The New Romantics.

The next movment I looked into was that of the New Romantism that reached it’s peak in the 1980’s. This movemet focused upon it was based around flamboyant, eccentric fashion and New Wave music. Some of the bands that the press associated with this movement were Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club as well as Adam and the Ants.
This movement has been interpreted as a counter to the distressed anti-fashion punk rock style and a revival on glam rock. Another characteristic of New Romantics was where both sexes wore androgynous clothes and males often wore make-up which prompted the drug store boots to release a range of ‘make-up for boys’.


Duran Duran

This self-titeled album by durran duran released in 1981 depicts their connenction to the new romantic movement thorugh the imagery used. This press shot of the band y0u can clearly see the flamboyant clothing. The pint background may also e interpirted as flamboyant and it is a colour useually assiciated with femminineity.

The overall design is very minimlistic, using only a bands of colour  to acsent the image and typography. The typography is a simple block caps san serif font which is slightly itallised. The type and images work together well on this cover as with this style of music, the bands image was prodmoniant feature and therefore it is understandable for the photo take up most of the focus as oppsed to the type of the bands name.





Visage

This cover art for the single ‘visage’ by the band of the same name released in 1981 also relieas heavly on imagery. The image shows steve stange the fontman for the band dressed in the stlye formt the new romantic era. I feel that the typography and images do not work that well together, the type just feels as thought it was placed carelessly on the image. Though it is in a contrasing colour to the image it seems to get lost, although, as I aid previosly with this style of music it it the image that is of importance.
The typeface it’s self is quite pleasing it is a thin san serif that though it is block capitals the chatecters do sem to flow well together due to the conneting lines above and below almost framing the word.   

The Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols were all about contversy, One of their most famous contervsial media apperence shot them into headlines. When they appeared on the ‘today’ show in 1976, they called the host ‘ dirty all man’  and a ‘f**king rotter’ while broadcasting live. The next day they were all over the headlines with titles such as “The Filth and the Fury” (Daily Mirror) and “The Bizarre Face of Punk Rock” (Daily Telegraph).   

 A lot of the Sex Pistols artwork was produced by Jamie Reid. His artwork and the punk sceen is heavily influenced  by the movment The Situationist International (SI) that had its roots in Marxists ideas and promoted different way of thinking that was anti-capitalist.

Through his artwork he attempted to make “quite tergid text, which was full of great ideas much more simplistic. Make it accsesable” – Jamie Reid. 

Some of the main ideology’s associated with the sex pistols are Anti – establishment and anti –authoritarian and these themes are expressed throughout their artwork. This is signified through the defaced image of the queen on the single art for ‘God Save the Queen’. The typography being placed over the eyes and mouth give the impression that she is muted and can’t in force laws and policies.
The ransom note style typography gives the same impression that graffiti can give. It is a rebellion against something that is also anonymous, which is something that their less ‘brave’ fans could invest In by simply promoting their liking of the music.

The materials used in the above artwork seem to be a misture of handgenerated methods are photography. The mix of both these methods help to anchor the imperfect and grimey nature of Punk (This is signifed through the textured look that the flag has and how it dosn't fill the whole frame leaving some white space) and that is why is has been used.   Personally i think that that these methods work well when expressing these theems.
    
As Jamie Reid was the main artists to work with the sex pistols a lot of the artwork that is associated with the band is in this style with the same ideologies.  Examples below –

Album Art of the 60's.The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

The Rolling Stones- Forty Licks

This is the forty licks album art that features the iconic lips design by John Pasche in 1971. 

“The design concept for the Tongue was to represent the band’s antiauthoritarian attitude, Mick’s mouth, and the obvious sexual connotations. I designed it in such a way that it was easily reproduced and in a style that I thought could stand the test of time” – John Pasche.

