A:
Every one in the music industry have competitors, therefore One direction a well known boy band and probably the best boy band in the world for teenage girls. There competitor is 5 Seconds of Summer another five piece boy band from Australia who have toured also around the world. They also focus their music towards a young audience in the E category. Both boy bands sing similar up lifting songs and have the same genre of music, also if you watch their music videos some are quite similar such as She looks so perfect is similar to what makes you beautiful as both songs explain their feelings towards girls and what the two different bands feel.
However, a distinctive difference between 5SOS and One Direction is that there are polls where the fans from each group answer questions such as who are the most good looking band and then there is a percentage which is gathered. Therefore, it shows that the two bands compete with their music and fans they have to be the most popular. Five seconds of summer and one direction are friends but when it comes to music they compete, however below is a picture of them when they are friends and music is not involved.
B: Competitors Music Video, Digipak and AMA
Music Video
On the left, you can see that i have posted two music video's. The top is 5 Seconds of Summers (5SOS) debut single "She Looks So Perfect" the one below is One Direction's (1D) debut single "What Make's You Beautiful". As we are basing this assignment around 1D, we will say that 5SOS is it's biggest competitor. We will b looking at the style of the 5SOS video in comparison to one direction in general, as you can see i will be using what makes you beautiful as an example to cover one direction.
The overall story line of this 5SOS video is, that the boys begin to start singing in their garage, above them in a clothesline of what can assumed to be dirty laundry, throughout the video, it cuts to shots or regular people going about their daily duties, their are shots of burger flippers, police officers, cashiers, local shoppers etc..., however as the song goes on you can see these people getting happier smiling and even subtly dancing to the music while doing their routine, like if they are actually listening to the song, when the song gets to the chorus, in the lead up to the chorus, you can start to see that some of the shots have people in an even better mood and they even begin to start taking their clothes off, in celebration. the rest of the song shows shots of people old, young, male, female, fat and thin people literally stripping down to their undergarments, while listening to the song and just dancing around with everyone and having fun. while all this was happening, the band signing in garage are having clothes raining down on them and covering their equipment, walls and even themselves all in clothes.the last shot is of the boys (who are assumed to be attractive and fit by the audience) shrug and begin to conform to stripping, but the video fades out before we have a chance to see the full picture.
What i have noticed that was similar between the style of One Direction and 5SOS is that they both like focusing their songs around the idea of girls, romance and young love. I say trhis as in both previous videos of 1D and 5SOS recent videos, they are entirely focued around th idea of girls and they both like producing music videos, where either girls are the center of attention and the boys are chasing or vice versa,
What i have noticed in comparison to what makes you beautiful and other one direction videos is that in the 5SOS video and the song that the majority of the time, all the players are singing together in both the verse and chorus and in the video, their isn't a point for more 3 seconds that a member of the band is shown by himself. Whereas in the one direction videos, members of that band are always given Solo's in song and each remember of the band has a subsequent amount of screen time allocated to him so that each of their voices are shown in an individual light when singing all together. I also noticed that unlike One Direction, the boys actually play the instruments rather than singing and therefore they focus on the song sounding good rather than their acting in front of the camera that would go with the good song.
Furthermore, a very noticeable thing is that the 5SOS artist do not move from the garage set the entirety of the video, not even at the end, therefore they do not communicate with any of the other people that you can see in the video such as the actors that are stripping towards hearing the song, or the girls who are on the balcony above them, watching them play in the garage, they only communicate with each other throughout the video. whereas in many one direction video's, although girls, tourists and even prime ministers are included, the boys in that group communicate and act with actors especially in the Video above of "what makes you beautiful" where you can see the girls laughing with band, playing on the beach, or sitting around the bonfire, as I said before,in 5SOS video there is no interaction with any third party.
