Websites for the music industry are usually very unique. Sometimes music artist sites are exciting and innovative, and other times they are just nonsensical shite! I decided to pick 7 popular artists and their websites and review them. The scores for the 7 websites reviewed are as follows:
1 MartinSimpson.com:
2 Jamiroquai.com:
3 Shayne-Ward.com:
4 Sugababes.com:
5 Eminem.com:
6 KaiserChiefs.co.uk:
7 McFlyofficial.com:
1 Martin Simpson
About Martin Simpson
Martin Simpson (b 1953) is an English guitarist. He was born on 5 May 1953 in Scunthorpe, England. Source: Wikipedia.
Observations
Very strong branding.
Strengths
The silhouette fused with the images in the left sidebar makes the design very memorable and is well done.
Simple background colours bring the important elements of the design and content to the front.
AJAX photo gallery in the biography section is original.
The mailing list form is well positioned - in the top right of the design.
Weaknesses
Layout of content in the biography section is hard on the eyes.
The design would be better if optimized for 1024 x 768 resolution - this would allow the centre column more width.
Tables are used for design. This is very 1998.
The fontography chosen in the main content column could be better. A larger line-height combined with a bigger font size would make the text more readable.
Martin Simpson Final Thought
The design is very elegant and simple. The silhouette logo in the top left of the design works very well. But the code used in the site is prehistoric (tables). The designers should get with the program, smell the coffee and update their good design for the new millenium. Tables used for design should go. The design should be optimized for a 1024 x 768 resolution to make the center column more readable. Lastly better use of fontography choices should be made, to allow a better user experience.
2 Jamiroquai.com
About Jamiroquai.com
Jamiroquai.com (A portmanteau of Jam and iroquai, loosely based on the native American Indian tribe the Iroquois) is a Grammy Award-winning English acid jazz band. Jamiroquai was initially the most prominent component in the early-1990s London-based acid jazz movement, alongside groups such as Incognito, the Brand New Heavies, Galliano, and Corduroy. Subsequent albums have explored other musical directions. Source: Wikipedia.
Observations
The logo is on the right hand of the site. The flip side of this is that the focus is the video player on the left hand side of the top of the design.
Uses a box layout.
Jamiroquai.com use http://www.graphico.co.uk for mobile downloads.
Jamiroquai.com have a blogger blog at http://jam-page.blogspot.com. It appears it's not been updated since 2005.
Strengths
Biography's are interesting to read and well written.
By having a blogspot, Jamiroquai.com have little competition and can leverage the huge numbers of people who use the service. The mailinglist form has a good few paragraphs about what they will and wont do with user's details:
Mailing list members are, from time to time, offered money-off in the Jamiroquai store, told about Jamiroquai concerts in advance and offered the chance to purchase tickets to shows before they become public.
The webmail section presents an additional revenue stream at £29.99 per user per year providing 250MB storage and Outlook integration. Nice game at http://game.jamiroquai.com/dynamite/site.html links in with the promo video for the single.
Weaknesses
Fonts are hard to read.
No decent reason to sign up for the mailing list.
Podcast link is not easy to see.
Links are not SEO friendly.
Jamiroquai.com Final Thought
Jamiroquai.com are a great band. They have some good content on their website and good links to other related pages around the internet. But, the design is poor and could be a lot better.
3 Shayne-Ward.com
About Shayne-Ward.com
Shayne-Ward.com (born 16 October 1984 in Clayton, Manchester) is an English pop singer of Irish descent who rose to prominence in the UK and Ireland after becoming the winner of the 2005 series of the talent show The X Factor. Source: Wikipedia.
Observations
Sparse amount of content.
Uses http://www.graphico.co.uk for mobile content.
Strengths
Dominant picture with content on top is different and impressive.
Users are provided with an RSS feed for news items.
Weaknesses
Design is the priority and not content. It's hard to concentrate on content with the large background picture of Shayne dominating the pages.
Some of the pictures in the Photo Gallery are of poor quality.
Flash is viewed for navigation. This is unneccessary. CSS and XHTML could do a similar job in providing navigation.
The Music Section provides too many silly choices. Why provide audio in real player and Windows media format, when it could be offered in a simple flash player? Incompetence, that's why.
Shayne-Ward.com Final Thought
The design is very imposing and initially impressive. But the design makes the content hard to read. The bottom line, Shayne-Ward.com is a pretentious website worth no more of my time.
4 Sugababes.com
About The Sugababes
The Sugababes are a BRIT Award-winning female pop group trio from London, England. Source: Wikipedia.
Observations
Music autoplays excerpts from hit tracks with the current single playing first.
Nice integration of photography with pictures.
Restricted height design.
Link to MySpace is prominent – on the front page positioned bottom left.
The front page is composes of a flash player of music first, then navigation, an obsured Sugarbabes logo, then the band on the left with “headlines” and “promotion right sidebar sections.
No footer.
To enter the VIP lounge users need to be registered – VIP Lounge, is a good name for a member section.
Flashplayer retains values no matter what areas of navigation the user visits.
The Sugababses are using http://bango.com for mobile content.
Strengths
The whole site is very slick.
In the biography section, links to each band member are listed on the left: When clicked the band member's clicked on picture increases in prominence and color.
In the gallery the color of thumbnails change on mouse over.
