An absolutely crucial part of marketing in the music industry is album covers. There are easily recognisable methods in order to contribute to an artists star image. These techniques are exploited in various manors, as every artist is entirely different and is therefor distributed in a different way.
This is the album cover for the first release of young, up and coming British artist Jake Bugg. The fist thing one notices is that there is disrupted contact between the audience and the artist, with Bugg looking downwards towards the floor and having half of his face beyond visibility. This goes some way in immediately suggesting that his interests lie much more in the 'music', and he is not selling the album based on his image or looks. This is reinforced by his attire which is mundane and casual. His particular choice of jacket and the way he has decided to zip it up to the top, when paired with his hairstyle bears strong intertextuality with famous Rock band Oasis. This connotes that Bugg is possibly influenced by their music style, something that is unsurprising considering that he is likely to have grown up during the bands prime and is similarly from a regional British area. It may also suggest that Bugg has a similarly nonchalant, ambivalent attitude towards the industry he works within, a star image that is considered quit admirable amongst diehard music fans. The facial expression demonstrated by Bugg supports this idea.
A prominent part of this cover is undoubtedly the text that displays the artists name. The text is bold, black and near impossible not to notice. This is unsurprising as it is the first album for this young singer and the team behind him would be desperate to get his name known by as many people as possible, and will therefore be able to associate that name with the music they hear. Interestingly, the decision is made to not even include the name of the album on the cover, putting full emphasis on the title of the artist, with the album name clearly being of secondary importance from a marketing point of view. From Bugg's second album we can learn that this has become the artists 'stock font' as the typography is repeated exactly. This helps to create an image for Bugg that with repetition can become identifiable.
From a photographic perspective, this album cover has a very specific style. It has been transposed into a sepia filter which brings a vintage element that is well established. Furthermore, a small percentage of grain has been added to the photo which only induces this idea of heritage. One could argue, that this is representative of Bugg's music style which is likely to be similarly retro and rooted in a style of music that has already come and gone.
This is the most recent album cover from global pop artist Rhianna. Rhianna is a well established, worldwide artist with a strong star image for being young, archaic and rebellious. This image is heavily continued with this album, considering that she is naked and has a collection of tattoos on show. Undoubtedly there is a strong emphasis on sex appeal in this photo. Obviously, Rhianna is naked, she is wearing red lipstick which has strong seductive connotations and she also is sporting a black bob hairstyle which shows intertextuality with various other music artists and film stars in history that helped it to become sexually iconic. Rhianna makes perfect eye contact with the audience which singles out the individual and creates a clear connection between her and the masses of people hat will see this. The photo is shot in this way to not only market through sexuality, but also create a degree of controversy due to the supremely confident and audacious star image constructed. Despite being vastly different to the previous cover, this image is also reflective of the music output of Rhianna which is also punchy, youthful and confident.
The text featured on the album cover also has great importance. It has been purposely constructed yet the font gives the impression that it is actually quite hap-hazard. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the actual title of the album 'Unapologetic' is plastered across Rhianna's breast which is where they assume that the audiences attention will naturally first be drawn. It is written in black and white which is very bold and creates clear contrast. Interestingly, the name of the artist is not actually featured at all on her album cover. This move communicates the arrogance that her team have regarding Rhianna's stardom suggesting that featuring her name is not necessary. This is because she is already so well established and her face alone will sell albums.
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