Ancillary Product Research - Queens of the Stone Age - Promotional Poster

This tour poster for the Queens of the Stone age is particularly striking and evidently well thought out poster. The title, “Queens of the Stone age” is in a block bold comic effect font which makes it stand out and links into the cartoon feel of the poster. The main image of of a skull which is on fire, being struck with lighting and two sexual images of women either side. Firstly the skull in the middle of the poster represents death and heavy rock which links into the bands style of music. Their genre of music is heavy rock, for example one of their albums is entitled, “Songs for the deaf”, implying that there songs will be particularly loud and heavy as this is what deaf people will be able to hear. The skull also has red/orange eyes which links into the skull being tired or on drugs. These are two stereotypical associated when concerned with the heavy rock genre, that the rock stars and their fans never sleep all day and night and are heavy takers of popular social drugs. This is linking into the genre and to the type of music which the band likes to live up to. The biker hat on the skull also represents rebellion and rock genre as this links into the biker rebellion which happened in the 1980's where people who wore leather and rode bikes were considered as rebels at the fridge of society. The goggles on the top of the hat also reinforce and stereotypically exaggerate the rebellion which the skull symbolises. The lighting which is striking the biker cap all around in a semi-circle represent the power and dominance of the band over their fans and over music in general, as an established band in the music industry, the queens of the stone age can empower themselves with images of power and subliminal messages of Zeus a powerful Greek god. The two women either side of the skull are sexualised images of tainted women. The women are wearing black underwear and long black boots which symbolise evil and sinful women which appeal to men as they are stereotypically more sexually active and adventurous. The women would appeal to their fans as stereotypically the will bre male and sexually active. Also like with the Coldplay album poster the Queens of the Stone Age has the same layout. The name of the band or artist is at the top of the poster which is enough to appeal to an audience as they have already both being established and recognised as mature music producers in the music industry that there name and an obscure image which has little or no link with the band in anyway is not a problem as they do not need to show themselves to the audience for the first time. However with the Katy Perry 'One of the Boys' album, as that was her first album she needed an image of herself as a sexual icon to sell herself rather than her music. With Coldplay the idea of revolution and an uprising sold their poster and in this Queens of the Stone Age poster the idea of sex, death, power and drugs, (basically the rock and roll lifestyle, many idolise), is sold as an affordable lifestyle with the buying of this CD.