In Silico by Pendulum

Textual analysis of album 3

The primary image is of, at first glance, a circle that is lit with neon lights, and the background image just looks to be some sort of design. This is what makes this image so beautiful and interesting, it is of a fluorescent circle that represents an women's Egg, we can see the growing child in the center. The background design is of hundreds of sperm cells making their way to fertilize the egg. An image such as this is very conventional to the drum and bass genre because it is an image somewhat unrelated to the artist, yet one symbolic and holding multiple meanings. We will not ever really understand why the artist chose and image like this to represent them; assumptions can be made, notion of life, music and life, music's effect on life, nature perhaps, but we will never really comprehend the message fully. Thats what makes drum & bass albums so unique. Front Cover

In Siliclo by Pendulum Released 2008

In terms of Typography analysis, the font of this album front cover is similar to that of, I would say, AIRIAL ROUNDED MT BOLD. Broadly defined, the font is highly conventional to the drum & bass genre as it appears to be very sturdy, very strong standing and sharp edged. It is a font that could connote to masculinity, conventional to a genre consisting of hard men, hard sounds, hard raves. Also, the albums artist Pendulum is of a slightly thicker and bolder font, this is conventional to the genre as mentioned before in the other 2 CD analysis's to have the artists name larger than the title of the album. Clearly, it is the image that is far more prominent than the writing on top of the circular image. The font stands out due to its colour, white, over a black and blue background, however it is of a highly small font size in comparison to the image. This is layout analysis, the image is the focal point of the album cover, which is very conventional to a genre where artwork is of the upmost importance. The image fills around 3 quarters of the entire pane, and therefore our eyes cannot escape from it, it is almost forced upon us.

Colour scheme: I would describe this as being a neon colour scheme. The image consists of a great deal of primary colours. The colours are all bright, fluorescent, and shine right off the album. It highlights the symbolism behind the image. A colour scheme such as this is very conventional to the genre as colours such as this are associated with the lightings at raves and the objects carried by ravers.

Very dark image. The atmosphere created is quite sinister as well as alluring. We also experience the juxtaposition of colour schemes; dark colour scheme here that contrasts to the shinning reds, greens and yellows of the album front cover and image beside it. The notion of juxtapositions is very conventional to the drum & bass genre.

This is the leaflet on the inside pane that folds open. The image that folds across three separate slides is of an alien space craft hovering above the mountains. This is an exceedingly conventional image to the drum & bass genre. Notions of outer space, alien technology, the universe; it is all presented here. Furthermore, the image has a watercolor finish to it. It looks like a painting; if so, then we experience the conjunction of digital technology and hand drawn artwork overall on the album. The illusion of this is very conventional to the drum & bass genre, as many drum & bass albums look like they have hand drawn images on them.

Inside pane: Same image as on the front cover, which is conventional to the genre.

The CD is completely plane. It is a black CD, no writing, no images, no typography. I have questioned why they would choose to use such a simplistic CD, and the only assumption I can make is that because this whole theme of beginnings and taking things back to their origins is presented in the album front cover (sperm and the egg), then perhaps they wanted to take album designs back to their origins also. When there was no digital technology to print an image or writing onto a CD. If so, this is very conventional to the genre in terms of implementing originality into a digi pack design.

Barcode and institutional information present. Barcode in the top left hand corner and institutional information in the conventional position of at the bottom. The layout also posses the track listing in the center of the back pane. The names of the songs are very clearly written, white upon a black background, we cannot miss them.

Back cover: We can see that the colour scheme from the front cover has not really been carried forward to this pane. This is interesting as most drum & bass albums have a clear revolving theme, however perhaps pendulum wanted to subvert from the preconceived notions of how a drum & bass album should be to a certain extent. If pendulum are trying to adhere to something through the design of this back cover, I believe they are paying homage to the old drum & bass albums that were so simplistic in design. Albums of the late 80s and early 90s.

When both the album front and back cover are placed next to each other we can see their similarities and differences. Same font and colour in the writing, but there are no bright colours on the back pane. Perhaps it is for the reason of juxtaposing the luminous activity that is life with nothingness and plainness. Juxtapositions as mentioned on the slide before are highly conventional to the drum & bass genre.