Music has more than its fair share of cliches, like trashing the hotel room and reuniting for the money. But the cliches actually extend into bands’ and artists’ promo photos.
A promo photo is just a photo of a band or musician for use in promotional purposes such as posters and in the media, like on Tone Deaf.
But there’s millions of promo photos out there and eventually one or two of them are going to like kind of similar, even really similar. In fact, there’s a lot of band photo cliches out there.
Since we look at so many band photos on a daily basis, we’ve gone ahead and strung together a few of the most common band photo cliches. You may have even noticed a few of these yourself.
Standing In a V
This one is beloved by heavy bands of all stripes, but especially those in the hardcore and progressive metal genres. Both genres already seem to have a fetish for geometric shapes and patterns, so this is just a natural fit for them.
The DJ Squat
Whilst the rap squat is better known, it has a certain credibility to it. Classic rappers like LL Cool J and Run DMC were the first to pop a rap squat and nowadays rappers can get away with saying its an homage to their hip-hop forefathers. DJs don’t get that privilege.
The Glitchy Photo
This is the preferred style of photo for your Radioheads and your TVs on the Radio. Bands with honours degrees, y’know? It communicates to the observer that the band occupies a completely different time-space continuum to the rest of us.
Loving Nature
We’re pretty sure half of a park ranger’s job is shooing away bands who’ve come to take promo pics or shoot music videos. The alternative to the ‘lost in the woods’ photo is of course the ‘stuck in the desert’, which is less likely to yield a fine from a local parks association.
Loving Brick Walls
If you’re not really into nature, fearing potential sunburn, insect bites, or run-ins with a grizzly bear, you can always go with a nice brick wall. A brick wall photo communicates that one time you all gathered in front of a brick wall to take a photo.
Everyone Looking In Different Directions
Looking into the lens is for losers, right? Yesh, why don’t you just smile and say ‘Cheese’? This isn’t your school portrait day, junior. You’re a musician. If you want to look into a camera lens, why don’t you go get a suit and a business degree and join the straight world?
The Lead Singer Gets To Stand At The Front
You know those bands that are clearly all about the lead singer and the rest of the band may as well be session musicians as far as the label’s concerned? There’s fewer more potent ways to get that message across to the rest of the band than this.
Holding Stuff
This is sort of an easy way to add something of interest to a band photo. Basically, musicians aren’t very interesting to look at, so why not give them something to hold — an umbrella, some confetti, cans of soup — to both occupy them and spruce up the photo a bit.
