Eminem, ‘Relapse’ Hip-Hop/Rap
The album cover features a close up of the rapper in a resemblance of a mosaic portrait. After researching into it, I found out its designed out of capsule pills and the word “Relapse” with a backwards “E” at the end and with the letter “x” under the “R” which spells out Rx (prescription) like the Rx in HipHopRx.com. These first few elements already link in with the genre of Eminem’s music, of which a lot of his songs, if not all on this album are about or reference to drug use. In addition to this, the cover bares a prescription label with the words “Prescribed by Dr. Dre” which includes a dosage of 250MG, quantity of 313, Take 1 tablet(s) one time(s) daily at 3 AM and the date for refills as 05-19-09 which is the release date of Eminem’s album Relapse. This is quite an innovative feature I think, and again it ties in with Eminem’s music really obviously. Eminem has a massive wide ranged demographic, so I don’t think his album cover tries to target any specific age or gender because his music will still sell to his fans, despite perhaps more stereotypical male colours being used, or the sense of aggression portrayed through Eminem’s facial expression, which again would stereotypically be associated with males.
Kelis, single cover for ‘Milkshake’ from album ‘Tasty’
R&B/ alternative hip hop
This is the cover for Kelis’ single ‘Milkshake’ from her album ‘Tasty’, and features a long body shot of Kelis sitting on a giant milkshake dressed in a flesh-baring, what looks to be, a bathing suit. Her body-positioning and clothes she is wearing tie in with her single’s genre of R&B as the typical conventions of R&B music are typically scantily clad women in provocative poses.
I think this cover has been designed with a gender and age in mind; young females. The obvious reason is the colour choice of the background, which is pink so would automatically steer towards females straight away. Unlike Eminem’s music which isn’t gender or age specific, Kelis’s music I think is, so her Single cover represents this well, aswell as her genre of music perfectly.
The Beatles, ‘St Peppers lonely hearts club band’
Rock and roll/psychedelic rock/music hall/jazz/western/traditional Indian music
This album cover has become an iconic piece of work, and features the band posing in front of a collage of their favourite celebrities, and has widely been acclaimed and imitated. The cover art was designed by Peter Blake (an English pop artist).
The Beatles stand behind a drum, in the centre of the scene, on which are painted the words of the album's title; the drum was painted by fairground artist Joe Ephgrave.
Over 70 famous people are included on the cover, and the range of them being, for example, from Sigmund Freud to Marilyn Monroe. As The Beatles have a global audience, stretching to a wide range of ages, I don’t think they have targeted their album cover to a specific gender or age, and by having a collage of different iconic, famous people automatically reaches out to this wide demographic successfully.
Benefits and Drawbacks to CD covers.
Firstly, the size of a CD cover, even though allows it to be portable, it doesn't allow for alot of room to place a design on. This makes it difficult to make an original album cover that stands out. Sometimes it's the most simplest of designs that therefore stand out. For example, Arctic Monkey's latest album cover, 'Suck it and see'.
Or Hard-fi's album 'Suburban Knights',
