Research into websites

Websites!

Hilltop Hoods
www.hilltophoods.com


Initial analysis of this home page
The first thing you see when you look at this page is the rather dramatic image in the background which is the album art for their latest album. The whole page has a black background therfore the orange on the picture stands out more.



The font used is very strong and although it isn’t shoved in your face it has a strong feel about it, it makes the band seem really legitimate and professional. Just underneath the title “The new album: Out now!” there is direct links to how to purchase their album. This shows that they are still a small time band that need to promote themselves and try and sell you their work. Argubly any band wants to sell you their music but on the hilltop hoods website its the first and main thing you see on the home page.

When you first go onto the website there is an intro, during this a song of their new album plays, this is to get you in the mood to listen to their music. Then when you are on their website they have links to their myspace, twitter and facebook where you can listen to more of their music.



There is a banner at the bottom that acts as the navigation for the website, from there you can go to various pages, for instance the first link is to their biography, here there is lots of information about the band and how they started as a group of friends. This links in with Negus theory of original and synthetic music.

While you scroll over the links a rather high tech bleeping noise is played, this makes the band seem technical and with them being a hip hop band and most of their beats being electronically made this is the look they are after.



Throughout the website there are alot of pictures, it appears that the band had a promotional photo shoot to promote themselves on their websites. This helps to create the star image and like Dyer says, it makes the artist seem closer to the audience because you can actually see pictures of them.

The Spice Girls website
http://www.thespicegirls.com/




The spice girls was a big girl group in the 1990's. They have since dispanded but they are a perfect example of a synthetic pop group and their website reflects this.

The website appears very glamorous but at the same time its not very well laid out, and non of the images are of a very good quality, however you can see that the band is all about their image.
On the left of the website there is a title saying “Spice girls” in a powerful font, this grabs the eye of the viewer and makes you look at the band members posing in their glamourous way, in the background of this there is a picture of a world map. This is designed to make them seem globally known and make the average fan feel small in comparison to their world wide fan base. This is Dyers theory about the star being close but absent at the same time.


As you navigate your way around the website you can’t escape that image in the left column of the band members, and the information on the right is actually squashed in order to capacity the large picture of them. This really emphasizes how image based the band are.

There is no option or link to listen to any of their music, and the entire website is just full of modelling tips and how to get your hair and makeup perfect, nothing to do with the music! This enforces that they are a very synthetic and facetious band.