Art by Anais Roatta

Here at B-Side, your local student music publication, we delve deep into the music we love in order to understand its evocative power and cultural necessity—we celebrate music’s capacity to be lyrically, sonically, and harmonically rich, and examine how this sophistication is achieved. However, attention is not often paid to the album covers that represent these inner soundscapes, and the visual rhetoric used by artists when designing them. A close analysis of the album covers that permeate our modern visual culture, from record store shelves to Spotify thumbnails, can add an additional level of depth to our impressions and understanding of what we hear. 

As both an art history major and a music journalist, I hold a place in each world and constantly alternate between the vocabularies and conventions used to discuss these different forms of media. I have long wondered if the tools of art historical analysis could be employed when looking at album covers in order to excavate knowledge about the interiors they represent—namely, an album, EP, or single. What can the medium, materials, composition, and color scheme of an album’s cover reveal about its contents? This piece will offer some possible methods to conduct a close reading of each album’s carefully constructed facade, art history style. One of the most important facets of  visual analysis is asking questions— interrogating the elements you see before you can give insight into what the artist was trying to achieve with specific choices. Being able to question an artist’s intentions will lead you to a deeper analysis, and, in our case, potentially reveal some qualities of the music within, such as mood, ideology, and even genre. 

I present you with a list of guiding questions which can aid your analysis when you begin to look at an artwork, aka the album cover of your choosing:

 

  1. WHAT or WHO is on the cover? Is the art figural, portraying a person, cultural or religious iconography, plants, animals, or objects? Or rather, is it abstract, lacking these elements and instead focusing on patterns, shapes and colors?
  2. What type of color scheme is being used? Is the image black and white or polychrome? What type of mood do these colors communicate—somber, optimistic, contemplative?
  3. How busy or simple is the composition? Is it static? Does it allude to motion? How can you tell?
  4. What emotions are being conveyed, through facial expressions, body language, color choice, or motifs?
  5. Does this album cover tell a story? Does it contain references to mythology, religious imagery, or other overt cultural themes?
  6. If you were to describe this cover to someone who couldn’t see it, what would you say? Are there similar artworks you could compare it to? Does it remind you of anything you’re seen before?

 

Now that you have these tools at your disposal, I want to offer some examples of my own album art  analyses. They are as follows!  

The hazy image of the artist, Gal Costa, on the album cover sparks feelings of warmth, lushness, and peacefulness. The yellow hue of the photograph alludes to sunlight while the feathers around her neck point  to a tropical setting. This woman is not looking at us—she gazes softly into the distance, calm but also longing. She is perhaps entertained by something not included on the canvas. She looks festive in her costume, yet smart in her gaze. Her face is enveloped by her dark curls and the stark white feathers, suggesting this is a soothing and intimate album. 

The photograph is relatively approachable and easy to engage with, hinting that the album may be self-reflective or personal rather than boundary-breaking and experimental. Little in its naturalistic, soft, welcoming demeanor suggests that the music’s contents will contain distortion, auto-tune, or other electronic elements. The album itself includes  elements of samba-rock and samba-soul, with upbeat, playful songs one could dance to, as well as slower, waltz-type tracks. The album is characterized by a mellow attitude, and the vocals are clear, romantic, and uplifting. Even the slower tracks seem to contain a mood of sunniness  like the one conveyed by the cover art. The production, instrumentation, and lyrics create a blissful soundscape, a galaxy of her own. Costa understands the power of her own voice; she blends the melody expertly with the tropical flavors of slow and fast guitar strumming, the occasional sax feature, and soft bells and bongos in the background. Listeners are beckoned to sink into her confident yet controlled charm, experiencing a soft and sincere longing that leaves us wanting more. 

 In the bottom right of the cover of Sign of the Times, a blurred Prince can be seen with glasses, a yellowish orange turtleneck, and black leather jacket. His outfit matches the color scheme of the cover, which is almost strictly duochrome with few colors aside from  black and hazy orange. The blurriness of the figure at right indicates that he is walking away from what is seen in the background—a lone guitar, drums, a piano, plants, flowers, and stage lights. Despite the dulled color scheme, the contents of the photograph are abundant and maximalist. Unlike other Prince covers, the artist takes up little space, and appears far less sexually suggestive. All these factors are cues that suggest this album may entail a break from Prince’s usual sound. 

This album is eclectic, atmospherically erotic, and bittersweet. It presents an array of sweet and sour tracks, some coy and nocturnal, others quirky and electric. “Housequake” kicks off with bitter falsetto vocals backed by a beat that seems  straight out of a jazzercise video. Prince asks questions (“Tell me who in this house know about the quake?”)  and gives instructions (“You put your foot down on the two/ You jump up on the one”). “Housequake” is a firestorm of funk  with a  tangy guitar riff and hidden synths. In contrast, “Slow Love” is a charming pop ballad in which Prince draws out each lyric  to complement the minimal percussion. This song parallels the warm, blurred tones of  the cover; it is patient yet surreal. 

In 2011, the worlds of Japanese rap and British indie pop collided through Kero Kero Bonito. On the cover of “Time ‘n’ Place,” a mugshot-style, overexposed image of vocalist Sarah Midori Perry confronts the viewer. She is still, appearing perhaps to be taken by surprise. This image is overlaid atop a chaotic, saturated collage in the background. Chains, leaves, flowers, hair, and foil mingle and merge, a stark contrast to the simplicity of the central portrait. 

This noise-pop, indietronica album explores themes of  playful adolescence as well as anxious alienation. Bedroom pop beats are perforated by cloudy vocals and ambient, kitschy glitchiness. Much like the cover, the tracks are fragmented yet dense with multiple genres jam packed into this project. The endearing sweetness of tracks like “Only Acting” are intercut with crunchy riffs and loop effects. The digital glam of the cover mirrors the aggressive positivity this artist conveys with the crunchy production throughout. 

 

 

Like the interface of an old computer screen or low resolution digital camera, the visible pixels on the cover of Frailty warps and obscure the image ever so slightly. This digital distortion is familiar to the youth  of our digital age, evoking a kind of nostalgia. Pictured are two people sitting on the front porch of what appears to be a suburban house, a beige sudan parked in the driveway. The viewer is not looking at a specific family or a recognizable house. Rather than serving as a personal memento, the image more so conveys an idea, a type. The modest residence, white individuals on the porch and an unassuming, dingy vehicle present an image of the middle-American working class’s mundane existence. The sunlight reflecting off of  the roof and the left windowsill hint that it may be summertime, hazy and feverishly hot. 

 

Dead internet forums, heartbreak, and nostalgia comprise the sound of Frailty. The noisy, melancholic maximalism exudes teenage moodiness. The bit-crushing distortion and genre-blend creates an experience not unlike sensory overload.  Lyrics like “you got lost chasing time again/it’s alright, it’s all good” from the song “Kodak Moment” add to the sense of manufactured aloofness and angst. “Goldfish” starts off with slow, twangy guitar strings, then vocals coming in soft and slow: “spend my summer climbing a tree/but the thought of falling makes you want to cry/let’s go back to Six Flags.” “Goldfish” is a lofi feast that leaves the listener wondering about these lost, forgotten memories from the blurry summers of the past. Someone somewhere is lost, leaving, or perhaps just growing up. “Kodak Moment” captures the essence of the album with its bittersweet punchy start, but glitchiness reigns in the second section. Irregular, repetitive sound effects and beat drops dominate  this middle section, packing it with  sound. A snippet of silence serves as a transition to the song’s final section, a tune made up of individual notes on a piano, as the song fades out and the journey comes to a close. 

Written by Mary Frances Luce

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