Album Cover Initial Ideas

There are several conventions of album covers that I have researched; rock band Rage Against the Machine used a simplistic graffiti image, Fat Boy Slim’s album used comedy which relates to his act and music, and The Clash used an image from one of there tours. The Clash’s album cover for “London Calling” has become and iconic image, the image shows guitarist Paul Simonon smashing his guitar against the stage. The album cover also has vast similarities with Elvis Pressely’s first album because the text font is identical and the image on Elvis’s album being him playing live.

Previous album covers by the Kings Of Leon have been focussed on being of one object or setting, whilst they have also used images of themselves. The album because of the times uses a split image idea, with four images being used on the cover, which I think is one of the bands most effective covers. The 2007 album “because of the times” uses an image of a light bulb smashing, if I followed this then I would use an image of an everyday object that would best reflect the mood of the video. Or I would use an image of an object from the video. Whilst their recent album cover shows a paradise island at sunset which links to the title of the album “Come Around Sun Down”. 

An idea that I have had for the album cover would be to use an image from the video for the song; this could either be an action shot from the video or an image of the main character for the album cover. For an action shot from the video I could use an image from the end of the video of the two characters, whilst for a shot of the main character I could use the image from the end of the video when the character is looking down the camera. Whilst for the back of the album cover would show back down the alleyway from which the main character has run from.

Another idea I have had for the music video is to use an image of an everyday object, which would be in keeping with several of the bands previous album covers. This object could be either a broken beer bottle, smashed photo frame or withering flowers, which would show the dark aspects of the song and would be relevant to the music video. The back of the album cover is stereotypically in keeping with the theme shown on the front of the album; however there is the track listings placed down the side of the back cover. There is also normally a barcode, and logos for the band, and their record labels.