Website: Kings Of Leon Analysis

Kings Of Leon Website Analysis

Having a website within the new Web 2.0 era has become a necessity to artists and bands no matter how big or small. There are new interactive demands such as online downloads and connections to other social media, an example of a website that has been updated to meet today’s necessities is from Kings Of Leon.

Nowadays, websites have become an important new way of marketing an artist and their brand. It is now not enough just to be a singer, you automatically become your own brand. This is something that can either be embraced or ignored. Most artistes embrace their brands branching out to storing a back catalogue of their previous albums on their website. Since TV programmes associated with music have become a thing of the past, people have turned to their websites and social media as a brand new marketing tool. You can now buy peoples singles and albums from their website, this contributes to total sales in the charts as well as physical sales. It means that an album or song is now able to re-enter the charts at any point. An example of this is David Bowie, when he passed away his song ‘Purple Rain’ which was originally released in 1984 re-entered the worldwide charts.

Due to the release of a new album last week, Kings Of Leon’s website has changed to promote it. When first clicking on the sites link a pre-page is shown that says “The WALLS come down” WALLS being the title of their new album. Once you left click anywhere on the page there is a shattering effect which then falls down to reveal four faces, these being the Followill Brothers (the band members). The band member’s faces have emerged from a blue paint typed substance, only revealing their main features. They are all looking straight forward giving direct address to their audience viewing the website. This creates an intimacy between the band and the user. The blue colour creates a cool and calming feel to the website, the colour has a representation of creativity. There is also a faded blue/white glow to their faces. The white represents some kind of purity and awakening, this could show a new start for the band after they had some trouble last year with their lead singer. The fact it looks like paint could have something to do with painting a wall which links in with their album and new single title.

On the right side of the website there are three white lines which act as a navigation bar when the mouse is hovered over them. The white colour matches the glow of the artists faces, making it blend in well with the colour scheme. When clicked, there is a new window which pops up, it also has a white background. The writing is a light grey colour and is written in block capitals with the letters having significant spacing between one another. When hovered over, the writing turns to a red colour, this colour represents danger and warning. It can also represent love in their case. Underneath the five navigation options ("Home", "Store", "Tours", "News", "Media") there is a section where one could sign up for what is presumed to be a newsletter (it is not actually stated). They ask for your email, zip/postal code and your country. Along the bottom of the navigation there are four different icons representing each social media site, these are clickable and will link you to their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Vevo.

Social media is a key aspect of having a website in the 21^st century, they have become almost essential to maintain a band or artists profile. It gives the fans a special bond with their favourite artists. They get to know what they are getting up to in their personal life as well as a behind the scenes look at their albums. It is much harder for a star to maintain their profile within this day and age because there are so many platforms in which they have to deliver. An audience does not only by hardcopies of albums anymore, sadly for the artists most music is streamed illegally. This can become a problem is places like the UK where 95% of music was illegally downloaded in 2015, it means artists are slowly getting less and less money for their work.  An example of someone who took action against this is Taylor Swift, in the summer of 2015 she wrote an open letter to Apple Music explaining how she wouldn't be putting her music on their new service due to the fact the artists get paid nothing for the 3 month free trial of the software. Of course Apple Music vice president Eddy Cue was quick to call the star to strike a deal between them where they would pay artists during the trial. She happily said yes to Apple however still to this day does not have any music on Spotify, she said this about the two companies to Vanity Fair Magazine in August 2015: "Apple treated me like I was a voice of a creative community that they actually cared about, and I found it really ironic that the multi-billion-dollar company reacted to criticism with humility, and the start-up with no cash flow reacted to criticism like a corporate machine."

With some artists taking action against different social media and streaming sites it is no wonder they are great publicity platforms. It is a highly effective and cheap way to cause a buzz within the industry. Many artists use it as an advantage of free promotion and a way to keep people interested. Again an example is Taylor Swift who's music video Bad Blood was heavily promoted over Twitter and Instagram, everyday for about 10 days there would be a new picture posted of a character staring in her video. These characters were also other artists, models and actors. It had such a huge enigma behind it that when the video did premiere (the VMA preshow 2015) it broke the record for most views on Vevo in 24 hours with 20.1 million people watching worldwide.

One of the major sections of the Kings Of Leon website is a 'store' this when click asks the user if they would like to buy a physical bundle of the bands goodies. However next to it there are links to Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and Amazon. These are everywhere you can get the album online. It has become so popular these days to buy a digital copy of an album that it now counts towards record sales. It has become more popular for the easy and efficiency of it, you can click buy and it will automatically download to your phone. To some people this is much better than having to go to a shop or paying a little bit extra for postage, however others do like a hard copy disk where it feels as if they have physically bought something. Along with the streaming site icons, there is also a picture of their new album, the disk and the cover. It gives us a view of what we could be purchasing. The cover shown is actually very similar to the homepage of their website, it shows their four faces emerging from a paint substance however instead of blue it is a beige/pink colour. This matches the disk which is also pink.

The next section of the website is for information about touring. Touring is a key aspect of becoming a big band/artist, it gives your fans a chance to hear your album live and be in
the presence of their idols. However in our 21^st century world artists now release an album and then tour whereas it used to be the other way around. It now costs in impeccable amount of money to make an album that people now making their money from selling merchandise and concert tickets rather than the actual album. At a normal record company, the label and people who helped make the album will get a pretty high percentage of the money made from album sales. Artists play huge venues in big cities to make more sales. For example: it says on their website that Kings Of Leon will be playing Madison Square Garden on January 20^th of next year. There is an option to buy tickets for the event directly on the site. The background image to this section is pink in colour and has a rather odd picture of six eyeballs wrapped up in cellophane like a sweet. Th pink colour represents affection, thoughtfulness and caring. It is stereotyped as a more feminine colour so it could be a way of appealing to their female fans.

The news section of the website is next down in the navigation bar. When pressed it brings you to a page with another blue background however this shade is slightly darker than the one on the homepage. The page includes their three latest pieces of information clearly posted by an admin or someone when manages the site. The background has a picture of a skull with yellow/white flowers for eyes. This could be linked with the eyeballs on the previous page. The fact there are flowers in the eye sockets make it seem less creepy, the yellow and blue are contrasting colours which are opposite in the colour wheel. This means they match well together. The type of flower is an orchid. The orchid represents luxury, love, beauty and strength. Orchids in ancient Greek actually show virility (strength and manliness). This could be something the band want to be seen as. This skull also shows a gold tooth, this is normally associated with wealth (which of course the band have). If you click on the individual news sections, a new page slides in from right to left. On the left side of the page is the information on the topic and on the right it shows a picture of something to do with the topic.

The final section of the website is all to do with media. There are two rows of five images, all of these are Instagram or Twitter photos from the bands/people of the bands accounts. When clicked they are enlarged and you can see them more clearly, they do not link to their accounts like you would think. However as mentioned earlier, there are links to their social media within the navigation bar. The use of their personal/behind the scenes pictures on the site show them as real people and their likes and dislikes. Their social media is a place where they are seen as normal where their audience can try to relate with them as much as possible. The background of this page is a camouflage green colour. This colour represents growth and renewal. It can also represent nature. The fact that it can show growth and renewal links to the fact that it is a new album, the band have grown and changed.