Analysing Album Covers

This album cover is for 'Jimi Hendrix' and the album is called 'Valleys of Neptune'.
There is a picture of Jimi Hend

rix on the front cover, he is de

ad which shows that this album is in memory of him. You can see through him which makes him seem ghostly.The picture looks like a sketch and the use of watercolours have been used. The album cover is mostly blue, but looks a bit like a starry night. Beneath the image of him, there is a erosion of colours where it fades into pinks and reds and there is some green around the cover because it makes the album look aged and gives a sense of atmosphere. The background of the album cover looks like it is in space and the atmosphere around space.
On the bottom right of the album cover I think it is supposed to look like a burnt page, because the erosion of colour fades into it.

It also looks like the clothing that Jimi is wearing.
I found a quote from his sister Janie which is about why the album cover was put together like this.

"He went through a phase doing watercolors at school and this was one of the 110 drawings of his that our father kept. When I saw this one he did in 1957, it screamed 'Valleys of Neptune' to me so we knew we'd use it for this project." - Found on Wikipedia.org

The music that Jimi Hendrix played was psychedelic which is what is reflected in the album artwork.
On the left side of the album cover there seems to be a rock which has been added in watercolour. As it gets higher into the sky, the sky seems to cover it up a bit and looks like a mist infront of it. The name of the album is 'Valleys of Neptune' and the rock could be part of the valley and the surroundings of the album cover look like it is set in Neptune which is a planet in space.

This album cover is for 'Arctic Monkeys' and the album is called 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I Am Not'.

The album artwork is a picture of a man smoking a cigarette. This portrays the fact that smoking is a good thing, when in actually fact it isn't.

I found out that the person in this photograph was a friend of the band called Chris McC

lure. He is front man of another band named, 'The Violet May'.

The way that the photo has been taken is to look like a portrait. The head and shoulders are in the photo as well. - Found on Wikipedia.org

From the expression that he is pulling it is obvious that the smoking hasn't taken kindly to him, and this could contradict with the album name. Chris is using direct address with the camera.

The photo of Chris is simple along with the background which is also simple. The background behind him looks like a curtain. The designers kept with the simple design and made the picture black and white. This uses the rule of using three c

olours or less.

The hand which is holding the cigarette, starts at the bottom

of the album art. It draws the audiences eye upwards to the cigarette and Chris' face. Over his face is the band's name.

Then in the corner there is a logo for the band, the letters are the same to their other logo's and although the newer albums which they have released, the logo's are slightly different, the 'funky' font theme has stayed similar in them all. (It actually appears on the CD as a sticker on the case.)

Strangely on this album cover there is no say of what the album is called apart from on the side, where is says the band name and the album name. When the CD is turned over to the back another picture of Chris is there, but he is using indirect address to the camera, while his hand is still in a similar place with the cigarette.

The songs are on the back and are laid out, to look like they are stanzas and they are positioned around the figure of Chris. The fonts that are used are simple and look like 'Times New Roman', no capital letters or punctuation are used.

This album cover is for 'Bloc Party' and the album is called 'Intimacy'.

Again, this album are its very simple and is of two faces, but the camera has zoomed into the lips. It looks like they are about to kiss.

The album artwork is supposed to reflect the name of the album, this would reflect affection and showing an expression.

The colours on the album are very simple and include a range of red's, black and white. This is the maximum amount of colours for the rule, although it can be broken. Intimacy also refers to warmth and in this album artwork, warm colours have been used.

The name of the band is on the front of the album it has a full-stop at the end of it, and this turns their name into more of a statement. They are telling their audience that they are more important than the name of the album, and people who buy their album are buying it for their name rather than the actual name of the album.

The name of the album is below and is a little smaller and not as bold. Keep to the rule and not going over the number of colours to use, the font is white, which is readable over the black centre background.

The band name and album name are both placed in the centre of the album cover. This is because of a couple of reasons; The light which was used for the photo is lighter on one side and darker on the other, so it would look better in the centre and also because the photograph is of Intimacy which could be expression, Bloc Party are expressing their music. The lips aren't touching which shows that no expression is happening yet.

This album cover is for 'Funeral For A Friend' and the album is called 'Tales Don't Tell Themselves'.

The album design for this cover is quite simple and the use of different shades of browns becomes very effective. The cover is supposed to look like a book, which follows well with the title of the album being, 'Tales Don't Tell Themselves'.

The name of the band is before the title of the album, which signifies the band sell their music on their name rather than their album names. It also was designed like this, because most books or diary's are presented like this. It would make more sense if the cover was supposed to be a diary as one of the songs on it is called 'The Diary'. If it was a diary, the band name would be showing they are the owner of the diary and the title is the name of it.

The fonts that have been used on the album cover look similar, but it is hard to tell because the band name is in capital letters and the title isn't. The font colour is the same and fits well into the the colour scheme of the album cover. The fonts have been slightly distorted, by this I mean that they have faded a bit. This makes the design look older, and the label which the band name and title are on looks like that has been stain or burnt slightly. Finally the background of the album cover is a brown colour with stained areas, which are a lighter colour.

I opened the booklet, which had the album cover on, and it turns out that it was meant to look like a diary, so they succeeded at what they were trying to portray.

The album cover is for 'Gorillaz' and the album is called 'Demon Days'.

This album cover uses the basic colours of black and white for the background, and then four pictures have been put in of who the band are known as.

The background of the is black and then there are four white squares, which are put next to each other to form another square shape. In these squares are four cartoon characters. These characters are what the band are known and recognised by. These are the only parts of the album cover which are in colour and this really makes them stand out. Although this doesn't follow the rule of only using three colours. The colours of the characters are dark because if they were too light they wouldn't not fit into the cover.

The colour of the characters does matter because as the album is called 'Demon Days', it is stereotypical that demon's are a dark grimy colour, which is what these characters are.

The album cover looks similar to 'The Beatles' album cover for their album 'Let It Be', this shows intertextuality in their choice of album covers. I also found that the cover is similar to 'Blur: The Best Of', and this has Damon Albarn in, who has associated with both bands, 'Gorillaz' and 'Blur'. I also found out that when the booklet for their album is unfolded, there is a different picture in between each fold which represents each track on the album. This is very clever, meaning that any of those pictures can be chosen to be the album art. - Found on Wikipedia.org

The fonts for the album cover are the same, the bands name is bigger and bolder and placed at the top of the album, whereas the album name is placed at the bottom underneath the cartoon characters. Both the band name and album name are centred and are in a white colour font. The band name is placed at the top instead because makes the album easier to recognise, although the album would be easily recognisable anyway, due to the cartoon characters on it, which are well known buy most people who take interest in their style of music.