1. What are the typical features that an album cover has?
Album covers vary in so many ways between artists. From the variety of images I have above I can see that they often contain images of the band or artist, the title of the album and/or name of the artist. However even those features aren't necessarily a part of the album work. Most commonly among these images however, you can see that they represent the artist/genre/songs through the use of imagery. The primary example would be 'My Chemical Romance' with their album 'The Black Parade' which uses very dark and creepy imagery to represent the "emo" genre.
2. How would you categorise the covers in front of you?
The albums here could be categorised in so niche spectrum's as genre or even artists! Some of them can even be a product of the year they were designed in, for example the 'Beatles' album which is clearly late 60's work. There are some very broad categories that they can come under however:
The albums here could be categorised in so niche spectrum's as genre or even artists! Some of them can even be a product of the year they were designed in, for example the 'Beatles' album which is clearly late 60's work. There are some very broad categories that they can come under however:
Band photo: This covers everything from a simple but meaningful image of Ed Sheeran in orange, to the Beatles crossing a road stricken with imagery and conspiracy. The images are never simple and always contain some special methods of representation for the band.
Creative Photography: This is used in many album covers and is often combined with the title of the album or band to anchor the image. It can also contain some hidden message (or blatant at that) but will occasionally just be a symbol for the band or genre, like the killers image of the tops of London apartment blocks.
Digital Design: Much like creative photography these images are computer designed and generally couple with genre's like
3. What do you think the different functions/purposes of album covers?
The obvious answer to this is to sell the music. As they say the first bite is with the eye, and these album covers are the very first taste that the audience get of the music before they buy it. They display clearly what to expect i.e. genre, style and intertextual references. I guess another function of it is an expression for the artist, regarding their thoughts, perhaps during the writing or to show what influences them.
The obvious answer to this is to sell the music. As they say the first bite is with the eye, and these album covers are the very first taste that the audience get of the music before they buy it. They display clearly what to expect i.e. genre, style and intertextual references. I guess another function of it is an expression for the artist, regarding their thoughts, perhaps during the writing or to show what influences them.
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