Conventions of Album Covers

I have chosen 10 album covers of varied music genre, decade and style in order to analyse the similar codes and conventions of album covers and see how they evolve over time.







1. The typical features of an album cover are:-

• The band/artists name
• The album cover name
• An image of the artist/band members
• OR an abstract picture that represents the band/artist

2. Other ways of catergorising Albm covers, other than generically could be:-

• Abstract images compared to conventional band/artist images
• Animated and real life images used for the album covers
• Glossy, staged poses compared with natural images
• By the year that they were released
• By the country that the band/artist come from.

3. I think that the functions that album covers serve are:-

• Establishing the style and genre of the band/artist
• Familiarising the audience with the 'look' of the band/artist
• Establishing a certain attitude to society that the band/artist has e.g. Punk = rebel/socially marginalised whereas Britney Spears = All American, Christian, socially popular etc.
• Promoting the band/artist
• Aesthetically pleasing/unique to the consumer to catch their attention.