and emphasise Josh's facial features, overall i feel these three days of filming have been very successfull and on time with my predictions on the timetable.

Timetable

We came to the idea that we should make a timetable for our project, this is going to help us keep on track and focused. Below is the table i made for our project. I used windows software to create it and also added to some columns throughout each day.

Props

I have listed all of the props i can think of that we need for our music video, and what each will help us achieve.

Costume - Shirts ( black, white) Braces, thin tie, black trousers and black shoes.

These costumes will help us achieve our smart- casual look, which is going to help differentiate our band to The Hoosiers. Helping us to appeal to a larger target audience.

Instruments - Guitar, drums kit and sticks!, piano, microphone, amps.

Without these we would have a pretty basic band, so we asked a few Friends to borrow some instruments for the day.

Lighting - Foil on wooden board, lamps, the sun and natural light, large tripod lamps.

This has enabled us to show the band in different ways not only by using different camera shots, but too focus on the subject we want it too.

Lighting

I have researched lighting techniques to use in our music video. there are many techniques, some are below.

Three-point lighting is a standard method used in visual media such as video, film, still photography and computer-generated imagery. By using three separate positions, the photographer can illuminate the shot's subject however desired, while also controlling the shading and shadows produced by direct lighting.

The key light, as the name suggests, shines directly upon the subject and serves as its illuminator; more than anything else, the strength, color and angle of the key determines the shot's overall lighting design.

In indoor shots, the key is commonly a specialized lamp, or a camera's flash. In outdoor daytime shots, the Sun often serves as the key light. In this case, of course, the photographer cannot set the light in the exact position he or she wants, so instead arranges it to best capture the sunlight, perhaps after waiting for the sun to position itself just right.

I bought a lamp which had a very bendy stem, becuase lighting is one of the keys to getting mise-en-scene' correct. We also used lighting from home made reflectors which were foil on wooden bords.

This light was just right for some shots and also enabled us to focus on the subject in the video.

Advertisement Techniques and How They Are Relevent To The Big Beat

I have thought about may ways The Big Beat could advertise to increase its stream of revenue. Firstly our band are young which means that they don't have much capital to invest. Therefore i think that posters would be a very cheap and effective way of promoting our image and creating band royalty. posters are also less time consuming that other sorts of advertisement techniques, such as television advertisements, cold calling and word of mouth.
Also in the first few months we would advertise in local towns, we would ask owners of bars and clubs if they would like a free night of music, which would include all ours songs from our first album, this would help our band gain recognition.
Our posters would consist of some characteristics from our album cover to 'kill 2 birds with one stone',meaning we would promote 2 sources of revenue on one advertisement. The poster would also include concert dates at venues around the local area for very small charge.

Also we have shown our album cover in our music video so that we don't need as much advertisement when we release the album. This will also let our target market become aware of what our album cover looks like.

Our Website

This is our website, it was produced using weeble which is a free website maker, this has enables us to reduce our costs and advertise to our target market for a very little price.
The website consists of concert dates, tickets, posters, photos, and clothing.

http://thebigbeatt.weebly.com/

Our Album Cover

Initailly we have decided that we will create a band and try to appeal to a wider audience. Now i am going to design an album cover with the information that has been gathered about the target audience.

Firstly we brainstormed and came to the conclution that we would have the band on the first album, due to our results from the questionaire. However we would have the band in silhouette, which we feel would not only make the cover look more professional, but also meet our main idea for the album cover and appeal to the audience because the band will be on it.

This is the layout for our album cover, this basic sketch shows where each figure will be.

This second image shows what the figures will look like, these are basic silhouettes of the band.

This design shows a more detailed silhouette of the band. However, if we go back to our main idea, it was that the band will not be too formal and will be a take off from the current band The Hoosiers, this design is too formal to attract a younger audience.

This is more of the effect that we are looking for, a more casual dress and the audience are able to realte to the image, seeing that the silhouettes are of the band. this design will be taken into the final planning stages below and developed into a professional album cover.

Above is our final cover idea, we went for a cartoony effect that i think works well with the black and white colours all around the album. I think we have reached our target market by keeping our album to the point; which is standing out from all other albums and keeping our costumes casual.

Band Research

The Hoosiers claimed to create a sound that they called "Odd pop", combining a number of musical genres with the first album The Trick to Life. In my opinion i would say its more Indie Pop. They reinvented themselves for the release of The Illusion of Safety as a more conventional pop band with electro influences.



According to their band biography, Alphonso Raymond Sharland and Irwin Nathanael Sparkes, spent some time in the United States, encouraged by their chemistry teacher (Grant Serpell who was part of the band Sailor during their fame in the 1970s), in an attempt to broaden their horizons. The pair won themselves a football scholarship at the University of Indianapolis.Their time spent in Indiana inspired the band's name: a citizen of Indiana is colloquially called a Hoosier. Having gathered enough material to compile an album, Alphonso and Irwin returned to London where they met Swiss keyboard player and sound engineer Duri Darms, and Martin Skarendahl, a Swedish ex-fireman who was then working with Darms as a recording studio engineer and studying at The London Music School. But this was not the original group as two band members had left, replacing them with Skarendahl.

