1. What are the typical features that an album cover has?
As you can see from the various album covers above, they all include the artist's name, and the name of the album (unless it is the same as the artist's name, e.g. The Wanted). The majority of album covers have an image of the artist on the cover, but the ones that don't include artwork/drawings or something that represents the artist, e.g. Maroon 5's cover has a drawing of a girl and Kanye West has the bear on many of his album covers.
The back of the albums all have the track listing giving information about the album, selling the buyer about the type of songs that are featured. The backs also all feature a barcode, institutional information, the record label, the official website, copyright; all of which to inform the buyer about the album. As Sam said in our class discussion, "The front cover sells the artist, the back cover sells the album."
All of the CD's are also the same physically too, as they are all square, the same size, have a front, back and spine. The spine is also the same on every album too, with the artist and album name, all of which are written going downwards, so that if all the CDs were stacked on a shelf, it would be easy to read.
2. How would you categorise the covers in front of you?
Either by genre, photo of the artist/artwork, or perhaps even by year. The most obvious way would to be categorise the albums by genre and type of artist (as in gender or if they are solo/band), for example the album covers for The Saturdays and The Wanted are really similar, with beauty shots of the bands looking perfect. The covers for Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj are also really similar and would be categorised together too, as they highlight the beauty/sex appeal of the female body, with the dominant colour of pink to emphasise the gender of the artists.
Secondly we can categorise the covers by if they have an image of the artist or if they just have artwork. So the covers for The Killers, Mika, Maroon 5, The Fray and Kanye West would be in a separate category, as they all do not include the artist on the cover. To make the categories even smaller, you could even put the first three albums under the category of 'artwork' and The Fray and Kanye West one under 'photo, but not of artist'.
Thirdly, we could also categorise them by era. For example the top row of album covers are older than the rest, and although they are of different artists, the look of the covers are slightly similar in the way they are photographed.
For example, below I have a few album covers by Mariah Carey, and although they are the same artist and same genre, the look of the albums do differ, and it is quite easy to tell which ones are older and newer by the photography/styling/fonts/design used (and not just how old or young she looks!).
Another way of categorising albums are also by how far along the artists are in their career, for example if they are starting with their debut or if they are firm and established in the industry. Again, looking at the Mariah albums above, the CDs differ because Mariah became a worldwide famous artist. At the beginning of her career it was important to show the world who she was: therefore having close ups of her face, but further down she was well known, leading to mid and long shots.
3. What do you think the different functions/purposes of album covers?
I think the main function of album covers are to advertise the artists and their music. For example, if you were in a music store and had no CDs in mind to buy, which ones do you pick up to look at: the ones which look nice, right? The album covers are there to show who the artists are; show the artist identity and branding. For example, Jessie J's album cover shows exactly who she is. With a close up of her face with her mouth slightly open with black lipstick, straight black hair and black nail varnish, it shows that she's not your average pop singer; she has a bit more edge and attitude. Same with Lady Gaga's album, it shows her artist identity through her trademark sunglasses decorated with diamonds, showing her quirkiness and outrageous outfit choices that make Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga.
The covers also show the genre and style of music too, and what the album will include/represent. For example, Adele's cover shows the kind of artist she is, as the image is just of her with her eyes closed. There isn't the hint of being sexy which so many females use in the industry nowadays, which is sort of what she represents: a curvier woman with a voice. The fact that it's just in black and white shows her down to earth, simple, unglamorous character, and the fact that the album will be all about the voice and the beautifully written ballads. Even covers without the artist on the front, for example the Maroon 5 cover, can show what the album will sound like: it's all red with a naked woman on it, signifying songs about love and songs about women (which matches the album name Songs About Jane perfectly).
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