Finally, in this music video, i was't entirely sure what the message was of the song was. The lyrics weren't clearly explained in the story line, but nonetheless it was very entertaining to watch a bunch of people dancing around in their underwear, in the 1D video, it was clear that the song was about girls and how they underestimate themselves and how they have to realize that they are truly beautiful. As i previously mentioned, listening to the lyrics of the 5SOS song and watching the music video were two different experiences.
Digipaks
As you can see above is two sets of Digipaks, they are both debut albums of the respective bands. The top is One Directions debut album "Up All Night" and below is 5SOS self titled debut album "Five Seconds of Summer". we will be discussing the differences between them. Ad you can see with both layouts of the digipak the order that each element is in is (from left to alright), Back cover, Front Cover, CD insert then the actual CD itself.
The 5SOS album looks very effective in comparison to the ID album, if you look at it, it looks like it was designed by the band themselves, the writing on the back cover is different from most digipaks, usually like the D album, the track list on the CD are usually in a clear font and then designed in the style of a column and that correlates with the order they appear when the CD is played. In this Digipak, the different titles are in no order whereas they jump and all have fonts that scream at you. they are also not written in a straight line, some titles have been written in the shape of a pair of lips whereas another title is white text on a black square, so they all look like and fun when you look at them individually. However, in comparison to the 1D album the layout is neat, and it shows the boys running below the track list, in a dramatic way
Moving on t the actual front cover, you can see the distinctive similarities between the two covers, They both obviously show a picture of the band all together, With 1D album, you can see the clean - cut boy look and it's a sweet natural picture that isn't staged, which what i personally like to see, from that photo, you can also see the bond between the band mates. However, the theme of doodling and drawing run as a theme on the 5SOS album, here you can see the boys all standing in a line with drawings around them such as angel wings, arrow signs and even devil horns, maybe to show the jokey nature that is the band. A Red X is also painted across the album but it is actually done so on the boys clothing which bring a cool effect to the overall artwork.
Moving onto the bottom - left, which is the insert. The 1D album insert is just clearly the same as the cover. think that this was done not to cause confusion and too just make the album appealing and focused on the bands debut rather than confusing the customers with different elements of the album that a not be associated with the band.Alternatively, the 5SOS album insert is full of head shots, photo shots of the group, as you can see the majority are black and white pictures with some red crosses to represents the symbolism of the band over the shots and therefore being the only colour it stands out and makes the overall effect very exciting to look at.
Finally, the actual CD is self explanatory that the One Direction disc is simple, it's bright, effective and eye catching. And it doesn't go over the top with the design mainly because people know that the disc design isn't the most important element of a digipak. however, looking at 5SOS album, it goes with drawing, doodling theme of the rest of the album. It doesn't look professional so much as it looks like the band designed it giving it a more personal effect to the overall digipak the colours are mainly black, white and red. which contrast with the cover where white is the main colour. the overall effect is personal and very effective.
Album Magazine Adverts
Unfortunately, i couldn't find an advert for the One Direction "Up All Night", but this advert of 1D was the next best option.as it is kind of the same layout as a typical One Direction album magazine advert would have been.
As you can see the advert above for five second of summers debut album, as it coincides with the album, it also follows all the basic conventions of a typical AMA, except the shape of the actual advert might be a bit landscape for a magazine. It is the same photograph that appears on the front of album, excluding the doodles, these may have been edited out for this advert for fans to gain a bonus effect when purchasing the album. the poster also keeps in the same layout style that album would have been released in such as bright colours, creative fonts, I also realize that the reason why there might be a cross across the 5 boys, could be in same style of a Tally chart, where 4 lines crossed = 5. therefore, it could be derived of the name of the band,
In comparison to the poster on the right on 1D advertising a portion of their Asian tour. you can see that with like most of their adverts it is usually us an image of the boys standing together and posing, most their albums and the accompanying adverts do not have any other props of any kind within the album art but it is usually just a picture of the boys all together. naturally posing towards the camera. moreover, the album magazine advert is particularly dark in terms of text and background, to make emphasize the boys as they are the main attraction and purpose of the release of the advert.
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