Slipknot poster article
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Warning Slipknot
By JP Webber, Music on Posters editor.
Here are the guys brightening up the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in their best gear and at their photogenic best. It would be much like many other band photos except for one thing; the band members are wearing their notorious masks.
Just in case we’re in any doubt about the image that the band are trying to convey, the Rolling Stone team have stamped the words ‘Warning Slipknot’ over the image. Of course it’s carefully placed so as not to obscure any of the masks and, in a way, this gives the game away with regard to the image as a whole – it’s highly constructed.
So what do I mean by constructed? At the simplest level I mean that whoever took the photograph carefully positioned the guys, probably the exact position and angle of the heads, to create a striking image. The composition is very balanced and ordered – it suits the shape of a magazine cover (or poster) very well, there is no redundant space and we can see each face clearly. In a sense it’s very harmonious as an image.
The result is that the guys look more like they’re about to engage us in debate rather than do unspeakable things to us (which is surely the basic message of the masks). As such, there’s a tension between the orderly pose and the anarchy of the band’s image. The ‘Warning Slipknot’ slogan defuses itself by its careful placing.
As a photographic study, you could say that the job is successful. As a piece of PR to promote a loud, brash and dangerous rock band, it definitely fails.
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