CD Cover and Ad Analysis

Magazine ad and CD – Compare and Contrast

Greenday – American Idiot

This American Idiot Album ad, is plain and simple, its set out the same as the actual album itself, with the same images being used this makes it more recognisable to those that want to buy the album so they know what to look out for.

It features the same three colours, red, black and white, this can symbolises the album isn’t particularly for most audiences but can relate to some, and because of the use of white has a innocence to it which can be seen on several of the songs released on the album e.g. Boulevard of Broken Dreams and When September Ends, these songs have kind of an innocence to them, whereas the red and black are assembled for a niche audience.

The grenade on the cover is in the shape of a heart and a person is holding it while its bleeding, this could mean that the reason the album is called American idiot, is because the person’s heart was in someone else’s hands and any minute now it could explode, the reason it’s called American idiot is because the band is American and claim they’re an idiot for putting their heart in someone else’s hands.

The CD cover for this is exactly the same, titled ‘American Idiot’ it has the same images on it, and nothing has changed. The reason why they probably never added anything else onto the advert is because they didn’t want to take away the attention from the album itself as if there is too much writing on it people might just skip past it or not recognise it as much without the writing. So it’s been kept plain and simple to draw the attention to the image and keep it there making it recognisable for those who want to buy it.

The only difference between the Magazine Advert and the CD Cover is the fact that one is longer and bigger than the other, and that’s because of what they’re going to be posted on, so one has to be bigger to appeal to more people.

By Danniella Chapman