Language:
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| The similarities between the two texts can be clearly seen |
The use of a straight-angled long shot shows the lead guitarist Paul Simonon smashing his guitar. The photograph is taken from a live performance and no editing appears to have been done, with the black and white photography being a feature of the camera, and the quality being, also, due to the camera. The poor quality renders the image as 'poor', and wouldn't feature on a mainstream CD cover, as they are conventionally colourful and 'neat', in the sense that the artist is represented as being perfect. This, however, has a moody tone to it, and the poor quality refelcts the energy of The Clash's live performances, with them being energetic and lively. The use of mise en scene is all unintentional as the shot was taken at a live performance. However, the use of a spot-light lighting creates a dark atmosphere, but leaves the band members clearly visible, something which is essential for a live performance and an album cover. The spot light also connotes a prison break, as they are iconic of prisons. This resemblence can be seen as The Clash were a punk-rock band, which, at the time, was frowned upon (it was a teenage phenomenom). The main theme is the energetic performance of The Clash, as previously said, and so the use of a 'prop' (I say prop, it's actually an instrument used in their live performance, but I have used this terminology as I am talking about mise en scene) guitar. This is iconic of rock/punk music as it is the main instrument, and the act of smashing it, depicted on the above front cover, is iconic of punk rock, who are against mainstream, and what's more anti-mainstream than smashing a guitar? The 'costume' is the band's own clothing, that they like to wear. The main model on the front cover is wearing white 'skinny jeans', which are thought to be a modern style, but in fact started with Elvis and his 'drainpipes'. These type of jeans, once associated with the working class because of their widespread use with that social class, due to the hard-waring qualities of denim and cheapness of it, has become iconic of the rock genre, and its many sub-genres, including punk-rock. Speaking of Elvis, the above CD cover has intertextual references to Elvis' first album, which is self-titled. The intertextual references can be clearly seen, between the two texts, with the use of a black and white photo capturing the essence of their live performances, as well as the situation of the album title, and the colour scheme of pink and green. This may seem completely random, but it is important to remember that Elvis Presley was the punk-rocker of his day, with mainstream people disliking his 'dancing style' and his jeans being worn high up his waiste as well as the genre of music which was primarilly 'rock 'n' roll'. Aforementioned, Elvis wore drainpipes. This can be seen to influence The Clash's style, with the cover for London Calling', the band member can be seen wearing skinny jeans, which were adopted from drainpipes.
Institution:
The album was released in the UK through CBS Records, which is now Columbia Records. It was also released in the US through Epic Records, and both labels are now owned by Sony Music Entertainment, making them subsidiary labels. At the time, both subsidiaries were independent labels, free from conglomerate corporations, and so the production of the album was not affected by the labels, except perhaps only the amount of funding given to make the album and the cover. There also seems to be no mentioning of the institutions on the cover, but I imagine that on the actual hard-copy, the labels will be mentioned, or at the back if not the front.
Ideology:
The CD has certain ideologies that it is trying to convey. It doesn't appear to be parodying Elvis' self-titled album, and so it is saying that Elvis is cool and someone to look up to, like The Clash did. In addition to this, the ideology that rock music and especially punk, is gritty, nasty, in your face and unconventional, which is shown in the image above with the poor-quality image, showing the flounting of the mainstream conventions, aforementioned, and the use of bold, bright colours, especially pink which is iconic of punk music due to The Sex Pistols, who used it frequently on their albums and clothing etc. which all stand out from the background photo, making the album easily seen, recognisable and in the audiences face. Also, the act of smashing the guitar is only seen by bands that are deemed 'cool', and so the text is creatiung the ideology that they are cool, un-mainstream and also have a lot of money, due to the high price of guitars, especially at the time of the album's release.
Audience:
The target audience for the above text is teenagers, aged 13-19. This is because punk-rock was mainly seen to attract the youth, during the 1970's and 1980's, with the album above being released in the UK in 1979 and in the US in 1980. They will be interested primarilly in music and socialising, as are all teenagers of all eras, and at the time of release, the audience would have bought their music from their local record store, with the lack of online downloading and/or streaming, on web 2.0 sites such as YouTube and Myspace Music. There would also have been a lack of supermarkets, such as Tesco, who have recently moved in to the music industry, distributing music at lower prices than Record Stores. I never usually set a gender for a target audience, but in this instance I would say the target audience was males. This is because females usually like the band for a good looking lead singer, but the above text featured no lead singer on it, and The Clash and many other punk bands weren't stereotypically attractive, as they wore piercings and ragged clothing amongst others. One specific social group that I can definitely say it targeted is Punks. This sub-culture gained their image from punk-rock bands such as The Clash, and people like 'Mods' would not have listened to Punk music, for a certainty. The above text caters for their target audience in showing a band member, which would have been expected by the audience, and the use of the colour pink, which is iconic of Punk music, fulfills the audience expectations, as does the pose of the band member featured on the cover, who is smashing a guitar.
Representation:
The artist is represented as a frustrated punk rocker, who is angry and political, something which The Clash are iconic of. The fact that he is smashing a guitar connotes that he's rock and roll; he's angry, as the act shows anger and the rock and roll element comes from the Elvis intertextuality. In addition to this, the pose of the guitarist is iconic of The Who, a huge iconic rock band, and all the features of the above text, featuring references to the King of rock and roll, as well as one of the most iconic rock bands ever to have existed, which represents The Clash as the most rock and roll, as it is adding the two elements of rock together. It doesn't get more rock and roll than this, is what they are basically saying, and of course, Punk music is a sub-genre of the larger, more broader rock genre. The Clash were politically active, being against the government at the time. They wanted to smash everything down and replace it with a better something. This is shown in the smashing of the guitar, representing them as bringing down the establishment, and the fact that you can't see Paul Simonon's face is a key point. He is faceless. This is because he isn't a singlular person, he represents the youth of the UK, and at the time, the youth were up in arms against the norm; the conventional, the mainstream and the government, which at the time was Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party, an infamous political party even to this day. This representation is iconic of The Clash because they 'fought' for the people, perticularly their audience.
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