Digi Pak Conventions

I have chosen to look at two different genres for my DigiPak conventions analysis. I am going to discuss the conventions included within the two albums I have looked at.

The first album I looked at was the super deluxe edition of ‘The Beginning’ by the Black Eyed Peas which features 5 songs from their other album entitled ‘The E.N.D’ on a bonus disc. This album comes under the genre of hip-hop, electro and techno.

The Black Eyed Peas album cover includes an image of each band member; however the image is in a cartoon style. The digitalised and cartoon style images reflect the techno, hip-hop genre. The track listing is located on the back cover of the CD case. The track listing is divided into two sections; CD 1 – The Beginning and CD 2 – The Best of The E.N.D.

The song titles and other information found on the back of the CD case are in a bold white font. The main image of the back cover is the same image that was used for the front cover of the Black Eyed Peas album The E.N.D. The original price of this album was £12.99. Other pieces of information that can be found on the back of this album include the barcode and the band’s official website.

Like most albums, inside the case there is a booklet consisting of photos and general information about the band and the album. One thing I noticed that isn’t in the booklet is song lyrics. Including song lyrics in the information booklet is usually a popular aspect to include.

The inside of the booklet is very much like the rest of the album’s overall appearance; dark and digitalised. Each page has a black background with lilac and white font and the occasional cartoon style image.

Towards the end of the booklet in the Black Eyed Peas album, there is a page consisting of thank you messages from each band member, and also a page of information including things like the names of producers, marketing co-ordinators and product managers.

The DigiPak itself is a simple plastic case, which opens up to reveal the booklet about ‘The Beginning’ on the left hand side, and ‘The Beginning’ CD, and the piece of plastic holding CD one opens up to reveal the second CD entitled ‘The Best of The E.N.D’ and one small page about the producers and writers of the songs featured on the bonus CD.

The second album I looked at was ‘Kiss & Tell’ by Selena Gomez & the Scene. Selena Gomez has released albums before as an individual artist but this time around she teamed up with her band and they all produced an album together. The album I looked at comes under the genre of pop, dance-pop and pop-punk.

The album cover consists of an image of Selena Gomez. The image is very stereotypical of a pop singer. She is wearing lots of jewellery and has very neutral girly make-up. 

The track listing is written on the back of the CD case.

It’s a basic font written in white and pink on a plain black background, however to add a girly touch to the track listing, the ‘&’ signs are small love hearts.

As you can see from the photos, I purchased this album for £3 in the sale, and I think its original price was around £9.99. Like several albums, the barcode and the music label which produced the album are featured on the back. Unlike the Black Eyed Peas album, Selena Gomez’s official website is not listed on the back of the CD case.

The booklet inside the CD case is again very different from the booklet found inside the Black Eyed Peas album as this one contains actual photos of Selena Gomez, and also lyrics to each song featured on the CD. There are a total of 10 images throughout the booklet including the cover image, and they all show typical conventions associated with the pop genre. In each image Selena Gomez is wearing a girly outfit usually consisting of skirts, dresses, jewellery and make-up.

The theme throughout the booklet is pink, black and white. Underneath each song title are the lyrics, and underneath the lyrics it says who the song was written, produced and published by. The last two pages of the booklet are titled ‘credits’ and ‘special thanks’. In very small print at the bottom of the very back page of the booklet, it has the artist’s official website along with some other information.

The overall colour, style and layout of the album reflect the pop genre well. Bright colours and lots of photos are a popular convention found in pop albums. Even the CD disk itself matches the interior and exterior of the CD case; it’s a bright pink disk with silver writing. The CD case is a standard plastic case used for most albums unless, like the Black Eyed Peas album, there is more than one disk included.

Overall as you can see, the two DigiPak’s I have compared are quite different due to the different music genres. Certain areas within the two albums are quite similar for example, the use of colour and images, whereas some of the differences include the amount and style of images, the use of lyrics and the colour schemes.