Representation of album covers

This is the album cover from Radical Face's album 'Ghost', in which my chosen song 'Welcome Home' is off.

This is the tracklist for this album:

1. Asleep On A Train

2. Welcome Home

3. Let The River In

4. Glory                 

5. Strangest things   

6. Wrapped In Piano Strings

7. Along The Road

8. Haunted

9. Winter Is Coming

10. Sleepwalking

11. Homesick

I have chosen to analyse this as not only will I have to create my own album cover later on to this song, but also because I wanted to know if the content of the album cover could determine the song genre, therefore I am going to create a poll to see if people can identify the genre from the layout, photography and typography displayed on the cover.

The colours used on this album cover are neutral and very basic. This is because unlike a stereotypical 'pop' genre, bright colours to capture people's attention aren't necessary, as the photo alone determines this. There is also a 'sepia' tint to it, which makes it look vintage, this style is used a lot with indie/alternative music, hence why when editing I am going to try apply this sepia tint myself to my video and to my own album cover.

Also unlike other genre's which are mainly based on image, the artist is rarely displayed on the front of Indie genre's album covers. In this one, there is a man displayed sitting on the wall; whether this is the artist or not, I am unsure. As the use of editing and techniques used to make the album cover look interesting is more important than the artists identity.

The border around the album is a broken black line which looks like the edge of a Polaroid, not only does this once again impact on the idea of 'old', but it also makes the cover look more interesting rather than a solid black line, this is another quality in which I am going to try incorporate into my music video.
Like the genre of music, I don't think the album cover is directed at either a male or female audience, however I do think it follows the conventions of it being for teenagers/young adults.
This album work is creative, a quality in which is usually associated with a young age as they are experiencing new influences and ideas.
When looking at reviews for this album I came across some information about this specific album and it's influences 'Ghost is a concept album based on the idea of houses retaining stories of things that have happened in them. Each song is a story and some of the stories are told from the house's point of view. Cooper cited an old house he lived in as one of the inspirations for Ghost'. This is interesting as when creating my story board, I decided I wanted to use an old cottage for the main part of my filming, this is because the lyrics for the song 'Welcome Home' spoke out to me and gave me the idea to use this, therefore Cooper has achieved what he intended with his lyrics as his influence gave me my own.

1. Names
2. A Pound Of Flesh
3. Family Portrait
4. Black Eyes
5. Severus And Stone
6. The Moon Is Down
7. Ghost Towns
8. Kin
9. The Dead Waltz
10. Always Gold
11. Mountains

This is also an album cover by 'Radical Face' called 'The Roots'. This doesn't include photography as the previous album, but basic typography to display the artists name and the name of the album. This relates to my previous point as identity is not important, and even though only typography is being used, they have still managed to make this look 'old' and 'vintage' by the use of editing to create a texture. This effect has made it look as though this is an old cover as some of the colour has been rubbed away, the type of text aswell is also necessary as it is aligned by gold decorative borders, this is an old style as nowadays basic black borders are used.

Even though this album cover with the use of typography is effective, when creating mine I think I am going to use photography as it makes the album cover that little bit more eye-catching.

Even though this is by the same artist as the album in which I have analysed above, this album seems to appeal to an older audience. My reason for this is this cover seems to represent an old book, something which would be more of an interest to an older audience - This could suggest that this album is more mature and is trying to aim at an older audience, either this or the cover artist decided a new approach to the style of the work would be more interesting.