The logo on this album realised in 2002 is only partly visible, showing that for the stones this logo is so iconic that it doesn’t need to be seen in full to be recognised.   The type and the images on this album cover don’t seem to work together really they seem very separate entities though the matching colour scheme does link them together slightly. They type is understated using a san serif typeface in block caps. The block caps which have connotations of strength power and masculinity helps to connote the masculine elements of the stones and the predominance of this band in British music history.

The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet

(Right) The image that the rolling stones projected of them has been is reflected in this cover for ‘Beggars Banquet’ released in 1986.  
It shows the rebellious nature of them through the graffiti and also how they weren’t a ‘well off’ band in the beginning; they would probably play clubs with bathrooms like this. It also gives an insight into the fans of the band, as the bands nam is written in lipstick. Though, this was not the original cover for the album, thought it was intended to be. It was rejected in favour for a Beatles esque plain white cover.

The Beatles This album cover is one the most iconic covers of all time. The photo is taken outside of abbey road studios. You can tell the decade this this has been produced in due to the clothing worn by the band member sand the VW beetle parked up on the side.
The Typography is very simple and is the lesser focus of the cover as all your attention is drawn by the image. It is a block caps, serif typeface. The typeface looks very masculine which also is reflected in the way the band member are stood as they look strong and determined.    

The 1960’s - The Rolling Stones.

The rolling Stones were formed in April 1962 in London  by Brain Jones, Ian Stewart Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman.

They were first popular in Europe though that quickly became popular in North America during the British Invasion that occurred in mid 1960s. Having released 22 studio albums in the United Kingdom (24 in the United States), eleven live albums (twelve in the US), and numerous compilations, their worldwide sales are estimated at more than 200 million albums.

At their peak the Stones depicted the rocker as the outlaw and rebels not confined the regulations of the government and societal norms. The stones were seen as renegades who were getting detained for everything ranging from drug abuse to pissing on petrol station walls. They unfortunately provided this world of rock with one of the first drug casualties in the form of Brain Jones. Who is drowned in this swimming pool on 3^rd July 1969. He was reported to have died from ‘death by misadventure’. They provided a contrast to the Beatles who were very much the clean cut nice guys of the music scene.

The 1960’s culture.

The counter culture of the 1960’s began when young people began to revolt against conservative norms of the time. And a high level of materialism began to emerge in western society.  Groups that began questioning authority and governments and demanding more rights of women and monitories soon began known as ‘hippies’.The movement was also marked by the first widespread, socially accepted drug use (including LSD and marijuana) and psychedelic music.    

From 1964 to 1966 ‘The British Invasion’ started and was a term used in America to describe the numerous British artists and bands that became popular in America such as The Rolling Stones and the Beatles and The Kinks.

The explosion of consumerism in the 60’s kick stared the Pop art movement with art work by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein becoming sought after. 

Example art work :

  

Music icons through th years.

1960’s

The Rolling Stones

The kinks

The Beatles

The Who

Pink Floyd

1970’s

The Sex Pistols

Led Zeplin

Iron Maiden

Jam

Queen

Def Leppard

1980’s

Tears for fears

Adam Ant

Billy Bragg

Duran Duran

Pulp

1990’s

Oasis

Radio head

Blur

Manic Street Preachers

Coldplay

The British Music Experience

"The British Music Experience is Britain's only interactive museum of popular music. Our mission is to advance the education and appreciation of the art, history, and science of music in Britain. Through combining cutting-edge audio-visual technology and a world-class archive of popular music with some of the most coveted music memorabilia of all time, the British Music Experience is a must-see for any music fan."

Source - http://www.britishmusicexperience.com/about-us/

The BME logo reinforces its connection solely to British music. This is signified through the colour scheme used of blue, red and white that is used on the union jack flag. The connection to music is through the target style iconography taken from the royal air force roundel which is now synonymous with the MOD era in the1950s and peaked in the early-to-mid 1960s as well as the MOD revival in the late 1970’s.

The type works really well with this image as the B is incorporated into the target’s shape and therefore blends together well. Having the Logo on a white background and having the b in the white portion of the logo helps to make it stand out and be eye catching.