Digipak Analysis: Linkin Park - Jay-z Collision Course

The album 'Collision Course' is a collaboration album between rapper Jay-Z and punk band Linkin Park and the digipak reflects this through its artwork and theme. The style is very street based with the use of graffiti styled prints and stencil style fonts.

The background is the texture of what looks like a wall with graffiti art of various musical imagery such as turntables, speakers, microphones etc. This continues onto the back cover looking as if it is sprayed on or has faded away.

The typeface used for this digipak is a mix between the two artists as this is an album made by two artists, On the cover the typeface is of what is typically seen on CDs of Linkin Park however on one of the sleeves the typeface is typical of Jay-z.

The style of the text and imagery behind it is very busy and quite aggressive in a sense that the cover of the digipak isn't simple and chilled out.

This could be thought to be conventional hip-hop as hip-hop is influenced a lot by street culture so the use of this imagery could be a reflection of this.

The panels all include the wall texture with various pieces of graffiti prints of imagery related to music and sound (Conventional of hip-hop). 

The digipak has a parental advisory logo on the back cover, this is a convention through certain genres of music because of the language used in some tracks of the album. 

DigiPak Analysis: A Day To Remember - What Separates Me From You

 A Day To Remember - What Separates Me From You

 This digipak is a 6 page digipak.

The band combines the sound of pop-punk and metal. The pop-punk aspect can be clearly seen on the digipak through both the bright colours used in the artwork and the cartoon like pictures. The lack of writing on the front cover draws more attention to the colours and pictures, this again is another stereotypical aspect of the pop-punk side of this band.

There is also aspects of the metal genre on the digipak as well, the artwork on the inside covers of the digipak is a lot more serious than that of other photographs, creating a much more serious undertone to the artwork; which is much more able to relate to the metal genre than the pop-punk genre.

On the inside of the digipak there is a story being told throughout, the story being told appears to be the story of a wedding scene. However there is a man looking like he is about to stop them and a smashed up clock. This could suggest the day has gone wrong, there also is a hand towards the left hand side of the digipak, which the audience could see as the hand is coming out of the digipak and inviting the audience to listen to their music.

Music Video Director Research: Tony Petrossian

Tony Petrossian is a music video director who specializes working with well known mainstream rock and metal bands/artists such as Serj Tankian, Rise Against and Slipknot. Tony has been awarded for his works such as his hit Slipknot music video entitled "Vermillion" which won the audience award at the SXSW Film Festival in 2006.

"Vermillion" - Slipknot



The style of stop motion used in the above music video appeals to me because I like how the director has chosen to isolate the actress from her surroundings. An example of this is towards the end of the video where the location of the shot is appears to be in an underground train station, which shows everyone rushing by ignoring her presence.

The use of live performance and stop motion seems very unrealistic due to the frames per second used for the video making it feel like a hallucination or a dream like state.

"Prayer Of The Refugee" - Rise Against




The fast paced editing of the live performance reflects the genre of the track quite well,examples of the fast paced cuts are at 1:56 - 2:06 shows how chaotic and fast paced the track is throughout the music video.

There are many close ups which focus on the lead singer throughout the music video, this shows the image of the band and their style.

Tony has taken the opportunity to promote the awareness of fair trade in the USA by leaving a strong impact through the use of cuts between the band and items around them such as the bananas and toy car. I particularly how the music video ends because of the way the message is put across to the audience.

"Empty Walls" - Serj Tankian



I like how the music video portrays real life events that had been happening at the time of the music video, in the video the children play fighting are portraying the war in Iraq.

The scene from 0:16 - 0:40 shows a young girl building two towers of blocks. A boy launches a toy airplane into the towers, knocking them down and upsetting the girl, and she is shown to want revenge. I like how this again shows an innocent portrayal of life events.

I like the use of the young children being innocent and play fighting portrays real events as games until the ending when the realize it isn't all fun and games in which a coffin is carried and put into a hearse, the coffin is of a solider and you can see this due to the soldiers carrying it and the American flag laid over it.