Specific Album Art Analysis- Black Eyed Peas

This is The Black Eyed Peas album cover to their 5th album 'The End' released in 2009. The overall sound of the album has a more electro hop beat rather than the usual hip pop/R&B feeling of their previous albums and this can be shown through the electrified album cover. The dark green and black show off the electric genre, and the feeling given off is much more serious as none of the band members are seen. The robot figure continues the serious electric atmosphere, as it has no eyes and could even suggest a more sinister style of music. 


This album cover is different from any of their previous covers and this signifies the change in their genre of music. 
For example this album elephunk was released in 2003, was their first major album release and differs dramatically with their album 'The End'. The clothing and pose of all the band members shows their R&B/ Hip Hop genre. The blue colour scheme is a lot lighter than the album cover to 'The End' however, you can still see their more urban style. 
As a group, we haven't found any inspiration from these album covers, as they have a completely different style to that of our artist, but it is useful to understand more clearly the codes and conventions of album artwork. 

Specific Album Analysis- Lily Allen

This is Lily Allen's first album cover; 'Alright Still'. The album reflects Lily's unique genre of music, as she has many different styles, merged together. The black and white suggest a jazzy style, however also create an urban image, and both of these genres are certainly visible in her first album. Similarly, in both top corners there are hands, one doing a peace sign, and the other doing a rock sign. This gives off more ideas of Lily's genre of music and her music agrees with both the rock and more hippie genres of music. The cartoon images portray that the star is in a world of her own, and is playful and imaginative. This is very similar to her video LDN, where a cartoon effect is used. The album cover contains many random images and this mirrors Lily's quirky personality and fashion, for example, the cat, goat and the taxi. 

The back of the digipack continues the random quirkiness seen on the front, which is visible through the numerous fonts and the multi use of shapes. The punching hands signify Lily's at time aggressive personality which is also shown through some of her lyrics, for example "Fuck you very much". 

Lily's album cover has really inspired us for our's because we feel our music is of a similar genre. We like the idea of using a black and white background and filling it with colour.  

Album Cover Research

Album covers have typical features across most genres. Generally they feature a picture of the artist, which is normally a close up for single, or a long shot for groups. They will also include the artist name and the title of the album. Here are some typical examples...

Through seeing Adele's album cover you could guess the genre of her music, as the depressive picture and the black and white effect illustrates her mellow love songs. The font and title of her album coincide with her previous album '19', and this creates a motif for her as an artist. The close up of Adele looking down represents her as a soulful artist and signifies her style of music which are all low tempo and sad.

JLS's album cover is a typical pop bands cover. All of the members are
wearing similar clothes and looking into the camera, which would please their fans. They are showing some  flesh by not wearing t-shirts under their blazers, which differs from adele, who doesn't show off her body at all. This suggests that JLS are  not based purely on their singing, whereas Adele is sold completely for her musical talent. The logo of the band is used for recognition,  as it is used for all other merchandise. The dark background is used to show them as a 'boyband' and the bright light and arguably cheesy photo lets the audience know they are very mainstream pop. 

However, the genre of an artist definitely determines the style of their album cover. Indie and Rock artists have somewhat a different style. Generally they may not show a picture of the artist, instead showing a pattern or trying to portray a message or narrative. For example, Kate Bush, Blur and Biffy Clyro...

     

However, other than generically, you could categorise album covers by the gender of the artist, for example the differences between these two album covers... 

 

Furthermore, album covers hold many purposes. They allow the artist to portray their musical ego and represent with one image their style and genre of music. For many customers who still purchase CD's, the album cover is very important when purchasing music. A good album cover sell's the artist and also allows another platform besides video, music, poster etc to represent themselves with. 

Album Art Analysis

This is Eliza Doolittle's Album cover, and it actually influenced us in all of our work, rather than just our album cover. The randomness and quirkiness of this cover really sums up the image we wanted to create around our star 'Evie', The image of her throwing a dice influenced us into the theme of games for our music video.