By Shannon Horton

CD ANALYSIS-AVENGED

SEVENFOLD, NIGHTMARE

The album is called “Nightmare”.It was made by Avenged Sevenfold with Hopeless

records (a subsidiary of Warner Brothers).The album focuses on fine tuning their diverse

rock sound and creating a new, vivid imagery with their work.

This should mean that the album should use a lot of rich colours and detailed imagery.

The digipack/album artwork should also reflect typical codes and conventions of rock music and should involve some adapted images from other rock albums.

NIGHTMARE

MOODBOARD FOR ROCK ALBUM COVER

MOODBOARD FOR DIVERSE ROCK ALBUM COVERS

TYPOGRAPHY

The font is broken and crooked, which is typical with the band name. Some bands carry a font in their name to create a motif or to affirm a sense of typicality. This add a familiarisation with the artist, but also creates a sense of domination as the text is written in white to stand out against the album image. This domination could be linked to the overriding sense of evil within everyone whether it be within the music industry or in normal life. This is shown through the image being ever present behind the grave stone with the word “forever” imprinted upon it. This creates the imagery of horror, and promotes/confirms the title of the album, that the ideas of evil present within everyone are a “Nightmare”. The writing of the album title “Nightmare” is written in red. The red could be the clichéd association in the rock genre (when regarding horror) with blood. This creates an image of death which adheres with the theme of the image of the album artwork, as the image takes place in a graveyard. The band name is actually larger than the name of the album, which could send the message that the band are the cause of our nightmares. The audience then should feel a sense of nervousness. This type of selling is called: “Sale via Cruelty”.

TYPOGRAPHY 2- “FOREVER”

The word “forever” implies a sense that the repercussions of the band will be ever present within society. However, one of the more common associations with the word “forever” is a sign of remembrance for the lately deceased band member James Owen “The Rev” Sullivan, Avenged Sevenfolds’ former drummer. If you look closely, you will see that the “rev” sub-section of “forever” is slightly larger than the rest of the word. This could also imply that though members of the band may die, their presence will be there forever, represented by the demon type creature displayed on the front of the album.

THE ALBUM IMAGE

The image of the album is very dark, however, the blue of the album does create a sense of illumination/rebirth. This is made by the smoke surrounding the demon. This is affirmed by the stars, giving the demon a sense of omnipresence. However, this could also be interpreted as Sulphur from the demons’ encounters with other hellish beings. The demon has associations with the mythical bringer of death, “The Grim Reaper”. This could show that in a way, this demon is “home” in the graveyard. However, on close inspect in the bottom right corner of the image, there is a corner of a bed post. This could either imply that this demon is at his final resting place (and will therefore sleep, and no longer kill). It could also imply that there is yet another victim awaiting their death, or having a hellish “nightmare”.

The font of the band name is actually larger than the album name, I should probably adopt this for my album artwork.

Generally, rock albums use vibrant colours (yet they are not generally bright colours). For example, bright blue as opposed to dark pink.

There should be subtle references to other works (like a motif, for example).

The focus does not have to be entirely on the artist. It should convey the message relating to the title of

my CD album. There should be multiple colours on my album

WHAT HAVE I LEARNED THROUGH MY ANALYSIS