Detailed Analysis of a CD Cover

I believe there are a few types of album covers when looking in detail. I believe you can have an abstract album cover, with bright colours and random images, but also simple album covers with less of a theme to make them more minimilistic for the consumer. This may be because they just want to strip themselves bare as artists and not try to be different, making them, ironically stand out from others.

Here is an album cover by the artist Lily Allen, with the album title of 'Its me its you. This already catches the consumers eye as the usual term is 'its not you its me'. This is already breaking conventions, and as we know Lily is quite controversial in her lyrics anyway. Most aritsts of the same genre are. Even the song names of the album are quite different and intriguing, as they are all explicit and outspoken, just like Lily herself, even though the typical convetion of women artists are that of elegance.

1. Everyone’s At It [Explicit]
2. The Fear [Explicit]
3. Not Fair [Explicit]
4. 22 [Explicit]
5. I Could Say [Explicit]
6. Back To The Start [Explicit]
7. Never Gonna Happen [Explicit]
8. F___ You [Explicit]
9. Who’d Have Known [Explicit]
10. Chinese [Explicit]
11. Him [Explicit]
12. He Wasn’t There

This album cover may be shocking to audiences who are usual fans of Lily. As the analysis of the last album cover shows, she is quite boyish, and this album cover goes down the more feminine root. Here is some anaylsis in much more detail, looking at each sub category in detail:

GENRE:
The front cover of this cd cover breaks the typical convention of the genre of music Lily Allen, and the rest of her artists who fit under the same genre are known for. She is known for British Pop, and after analysing videos from her music, they seem abstract and controversial, which isnt what this album cover represents. This may cause more attraction to the cover, as Lily Allen isnt known to be related with pinks and feminine colours, so to see this as her next route could intrigue her old fans aswell as her new ones.

LETTERING/FONT SIZES AND STYLING:

The lettering and font goes against the genre and music/design of what Lily Allen is about. Her old album, which I have analysed, shows how she is an individual, almost toy boyish artist, not known to prance around in dresses, and when she does she wears the trainers or something to go against conventions. This is like her album text and lettering used. She has the usual black and white 'Lily Allen' tag which is obviously used for the artists name, but instead of it being a funky styled font, it is instead a block/straight forward font that goes with the elegant theme. Also, instead of having a white outline, the outline is pink, following this theme of feminimity. Another point is the font underneath which is used. It is directly underneath the name of the artist, making the album cover look neater and more organised, not like her other album cover. Its again pink, and is in quite an elegant font style to match the image Lily is trying to give off. The text underneath the first image shows the difference in image that Lily is giving out to her fans. She obviously had to be more controversial and out there to stand out when she was first establishing herself as an artist.

CHOSEN IMAGES:
The image chosen for Lily Allen's 2nd album is photography of the artist. It has less outrageous theme compared to the other, as Lily has less of a statement to make as an independant artist. When looking at the mis-en-scene, we can see the colour scheme as being mainly pinks and blacks, which again runs with this constant theme of feminimity. She is dressed in a girly pink dress, which makes a statement as girliness is something Lily Allen would not usually be asscociated with. The lighting is quite bright to make the colour scheme stand out more, and Lily is placed quite significantly. Her eyes are closed and she is layed peacefully on a huge L. This represents how Lily may feel she has nothing to prove as an artist, so not making eye contact and being calm and collected shows her disregard to prove anything.

ICONOGRAPHY:
When thinking about the iconography of this album cover, as I have said throughout you do not expect to see Lily how she is represented. Lily is usually associated with controversy and attitude, and her album cover here does not represent this. This album shows maturity of Lily Allen growing as a person and an aritst, hence the less dramatic but more sophisticated album cover. Lily doesn't have any signiture looks likem artists such as Eminem with his blonde peroxide hair. She does however, be expected to be seen in dresses with twists such as trainers on her feet, but in this she is taking a step back.