Thursday, 12 December 2013

Album Covers New and Old





Here are examples of old album covers for artists such as The Beatles and The Clash released back in the 70s. Compared to album covers now seen below, they appear very simple yet artistic. There is only one cover her that shows the actual artists face on and even then its a long shot including others which wouldn't been seen today unless it was a collaboration album for example, a charity single. Cd covers today contain a medium to closeup shot of the artist so the audience instantly know whose work they are being shown and it will be accompanied with their name and the album title, usually in different size fonts or possibly different styles to differentiate the importance. 



Although these conventions are the new expectations to see on an album cover some of the artists who are at the top of the industry not only within my genre but a lot of the others too, stars such as Beyonce, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, Arctic Monkeys, Passenger and Eminem are now presenting simple yet artistic album covers to differ themselves but yet seem to be going in full circle back to the album style of the past. Some of these such as Kanye's, Watch The Throne even lacks the simple conventions of a Album title and even his name the recognition of the album goes simply by the design and people will only realise this is an album belonging to him if they truly follow his work and see him announce his album release over the media. This does in my eyes bring the connection of an artist and their audience closer as you have to know what you are looking for and know what to look out for instead of simply going into a shop and looking for that artists name. But it also makes me think that it could make it harder for audiences not so familiar with these artists work who are looking for a new genre or artist to explore but they're not going to instantly know who they are looking at.




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