Color Themes

[Ozzloaf]

Hi,

Do you think that the colors that Opeth uses on their albums is representative of the atmosphere, concept, and/or ideology behind the album? I ask because many bands have color themed albums to represent a certain emotion or are portrayed that way to be more recognizable. Generally, Opeth have covered all colors except for Orange, (and Yellow though Roundhouse Tapes or Ghost Reveries kind of).

White: Damnation, Lamentations
Grey: Morningrise, Blackwater Park
Black: Deliverance
Yellow: / (Ghost Reveries, Roundhouse Tapes?)
Orange: /
Red: Still Life
Purple: Orchid
Blue: MAYH
Green: Watershed
Brown: Ghost Reveries, Roundhouse Tapes

For me there is some symbolism behind much of it. For instance, the lightness Damnation's cover is in contrast to the darkness of Deliverance (which is, in my opinion, their darkest album musically as well.) The bleakness of the Blackwater Park's cover is relative to the content. I believe the red of Still Life is not a symbol for anger as most would interpret it but rather the conceptual center point of love and the passion of the main characters love towards Melinda. The vibrancy of Watershed cover represents a shift in the general atmosphere of album, I believe. No longer does it evoke the sorrowful and bleak emotions of Autumn, as both musically and visually they had, but rather the lively (and fun...) colors of the Spring.

The rest I'm slightly unsure about. The Roundhouse tapes is brown/yellow because of it's relationship with Ghost Reveries, of course, but Ghost Reveries brown color, I don't think is incredibly symbolic. (I'm waiting for the slough of "The album's brown because the music is shit. ohhhhhhhhh" comments...)

Jake

 

[embrace.random]

Fair interpretation. Could mostly be down to subconscious coincidence though.
Like that's how the mind is arguably programmed, to associate red with anger for example. It's all learnt through association etc., depending on which angle you look at it from

 

[cuntface]

what? lmao really? who cares

 

[Lateralus14]

Holy shit I was literally just thinking about this yesterday. When I was thinking about it, my thoughts were more about how the color would subconsciously affect the listener (rather than how Opeth may have intended the colors to portray something though) - I definitely don't think its a coincidence though that all the gray and black albums happen to be the darkest. I was thinking that SL's red made you think of some underlying conflict or something.

 

[Nasty-Fire]

what? lmao really? who cares

Cuntface.

Ermm well that's interesting. Sepia was the color you were probably looking for when talking about yellow. They have nice colors, I think, not too vivid, and generally, it represents well the sound. You also made me realized they used many different colors, one for each album. I often thought this was a way to commercialize new albums more easily. I'm currently thinking about bands like Children of Bodom who really used that concept. I don't know if it was something really determined by the band or if it just coincided that the overall colors turned out to be all pretty much different.

 

[Ozzloaf]

The interior artwork of Roundhouse tapes is Sepia. The cover is much more vivid and contains both Yellow and brownish hues... Ghost Reveries is mostly sepia with some other colors thrown in (yellow, orange in some places, etc.)

 

[PIM]

The colours used are certainly representative of an albums atmosphere, and this can really be attributed to Travis Smiths amazing work as a Designer.

 

[Nasty-Fire]

Totally !

 

[cuntface]

they probably could have switched round the colours and you girls will still interpret them as representing the albums well

 

[Nasty-Fire]

If the content was the same, yes, you douchebags. Do me a favour and get the fuck out from this forum. Forever. I can't stand idiots and disrespectful people like you.

 

[cuntface]

yawwnn I'm so tired of having to reply to your incredibly boring posts

 

[Nasty-Fire]

This is mutual. Btw your nick goes to you pretty well.

 

[de_aztec]

you two should get married

 

[cuntface]

This is mutual. Btw your nick goes to you pretty well.

i never would have thought of that, aren't you a smart one

 

[hexwind]

If the content was the same, yes, you douchebags. Do me a favour and get the fuck out from this forum. Forever. I can't stand idiots and disrespectful people like you.

The number is increasing

 

[grey knight]

Umm...Watershed is yellow, not green pretty much at all.
And Gr along with brown has orange too.

And SL's red symbolizes along with love, the bloody stuff in the end.

 

[affinityband]

true, it is more in the in green hue end of the color spectrum rather than the red.
though what makes the colors look 'dark' is the lack of saturation. its not as if the color is vivid at all, except on orchid really.

orchid is pink btw

 

[Ozzloaf]

Pink and purple are relatively interchangeable, but yeah I agree. On the color spectrum it's the lone representative of purple though, which is why I put that.

And Watershed is a muddy brownish (yellowish) green.

 

[Don Corleone]

first of all, nice idea for a thread. i had been thinking about this for some time, too. not only with opeth, but with many other musicians too.

the one that i can totally relate to is still life being red. and i never thought of the red implying love, but blood especially. the album has an amazing storyline behind it with a violent ending so it fits the plot well. the crisp guitar sound reminds me of blood too.

 

[affinityband]

On the color spectrum it's the lone representative of purple though, which is why I put that.

And Watershed is a muddy brownish (yellowish) green.

wrong, it is pink because its closer to red than blue

as with watershed, its pretty typical of an opeth colour scheme. as you can see the colour does lean towards more green but if you are to oversaturate the color it appears yellow (leaning towards the green hue)