Inspirational Album Cover

FKA Twigs- LP1

FKA twigs is an alternative R&B and electronic artist who is known for her "whispery vocals", her songs and videos demonstrate themes that tend to be considered strange or slightily disturbing. This album cover is for her debut 2014 album, it depicts FKA twigs looking slightly away from the camera and dazed, or dream like which mirrors her calm soothing vocals. The album came with four other images which had the same background and were also portraits of FKA twigs similar to the one in the album cover but in these ones her face was disfigured as if she had different or in fact no skull, this is because it was inspired by Francis Bacon's art work, who is known for his surreal potraits. These  manipulated images mirror FKA Twigs use of surrealism in her music and also serves as a way to demonstrate her creative way of depicting her themes that make her a brand. 

Janelle Moae- Electric Lady

  Janelle Monae is a modern day funk and psychedelic soul singer, The Electric Lady is her second album contains a continuation of her seven-part Metropolis concept series which follows the story of an android Cindi Mayweather (hence the name 'The Electric Lady) potraid by Janelle Monae herself. The cover was painted by illustrator Sam Spratt. This is the standard edition cover which depicts Cindi Mayweather and her sisters; Andromeda, Andy Pisces, Catalina, Morovia, Polly Whynot. All portrayed by Janelle Monae herself. What I like about this album cover is how the characters are portrayed  by the same person, they also connect to her songs as these characters appear in her music video for the song Q.U.E.E.N, where the story of Cindi Mayweather is continued. The small details in the video are also part of the features that lead me to find this album cover interesting. These include the small dot of light in the temples of the characters and the bar of light in the arms of the characters which stand as a bar codes. 

Shamir- Ratchet 

like the previous album covers this one also consists of the artist as the main aspect of the cover, with his name written above the centered portrait of him and the name of the album written bellow. I liked this design as it allows the viewer to have an understanding to the artist's style of music which is funky and consists of a mixture of beats. I also like this album cover as it is simple but still visually pleasing. The colour scheme also depicts the artist's modern take of music.

Gorillaz- Plastic Beach

The cover of this album by Gorillaz depicts 'Plastic beach', a fictional island of which the album was named after as many songs in the album were about this island it was the setting for all of the released music videos for the album. I find this album inspiring as it has a direct link between the songs and music videos which allow the viewer and audience to easily connect separate songs to the album. The cover consists of the name of the band and the album in a wavy font so to imitate the ripples in the water, I liked how this allowed the font to sit well in the art work. the composition of the cover is also intriguing as it is divided into two halves, the top consisting of the island and sky and the bottom half only having the ocean and the name of the album, this allows the writing to stand out as all the key features in the cover are well distributed allowing the viewer to not miss any crucial details in the cover.

Prince- Art Of Official

This is one of Price's most recent albums, like previous albums it follows many conventions of album covers by having the artist centered in the cover and also the name album. It also shows the genre of music (which is mostly funk) by having bright colours. The reason why I find this album cover inspirational is because of how the artist is represented, he is seen i attire that is commonly associated with his brand, the background which is made to look like clouds allows the audience to associate the artist to be like a 'God' in this genre of music. 

Frank Ocean- Channel Orange 

This is the most simplest of the albums and doesn't follow much of the conventions set by the others; it doesn't contain the name or a picture of the artist, just the name of the album. This is potentially because the artist wants his songs to be more effective than the album. The title of the album is a reference to a syndrome called synesthesia which is a condition that associates colours with letters and numbers also known as 'seeing sound', hence the use of the bright orange background. The fact that the album consists of a deeper meaning adds to another reason as to why i find it inspirational.