Music Albums

Albums were very popular in the pre-digital era, between 1950's to 2000's, albums are bought in record shops such as HMV, the front covers were usually visually striking to grab attention of the consumers. As there were no music videos to represent the music, the album art was a visual manifestation of the music. Albums usually included posters, lyrics sheets, 'linear notes' to add to the experience. Good album art and packaging could persuade the audience to buy the album.

Album covers as an art form

There are four main ways in which album covers are presented;

• Ambiguous or intriguing imagery, could be interpreted in numerous ways so always intriguing to look at.
• Shocking, deliberately controversial to grab attention
• Visually dense, lots of imagery to look at.
• Minimalist, usually sparse or empty.

Grace Johns-Slave to the Rhythm

This album covers is shocking, the artists head is taking up most of the cover, her head has been stretched out, her mouth open wide also stretched out making her look 'abnormal' and 'weird'.
Her mouth being wide open suggests she is angry and screaming, liberated through music, as well as her eye looking directly at us,shows a direct mode of address making her look intimidating. The breaking glass could represent her rebellious nature making it seem as if shes not an average women from that time, that shes liberated and breaking free.

U2-War

This album cover is quite striking, we see the glare of an innocent child, and the word 'WAR' in big blood red letters, the child's glareand look in his eyes makes us think his innocence has been stripped away by the war and all the Death around him which has hardened him, we feel sorry for him as he hasn't had the childhood that he should have. We see his hands have been placed up behind his head, showing hes surrendering, which makes us think that war effects innocent children as much as it effects adults. The album is clearly an political album about warfare and the effects during it and the after effects of war. The intended audience would be mature adults that would understand the meaning of war.

Eminem-Encore

Most of the album art is a blueish colour, blue generally being a calm relaxed colour which suggests his music in this album will be more calm and relaxed. The artist is wearing a dark suit which suggests a more eerie atmosphere to his style of music. The album name being Encore and the image being of the artist taking a bow towards the audience suggests he has large fan following, is very popular and knows it. It also suggests his music videos will be performance based as he is on stage on the front cover. The parental advisory label tells us that his music contains strong language, judging from the artists costume of the dark suit and eerie look, the strong language would be used to get his point across or to show his anger or frustration. The 'E' in Encore being the wrong way around would capture the attention of the consumer and they will straight away know that this Eminem's Album as this is his Signature E, as all of his Albums have a flipped E in them, be it in his name or in the name of the album. For those that are looking for Eminem's albums they will recognise it from the flipped letter E in the name.