Analysis of two CD Covers

This CD cover is 'Locked up' by Akon. I think its fair to say that it is typical of the genre of the artist. The stereotype for male rappers album covers is :

Usually a picture of themself on the cover (sometimes the picture will be of the artist topless)

There is a tendancy for the colours of the background of the cover to be darky colours.

The album cover itself is pretty much straight and to the point, the artist's name, album name and picture are all apparent. On the other hand the typiality of an indie band who be somthing a bit more complex and may have more of a complication to it. The band itself is not always on the cover with this genre of band. Another genre of group that go by the simple idea of a CD cover are popbands, such as: JLS or Girls aloud.

Another typicality of a rappers CD cover is the 'Parental advisory' symbol. This is normally a neccesatty for this genre of music because many rappers produce material that has inapropriate language. Although some indie bands will also have the 'Parental advisory' symbol it is more of a typicality of that of a Rap artist.

The font used for Akon's name is distinctive and therefore once seen people will immediately be associated with the artist. The backgroud of the CD cover blend well with the picture of Akon and the title of the artist and album name also blend, this is effective because it makes the CD cover stand out

Some of Akons single covers are as follows:

This CD cover is the Saturdays, Just from a first glance it is obvious that it is typical of its genre. Numerous pop bands have themselves on the album cover, this is to make it distinctive to themselves & also maybe because pop bands tend to target a younger audience aswell as a mainstream audience and therefore if the band we're to have a complex album cover with no picture of them their younger audience may not realise it is their CD and therefore not buy it, The title to the saturdays album is distinctive with the way 'The Saturdays' is written, it would be apparent to the audience as to the fact that it is actually the saturdays album, At first glance at the album it appeared like something you would excpect from a similar band such as Girls Aloud,

The stereotypical features for a Girl Popbands album cover are as follows:

The girls all dressed in nice clothes, usually co ordinated in what they wear, make up etc. In this instance all the girls are dressed in white top halfs and all different coloured bottoms. They all look well preened, like you would expect from a girlband.

the album cover the saturdays is printed distinctively, with the A's linking into the letter beforehand. Something as simple as this will distinguish the saturdays from just the day saturday.

Two Single covers from the saturdays are as follows:

By comparing these two with The saturdays album cover it is apparent that that saturdays always go by the stereotype expected of them, all three use the tradmark A's accosiated with the saturdays, Also in all threee video's the saturdays are well dressed, this is so the album cover is asthetically pleasing to the audience, maybe to attract a male audience aswell as to make it apparent that it is the saturday's. Also the saturday's are always stand out from the background, as in these cases we're there is a tendancy for the background to be a greyish colour & for the girls to be dressed in brighter colours to make them stand out from the background. To conclude I think that the saturdays go by the stereotpe expected of them as far as layout & style of CD & Album covers goes.