The album covers of alternative rock music can be very diverse, in terms of design they can notably be exceedingly different, with multiple different variations on design. These designs can alternate from an image of the band (a typical feature in some form), however there are many different ways the band members are featured, for instance in the Sum 41 cover for In Too Deep the design is very plain and simple, all that is shown is a very simple bold text and above that various images of the band members in different poses resembling a very ‘punk rock’ sense towards it, there is nothing else featured on the cover which makes it seem very simple but also arguably very bland and boring, it reflects the rebellious natures of youth very well though as it could potentially imply the laziness of youth and how they don’t care about how their cover looks or how they are received. Other ways the band can be featured within the album include Feeder for the album The Singles, in this it is not the band featured and instead is just a guitarist, all the album cover shows is an image of a guitarist jumping up playing his guitar with his face covered by the neck of the guitar, at the bottom there is very bold, white text stating “Feeder” and “The Singles”, the word “Feeder” is written in much more bold text than “The Singles” emphasizing the name of the band (and therefore the identity of the band) more than the name of the album as though the name of the band is more lucrative. The image of the man jumping up with his guitar is fairly simplistic but very effective and understandable since the album has a very joyous, uplifting feel but also a fairly dramatic and positive aspect around it meaning that the album cover reflects the mood and tone of album very well. In terms of artistry however I feel as though Feeder’s example is not very lucrative, it does indicate the mood and tone of the album but does lack a sense of analytical aspects around it whilst other alternative rock bands such as Linkin Park on their album cover entitled “Minutes to Midnight”, the imagery is very bold and not particularly graphic however it does transmit a mood towards it as the white background corresponds with the silhouette people shown at the bottom reflecting a sense that the people do not belong in this world which reflects a lot of the album tone since many of Linkin Park’s music is about the anger and aggression they feel towards isolation, I feel as though this album cover in particular clearly indicates isolation in a way which is very simplistic but still very effective and substantial, the text shown at the top of the album also reflects this, very black and bold writing stands out greatly and helps the band indicate the mood they’re trying to show as well as highlight the identity of the band. Other different album covers can delve from Madina Lake’s From Them, Through Us, To You, this album cover is much more artistic, the band is not featured at all instead there is a range of colours mainly focusing on yellow and green with a woman drawn in black in the middle with her finger directed to her mouth in a typical “hush” body language, there is mass imagery of flowers which does not necessarily reflect the mood of the album. There is an image of a seemingly old barn or farmhouse in the bottom right corner, this does not match with any of the other scenery. I suppose in a way it can therefore be seen to reflect the album in the sense that Madina Lake corresponds between multiple genres going from fairly heavy metal to typical pop rock, I feel this shows the diversity of the album and the light hearted tone of many of the songs, also the cover is very eye catching since it is so different from the usual which I personally feel may be a deliberate marketing ploy in order to possibly increase sales as seeing an image like this cover in the midst of a large amount of other CDs and album covers it is very likely that a general onlooker would be directed towards this type of cover. Interestingly enough the text again is very simple in this cover, not using a particularly flamboyant or outlandish font and again using white which could help indicate that some aspects of the album cover is still conforming to the genre even though the rest is completely diverse.
Sum 41's In Too Deep cover as referred to in the blog clearly the cover is very simplistic, not utilizing much of an artistic style and simply just features the members of the band doing various poses with the name of the band and name of the song underneath.
Feeder's The singles album cover as referred to in the blog, clearly this is also very simplistic using only one image of the a band member however clearly an artistic perspective has been used in some respect, again simple bold text is used.
Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight as referred to in the blog is very simple also, however I feel as though an artistic perspective has been much more focused on and I feel as though it has much more analystical qualities about it and can be linked towards the reflective nature of the album, the text again is very bold and clear and indeed the full cover only uses the colours of black and white.
Madina Lake's From Them, Through Us, To You as referred to in the blog is much more artistic and within the seemingly typical and simple approaches to album covers, this one highlights the diversity of the genre and how the only feature which seems to be the same and not change very much is the text since it is always so simple and still uses only one colour and that colour being white.
A very quick summary of many of the album covers as used in our presentation which we conducted highlighting what we would like to acheive with this project.
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