Irwin went to school at Waingels College, formally known as Waingels Corpse School.

The trio of Sparkes, Skarendahl and Sharland subsequently signed to RCA and released their first album The Trick to Life on 22 October 2007. The band have spoken of their desire to write songs that are about more than just "boy and girl.. finding love on a Friday night on the lash with your mates",

In February 2008 they were named as Worst Band at the annual NME awards.
They are produced by ex-member of Jamiroquai, Toby Smith, and managed by Steve Morton.

The band's second single, "Goodbye Mr A", appeared in the football video game FIFA 08, and the game can also be seen in the "Goodbye Mr A" music video. Lead singer Irwin Sparkes, who is from Reading, is playing on the game as Reading against Manchester United. The song also appears in a trailer for the 2007 film, 'Juno'. Following the release of "Worst Case Scenario", the next release from The Trick to Life was "Cops and Robbers", as confirmed in a live web chat with The Hoosiers on GMTV.

The title track "The Trick to Life" is featured as the end credits music on the thriller From Within released in 2009 which is ironically about a series of unexplained deaths in a small town.



Their second album, The Illusion of Safety, includes song 'Unlikely Hero' for which they filmed the video in a quarry in Derbyshire, and was due to be a single, until it was announced via a message posted on Twitter on 14 October 2010. However, in February 2011, the band announced via their official website that 'Bumpy Ride' was to be their new single and will be released at the end of March. Their new deluxe album, also title Bumpy Ride, is due out in April. The music video for 'Bumpy Ride' tells the story of how the Hoosiers travelled around the United States of America by various means of transport; this can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQUeIBQ7-6M

Technological Convergence

Technological convergence is the tendency for different technological systems to evolve towards performing similar tasks such as, playing music

Convergence can refer to previously separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications), and video that now share resources and interact with each other, synergistically creating new efficiencies.

Today, we are surrounded by a multi-level convergent media world where all modes of communication and information are continually reforming to adapt to the enduring demands of technologies and consumers. Technological convergence changes the way we create, consume, and interact with music. This enables bands to increase streams of revenue and capitalise on expanding their target audience.

Convergence in this instance is defined as the interlinking of computing and other information technologies, media content, and communication networks that have risen as the result of the evolution and popularisation of the Internet as well as the activities, products and services that have emerged in the media.

New Technologies are changing the way we consume music, this gives us more ways of streaming our remake of  "choices" and enables our band to become well known quickly and cheaply

The rise of digital communication in the late 20th century made it possible for media organizations or individuals to deliver text, audio, and video material over the same wired, wireless, or fiber-optic connections. At the same time, it inspired some media organizations to explore multimedia delivery of information.

Distribution Methods

Radio

Radio was the first way the music industry were able to distribute music to a mass market and due to technological advancements in the early 1900's radios became available on a large scale and were the hub of entertainment in many households. As audio playback machines where not easily accessible, the music industry would have used the radio as a starting point for mass media exposure.



Records

In 1930 RCA Victor launched the first commercially accessible record. The revolutionary discs had a rpm of 33 and were capable of long play playback system. The discs were made of plastic and had a diameter of 30cm. The plastic material had the advantage of less surface noise to previous counterparts and was far more durable. The discs allowed space for producers names and logos to be printed in the centre and is where the well known name record 'label' comes from today.

Until the 1950's various companies produced records that required different sized needles to play and had different RPMs. In the mid 1950's the record companies decided to agree on a common recording standard called RIAA equalisation.



Cassettes
The compact cassette often simply refereed to as a 'tape' is a magnetic tape sound recording format. This style of music distribution was massively used between the early 70's up until the late 90's along side the LP vinyl and compact disc (will be discussed next). While widely accessible and relatively cheap and simple, the audio cassette tape had several issues which home users and professional artists found annoying. Due to variances in tape speed on different players playback pitch was often too high or low and as cassette player speed was fixed by the producer this could not be amended easily. Finally different tape formulation and noise reduction schemes artificially boosted or cut high frequencies which was not always ideal for some consumers.


Compact disc (CD)

A compact disc or 'CD' is an optical disc used to store digital data. The CD became commercially available in October 1982 and not only was a break through in music technology but opened up the pathway for interactive CD-ROMs, rewritable CDs and digital video discs! The average CD has a digital memory of 700 mega bites which was previously unheard of and was a massive amount of storage, meaning the quality of music could be improved. Unlike the cassette the CD is still widely used today and its estimated that by 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide. Although still commonly used on a mass basis, the CD is slowly being replaced with digital downloads from online. However this appears more common in the music industry than in others.



