New Faces of Adoration:

Elements of visual sociology

through the album covers
Paula Guerra, Faculty of the Arts and Humanities, Institute of
Sociology, University of Porto | Griffith Centre for Cultural Research
Ana Oliveira, ISCTE, DINMIACET, University Institute of Lisbon
Pedro Quintela, Faculty of Economics, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra

Summary

1. Social Sciences, image, vision and visuality: a brief framework

2. Music and Image: the relevance of album covers or fascination with the art work
3. Sociologically interpreting the album covers: an analysis of Portuguese punk
album convers (2000 2014)
4. Conclusions and next steps

Image as an object of
study and social
analysis

From social sciences 'logocentrism' to 'ocularcentric' societies

Album covers

More than 'mere' packaging

active contexts of cultural

mediation, playing a crucial role in
establishing relations of
communication and empathy
between producers, cultural
intermediary and listeners.

Information gathering

1. Phonographic records acquired by the project

2. Phonographic records from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s from
personal archives assigned to the project

(Under
among

3. Phonographic records resulting from research in virtual platforms

Review, Bandcamp, Blogs - Rock no Liceu, DJ Billy -, among others) and
respondents (by scanning the covers of theis personal records).

Quantitative Approach
analysis grid

Band's name
Record's name
CD, vinyl, cassete, digital

General characterization

LP, EP, single, split,...

Label
Release year
Musical subgenre
Band's geographical origin

Quantitative Approach analysis grid

Graphic characterization:

Colour
(number of colours, dominant tones)
Lettering
(font used - handwriting, typewriting; different font sizes; upper / lower case letters)
Logos
(from the band, from de label)
Types of image
(photography; cartoon/comics/illustration; collage)
Image composition
(dominant element; disposition in cover; combining and/or overlapping elements)

Quantitative Approach
analysis grid
Brief description of the message

Definition up to 3 keywords to

Characterization of
album
cover's
message

summarize the message

Identification up to 3 types of symbols

used in the message construction

Content transmitted by album artwork

Quantitative Approach analysis grid

Album covers 2000 - 2014
550 Album covers analysed
37,64% Released between 2010 and 2014
64,36% K7 | 19,27% Vinyl

Colour | 72,18% Black as dominant colour

Logos | 96,36% Band's logo | 2,05% Label's logo
Lettering | 96,55% Typewriting
Dominant type of Image | 58,09 Illustration | 35,09% Photography

Dominant element's disposition | 52,73% Dominant element occupies the entire cover

Black as dominant colour

Day of the Dead | Day of

the Dead, 2002

Ash is a Robot | Karma

Never Sleeps, 2013

Critical Point| Trial & Error,

2011

Typewriting

Dokuga | Dokuga, 2007

Subcaos | Metalpunk Invasion, 2010

The Parkinsons | Back to Life, 2012

Illustration
Representation of members of the
punk scene, band members, situations
to encourage direct action and
rebellion against the system
Humorous and sarcastic illustrations
Legion of the Sadists |
The Return of Semen
and Blood, 2011

Simbiose |
Fake Dimenson, 2009
Crise Total + Periferia SA | Split
Album, 2014

Types of symbols
11,74% Associated with music/sound (musical instruments, microphones,...)
11,05% Animals
10,02% Associated with dead (skulls, skeletons,cemeteries,...)

Ervas Daninas| Quatros Anos

de Resistncia a Herbicidas, 2004

PxHxT | Motivation, 2013

Crepsculo Maldito | Necro

Metal Punks, 2010

Types of symbols
7,7% Associated with war/conflit (guns, bombs, sticks, daggers, warriors...)
6,91% Urban (buildings, streets,...)

New Winds | Arm the Spirit, 2007

The Parkinsons | Streets of London, 2002

Content transmited by album

artwork
16% An idea of belonging to the music
12,36% An idea of derision (contempt), non sense
10,91% An idea of deconstruction (to mock, to subvert)

17icos| Piu , 2016

Seize the Day + Time X| Split EP,

2000

Albert Fish| City Rats, 2012

Conclusions and next steps

In this paper we seek to address the importance of image, vision and visuality in
contemporary societies, discussing how the social sciences have been historically
relate to this issue and arguing about the need to overcome the traditional
logocentrism of sociology, incorporating the image and other visual and
audiovisual elements in the analysis of contemporary societies.
We focused on the field of music and the relationships that historically popular
music and the music industry have established with the image and the visual,
giving a particular attention to the importance of record covers over the years.
Since the mid-twentieth century that the record covers integrate the musicians
artistic project, helping to build a more complete picture of its position not only
in strictly musical terms, but also in political, cultural, social and aesthetic terms.
Particularly, in the case of urban music scenes such as punk, there has been a
great consistency, in graphic and visual terms, in the way punk record covers are
designed, which clearly points to the need for a more meticulous work in the
analysis of this type of subcultural contents.

Conclusions and next steps

Our grid proposal for a sociological analysis of record covers matches different
methods of collecting and systematizing both quantitative and qualitative
information. We seek to illustrate here its potential by discussing some
preliminary results of the ongoing analysis of hundreds of Portuguese punk
records covers including CD, vinyl, cassette and digital formats.
In the future, we are interested in deepening this analysis, in at least two senses:
1. On the one hand, extending the time span of our analytic corpus, incorporating
punk record covers released during the last quarter of the twentieth century and
also considering compilations released between the year two thousand and the
year two thousand and fourteen.
2. On the other hand, we consider that it is important to question the producers of
this kind of visual artifacts, questioning them and reflecting with them about the
meaning of these images, as well as the context in which they were produced.
(i) who are the graphic designers of the Portuguese punk records;
(ii) what kind of relationship they have with the bands and/or record labels; and
(iii) under what conditions they developed this work and what where the
limitations, in terms of budget, technical and technological limitations.

Thank you!
More information:
www.punk.pt/