Kanye appeals to his audience by providing them with songs which appeal to their need to express their feelings about school, college, and many other issues. They identify with his take on life, and buy his albums in their millions. They love his rebelliousness in that he uses a wide range of techniques and instruments to express himself; this is also reflected in his cover.
Michael Jackson - Thriller
At the time in 1982 Jackson’s audience followed him to the point of worshipping him and the way in which the album is laid out encourages this as it focus’s totally on his image, as have all his other covers. In the cover he is dressed in white, a symbol of purity and his face, slightly out of focus is soft and child like in its expression. He is sitting in a relaxed pose showing his lack of concern and his sense of self importance, seeming slightly angelic. The black background could symbolise all the problems in the world and him in white implies he is the world’s saviour. This attracts the audience to the album as he sees like he can save them in some way.
I believe he called his album Thriller as that was the name of the hit single on the album. Also he made a 20 minute music video based on it. Also the title doesn’t go with the album cover, as you associate thriller with horror, but the album picture is really nice and whit and calming, not scary at all. This could also be another reason why people bought the album, jus to find out what the album is about as the title and image give you two different stories.
The use of his own personal signature on the cover would make his audience feel that the album had been signed just for them. His albums have become so famous that they have elevated him to god like status, despite the controversy around his personal life.
The cover is very simple and plain thus showing he need not try to get the audiences attention, this shows that the album is mainly about the music and not anything else. That is why it has become on of the best selling albums of all time. It also shows that he need not try to grab the attention of his audience as they will flock immediately to buy the album any way. Since then he has made a re-release of the thriller album, but this time he has a image of zombies and him in it, as he has since lost some of his fans and needs to attract new one’s.
Many people also brought the album as his previous albums were so good. Also the hype building up to it such as the thriller movie also got people curious and wanting to find out if the album was any good.
Section Four: Evaluate your CD cover
I decided to make an album based on Lil Wayne as he is one of my favorite rappers. I had a problem with deciding what the album would be called so I decided to base it on something which is closely related to Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne is a heavy cannabis user, and drugs have weird affects on people therefore I decided to call it red kryptonite. I decided red kryptonite because Lil Wayne is considered one of the best rappers alive, and superman is one of the best super heroes around. Red kryptonite had weird effects on him therefore I used red kryptonite as a metaphor for drugs. I also decide on kryptonite as some people consider Lil Wayne to be a bad influence on society.
I decided to have the covers main colour as red as I believe it goes well with the title. I also edit a picture of Lil Wayne so he is also wearing red. He is crouched in front of a cell as some people believe he is a criminal and a bad influence and that he should be locked up. I have him crouched in front of the cell as it is sort of mocks the people who hate him. I like this as I believe it suits his personality as he likes to mock and confront people. I also placed him outside the cell to show that he thinks out side the box and that this album is different from the usual albums. I had the title of the album big, black and bold as I wanted it to stand out. I placed it at the top of the album as Lil Wayne’s name is in the middle of it. So that Lil Wayne’s name didn’t take too much of the attention away from the title. I also had the parental advisory warning sign not to big and in the corner. This was so it didn’t take away the attention from the album cover and it also didn’t put people of to much from buying the album.
On the back cover I had Lil Wayne’s name as the main focal point seeing as it isn’t that noticeable on the front cover. I decide to have the back cover basically the same seeing as I wasn’t skilled enough to change it to much. I has the text for the track listing in white so as the buyer could see it easily. I used song titles which are related to drugs in some way e.g. baked, which basically means you’re really stoned. I had the bar code in the bottom corner so as it didn’t take away to much attention from the song list. The other reason I had it small was so it didn’t make the cover look bad seeing as it didn’t go with the colour of the album.
Seeing as the cover is red it stands out, so it immediately catches the eye of the buyer. Also Lil Wayne is a famous rapper so people who know bout him would immediately be curious about the album and want to buy it. Lil Wayne is also famous for his amazing music so fans would immediately flock to buy this album, just to see if it lives up to his previous albums.
I was hoping to have the title written in smoke, but I wasn’t skilled enough to do that. I wanted to do this because I felt it would make the title look more appealing to the audience. The cover would also have looked better if I was better at cutting out Lil Wayne, because if you look closely you can see white bits around him.
Section Three: Create your own CD cover
Front Cover
Spine
Back Cover
Section one: Explore the importance of a CD cover as a marketing tool
Phillips and sony first made the cd in 1979 for music. It was considered a amazing step forward in the storing of music. It had high quality and long playback. It was also cheaper to make than LP’s. It was later mass produced and used for many other things such as DVD’s.
Von Karajan suggested that the CD should be big enough to hold Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. This meant it had 10 – 20 minutes extra storage time more than LP’s. It was also a lot smaller than them as well. This meant the cd could hold more tracks making it more value for money than the LP. If the LP was double sided then the CD wasn’t big enough to hold the same amount of songs so that was a disadvantage.
The Album art greatly increased the sales of CD’s, as the looked more attractive to the buyer. They also give a insight to what the album is about and what genre it is e.g. black for rock bright colours for indie. These colours attract different audiences. If the artist is creative enough they can also put across their point of view in the cover.
CD’s are now sold in many ways. This is to do with the advances in technology such as the internet. This means that CD’s are advertised on the internet. It is much cheaper this way and it reaches a much larger audience. They also still promote CD’s in magazines and flyers, but it doesn’t reach as many people as the internet. They are also advertised on TV as many people have them and every one watches them. This means a lot more albums are sold. They can be brought either over the internet or from the shop.
Comparing the two albums
The genres of the two albums are similar as one is pop and the other is hip hop. They are both extremely popular. They have both did extremely well in there album sales because they are so popular.
Their album covers are extremely different from one another. Thriller is slick, professional and glowing in a way, whereas Graduation is in cartoon, thus seeming slightly childish. You can even tell in the way which the title is written on the albums that they are different. On Thriller the title is written in nice hand writing, in gold and it all flows. Whereas in Graduation the title is in block letters, in purple. It’s the same with the artist’s names. Michael’s name is in gold and in nice hand writing. Whereas Kanye’s is mixed, such as some are in capitals and some aren’t, making it look scruffy. Although this could have been to do with the genre as Graduation is in alternative hip hop and Thriller is in pop.
The colouring of the two albums is completely different as well, as Graduation is a mix of colours making it stand out and Thriller isn’t. This could be due to the way in which the artists think, as explained earlier.
The music is also different but that is due to the genres of music which the artists decide upon.
Even though these albums are different from one another they both managed to do extremely well in sales, showing that different covers and music appeal to different people.
