Rihanna – LoudJordan Nettley

Rihanna – Loud posters Rihanna’s seventh album, Loud was released on November 12th 2010, has sold over 6.4 million copies.

Typography

Both the album and music poster feature large text, The name is in bold and is evidently bigger than the name of the album. Also a basic/white font is used to ensure the artwork is not over complicated, works well with the background colours and shows purity in her work.

The album cover and poster use synergy with the use of the male gaze theory. Rihanna poses in a seductive way (and her poster also uses ‘direct address’) for her audience. The camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a mans reaction to these events. Relegates women to the status of objects. The female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male.

Some women enjoy being ‘looked’ at e.g. beauty pageants.

The gaze can also be directed towards members of the same gender for several reasons, not all of which are sexual, such as in comparison of body image or in clothing.

-Red:The colour Red stands out a lot in the two pictures. Red symbolises: Fire, blood, energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love. Red is a very emotionally intense colour. I feel this can relate to Rihanna’s pose in this Poster, she shows that she’s presenting the passion, desire and love. The title ‘Loud’ may also emphasis the representation of the colour red.

-Lighting:This poster features high key lighting. High key lighting reduces the amount of contrast because of the such song lighting. This creates a happy, joyful impression in the picture.

-Representation:Women in the music industry seem to push themselves to be noticed more and more. In this case Rihanna and like other female artists portray themselves in revealing outfits, pose or even perform in a sexual way in order to do this. This music poster, Rihanna poses in a sexual manner, with perfect skin – with the colour of her hair and lips promoting passion, desire and love.

Lighting:

Chiaroscuro lighting means there is a high contrast between light and dark in the picture. It is used to create depth and volume. This can relate to Rihanna’s Loud poster, as the dark colour at the bottom of the poster is allowing the bold, bright white text to stand out –of which this text promotes her tour and her album.

The bright, high key lighting at the top of the poster creates a happy, joyful impression. Direct address is also included in this poster – used to create the male gaze theory as well as Rihanna connecting directly towards her audience.

Morley’s Theory:

Morley’s Theory explores that audiences tend to fall into three groups based on their interpretation of the text. These groups are; Preferred Reading, Negotiated Reading, Oppositional Reading.

Preferred Reading: The preferred reading would be the main use in this music poster. Rihanna and her media produces will hope audiences will take from the text. The media producers will hope that the audience will notice ‘Coming to a city near you’ and also notice the location of where to get the tickets. The poster also contains ‘With special guests’ – persuading the audience to buy tickets for Rihanna’s concert.