Generic Conventions of an Album Cover

While analysing the three chosen album covers, I recognised the typical generic conventions of an album cover, which made it recognisable to the audience targeted. Generic conventions seemed to include:

• A bold, large/ oversized artist name- possibly to help the audience identify the artist without them having to look beyond the image as it is attention grabbing and steals the focus away from the image. A large/oversized artist name could also signify vanity in which the artist know that they are well recognised and promote they’re album by only their name.

• An image which fills the album cover-This could have been used to make the album individual as a large image stands out from other albums making it unique and ‘different’.

• Similar colours used throughout- This makes each feature of the album link together. For example, in the Christina Aguilera album cover, the passionate colour of red has been used for her lips and also to highlight her surname. This creates a link between the image and the name and could suggest that perhaps Christina Aguilera has the characteristics of passion within her personality.

• Underneath the artist name was also the album name

These were the only similarities that I was able to identiy. However, I found that each genre differed when it came down to the mise-en-secene. For example, the lighting used for an album of an ‘indie’ genre, used low key lighting to create a sense of realism and connote reality. On the other hand, album covers of an ‘r’n’b/soul’ and ‘pop’ used a large amount of high key lighting. This could have been used to flatter the artist or to take the audience away from reality rather than towards it, as the lighting is artificial.