Digital download

Consumers are able to transfer a song/s from an online interface onto a local computer. This of course has become far more popular as Internet has developed over recent years and broadband gives users quick Internet connectivity and browsing. digital downloads of course have advantages such as packaging costs being eradicated and opening up new slots in the market. However the rising popularity of digital download does have its disadvantages. For example not all of the downloads available are provided by the producers of the music, meaning the a loss in revenue would take place. As previously distribution of music was only really provided by the record labels responsible for the production illegal downloads mean that although record labels have broadened their market share by offering a different sales tactic, the truth is, pirate copies will always be a large loss in revenue for the music industry.



Youtube

Youtube is just one example of a video sharing website but is by far the most famous. The free online sharing site makes music producers able to promote their music for free, and with less risk of copyright as consumers will only have access to the music if they are on the website. The idea behind this is similar to television promotion on music channels. The music producers either make and promote videos for consumers to watch, or simply upload the song with a still picture in the background to act almost as a sample and make viewers want to purchase the music through other channels of distribution. The advantage youtube and other video sharing site have over TV is that it is in effect music on demand, meaning target audiences can search and access specific music any time, anywhere instead of waiting and watching on the TV.



Modern Day Methods
Record labels today use a combination of the more recent distribution methods. A combination of compact discs, digital download as well of course promoting music through online video sharing sites are the most commonly used contemporary methods. However radio is still a huge marketing platform and is still heavily used almost 80 years after it became a common household appliance. Not only is radio the only 'older' distribution method record producers use to broaden and target their markets, as many still do press vinyl records and sell them to act more as quirky collector's items rather than a main audio format. The cassette however has been almost eradicated from mass music production as the CD or compact disc can match and outdo everything the audio cassette has to offer. Also as seen below, the most recognised MP3 player all over the world. The company sold 807,000 iPods during the quarter, a 909% rise on the same period a year ago. (2004)

The Indie Genre

There are three main sub genres in the genre Indie, indie meaning independent.

The First Is Indie Rock

Indie rock is a sub-genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. The meaning of the term "indie rock" is contested today by many musicians, fans and commentators. Most use the term "indie" to describe any rock music produced by artists working within the network of independent record labels and underground music venues that emerged in the United States and elsewhere in 1980s and 1990s. Others see indie rock as a distinct genre of rock music with a specific artistic aesthetic, and care less about the context in which it is made. Many embrace both meanings of the word, believing that the aesthetics of the genre and its means of production are deeply intertwined.

Indie rock artists are known for placing a premium on maintaining complete control of their music and careers, releasing albums on independent record labels and relying on touring, word-of-mouth, airplay on independent or college radio stations and, in recent years, the Internet for promotion. However, in the 2000s many acts with a musical style identified as "indie" signed to major record labels or their subsidiaries, and began promoting themselves through more traditional media outlets. This has led to a further blurring in the meaning of the term.

Secondly There Is Indie Dance

Alternative dance or indie dance (also referred to as underground dance in the US)[1] is a musical genre that mixes rock sub genres with electronic dance music. Although largely confined to the British Isles, it has gained American and worldwide exposure through acts such as New Order in the 1980s and The Prodigy in the 1990s.

I haven't researched this sub genre as in depth as others because our song doesn't conform to it.

And Finally The Type Of Indie I Think The Hoosiers Conform To Is Indie Pop

Indie pop  is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s, with its roots in the Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early '80s, such as Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera, and the dominant UK independent band of the mid eighties, The Smiths. Unlike Indie rock, Indie pop is more melodic, less noisy, and relatively angst-free.

In the mid to late '80s, indie pop was criticized for its tweeness and underachievement, but many now argue that the birth of this genre was a pivotal moment for independent music in the UK. It continues to have a strong following and inspires musicians, not just in the UK but around the world with new labels, clubs and bands devoted to the sound.

How Packaging For CDs Has Changed....The Digipak

Digipaks typically consist of a gate fold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer shell, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Digipaks were among the first alternatives to jewel cases (below).




They were used by major record companies before the invention of the digipak. When the digipak was invented record labels and bands could put more information about themselves in each sleeve inside the digipak. Where as the jewel case could only hold the front cover and a disk; digipaks have enabled bands to make their customers more aware of concerts, releases, new songs, and band information because of the space that the digipak has given them.





Most digipaks also have space for 2 or more CDs which can not only increase revenue because price will be higher but can also make costs fall, because of less packaging costs. Digipaks are often used for CDs and DVDs which means when new technologies are available and replace these present technologies, new digipaks will have to be released.

Top Ten Album Covers

Below are the top ten album covers of all time according to vinyl records survey.


1 sgt. Pepper - The Beatles



2 Whipped Cream and Other Delights - Herb Alpert



3 The Court of the Crimson King- King Crimson



4 Their Satanic Majesties Request - Rolling Stones



5 Abraxax - Santana



6 Escape - Journey



7 Sticky Fingers - Rolling Stones



8 Fragile - YES



9 London Calling - Clash



10 Led Zeppelin One "Hindenburg Cover" - Led Zeppelin

My reason for looking at these is to gain a better understanding of what makes an attractive album cover. I'm going to design one with these in mind. However i do believe some are a bit out of date and irrelevent to the target market we are trying to focus on.