Weaknesses
Text is too small.
Navigation is obscured, by placing it all in one menu, with the navigation sections children of a single parent “navigation” element.
Due to the fixed height design there is a stupid scrolling system that confuses the user. This usually happens on websites designed by graphic designers.
Transitions in between sections are annoying.
The audio/video section offers users far too much choice. They should just get a flash player.
Links to destinations where music can be bought offers too much choice.
Flash is a vector animation tool and as such, should be deployed as such. Thus creating a fixed width flash website is just silly. Flash works much better when it scales with the browser. Check out Limmy.com for a relevant example. The Sugababes site would work much better if it occupied the entire screen space.
Sugababes.com Final Thought
The design is very slick and smooth, but does anyone actually care? The website is almost starved of any real content. The transitions between sections are annoying. Sugababes.com could be so much better; and any future improvements should address the lack of content and stimulate some user interactivity.
5 Eminem.com
About Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), commonly known as Eminem or Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer and actor from the Detroit, Michigan area. Having sold seventy million albums worldwide, Eminem is one of the best-selling musicians of the early 2000s, and one of the best-selling rappers of all time. Eminem was discovered by pioneer gangsta rapper and producer Dr. Dre, who signed him to his Aftermath Entertainment label. Source: Wikipedia.
Observations
Separate privacy policy at http://privacypolicy.umusic.com
Eminem desksuite application available at http://www.eminemdesksite.com
Offers users webmail using http://www.load.com.
Strengths
Very original flash animation presented on the front page.
Eminem has a separate mobile site at http://www.eminem.com/mobile with links for different countries around the world.
Mobile site uses http://www.universal-mobile.co.uk for backend.
Weaknesses
Stupid and annoying and arrogant navigation system. Totally unnecessary.
Uses popup advertising – dated.
Fixed height content column's with vertical scrolling are just awful.
Too many links in new browser windows.
The desksuite looks like someone's bright idea but it just appears poorly executed.
The HTML section of Eminem.com is a mess.
Eminem.com Final Thought
The flash animation is just amazing, and shows what can be done with flash when deployed correctly. But the rest of the site is pretentious and shows a complete disgregard to usability.
6 KaiserChiefs.co.uk
About Kaiser Chiefs
Kaiser Chiefs are an English band from Leeds formed early in 1997. They were formed by school friends Nick Hodgson, Simon Rix and Nick Baines. They were later joined by Andrew White and art school graduate Ricky Wilson, whom they spotted singing with a Rolling Stones tribute band. Source: Wikipedia.
Observations
CSS and XHTML are used for layout with no signs of any ugly tables.
Strengths
Good photography.
Its nice to see a flash music player with easy to use volume controls.
Using transparency on important image links like “backstage pass” section makes those links stand out and give the site a 3 dimensional feel.
Weaknesses
Links are not SEO friendly. For example
http://www.kaiserchiefs.co.uk/index.php?id=457should really be http://www.kaiserchiefs.co.uk/tour/arena_update.Music player is too small.
The text is too small.
Audio and video is simply presented as a numbered list within a section and links open in Windows Media Player - a Flash player would be better and easier for all.
Calling the blog, “The Angry” and very poorly parodying a newspaper logo is cheap and nasty.
Pictures are not integrated with the design, studio shots of the band on a white background do not mix smoothly with the arty farty background.
Kaiser-Chiefs.co.uk Final Thought
The Kaiser-Chiefs.co.uk is poorly executed. It's one big ugly mess.
McFlyofficial.com
About McFly
McFly are a British pop rock band who were successfully launched into the music scene in early 2004 with their number one single, "5 Colours in Her Hair". The band was founded by Tom Fletcher (born 17 July 1985) and also consists of Danny Jones (born 12 March 1986), Dougie Poynter (born 30 November 1987) and Harry Judd (born 23 December 1985). They are signed to the Island Records label and are managed by Prestige Management. Source: Wikipedia.
Observations
The band use http://www.7digital.com for digital distribution.
A separate website for the street team exists at http://www.mcflystreetteam.co.uk/board/
Separate WAP site at http://www.mcflyofficial.com/mobile/
McFly use http://www.graphico.co.uk for mobile downloads.
I have seen enough this is awful. The x was hit after 20 seconds!
Strengths
The option to place McFly news updates on user's desktop is a nice feature.
Having a separate Street Team website is a good idea.
Weaknesses
McFlyOfficial.com uses a splash page. Oh dear ...
The design is over complicated – it uses far too many fonts.
The moving band members in the master header with flash is very annoying!
The Music and Video section offers users WMA and REAL audio. Users should only be given flash as a choice or quicktime for video download's.
Annoying news ticker.
McFlyOfficial.com Final Thought
Awful. It's about as user friendly as Russian Army tank with no wheels.
Alan's Final Final Thought
All of the 7 websites above can do and be a lot, lot better.
They should all think before deploying unnecessary flash animation and effects. Flash should only be used for a specific purpose, not for navigation, and not for pretentious header animations. All the website designers and webmaster's, of the above 7 sites, need to ask themselves, what's more important: Design? or Content?
It's evident that the producers of the above 7 websites believe style (design) is more important than substance (content). I look forward to a time when the producers of the above sites start thinking about content first and design second.
