Emily Ambach
Mr. Willsey
A.P. Language and Composition,
Period 3
5 June, 2012
Written
Task 2 Rough Draft
Album
art. Is it really such a big deal? Do people actually pay attention to the art
of an album cover, or only buy the music because it is a band they like? I know
that when I am buying my music, I look at the cover art of the album, and that
does have a huge impact on my decision to buy the album. If I don’t like the
art, I won’t buy the album. I automatically assume I will not like the music or
the artist if I don’t like the art, so I could be missing out on really good
music, but I judge the quality of the music based on the album art. People
always say not to judge a book by its cover, but in some cases, I judge.
Everybody judges. I especially judge when choosing my music. This isn’t always
how I choose my music, but this is what I normally do when I am looking for new
music to listen to. And most of the time it is very effective for me.
One
of my favorite album covers is the cover art for Demon Days by the Gorillaz. Gorillaz is one of my favorite bands, so the fact that
I love their music played a big role in my decision to get this album, but I
just love how simple yet effective the album art is. The band members of
Gorillaz are all facing sideways, but their eyes are turned toward you, glaring
at you with their eyes half shut, like they are glaring at you, which gives it the more negative and evil
feel, really living up to the “Demon” sense of Demon Days.
I
also generally like album covers that have a lot of color in them. Another one
of my favorite covers that fits that description is the cover of Aim and Ignite
by fun. The cover is very colorful and lively, and really catches your eye. If
you were to pass by this album in a record store, you would stop and take a
second to look over the cover. There are many colors, and that gives the album
the feeling of being lively and fun, which really makes the band live up to
their name.
I
asked a few of my friends this question, and about 75% said yes, it did impact
their decision. Bringing up my previous point, every one judges in some form or
another. Even if someone says they don’t judge, every one judges. Whether it be
people, books, music, movies, etc.
I
am not very particular with my music, but having an album with cool cover art
definitely makes the experience better for me. When someone introduces me to a
new band, the first thing I will do is look at the album art. If I like it
enough, I will keep listening. If I don’t like it, then I figure there is no
point in listening to the band. In my personal experience, I have found that it
is generally the album covers of metal or hard rock bands that I seem to
dislike the most. That also has reasoning in why I don’t like that specific
genre of music.
I also tend to not like country
music and rap music, and I think it is because I think the album covers for
most country albums are very plain and not very exciting, and rap album covers
can sometimes be very crude. Alternative and rock album covers, for example,
generally draw me in more and make me more attracted to the music genres. So my taste in specific music
genres also greatly has to do with the album art.
Another
album cover that I particularly like is the cover of Prepare the Preparations
by Ludo. This cover depicts the band members as robots and gives it a fun feel,
rather than if it was just the faces of the four band members on the cover. The
robots match the color of the background they are in front of, which also gives
it a more playful feel, and the first robot, in the top left corner, which is
supposed to be the robot of the lead singer, Andrew Volpe, has a bow tie. This depicts the playful and goofy nature of
Volpe, as that is very much his personality.
Though they are robots, if you know
the band, you can still figure out which robot is supposed to belong to which
person because they do depict the actual band member in a certain way. For
instance, the robot on the bottom left is supposed to be the back up vocalist,
moog, and synth player, Tim Convoy. You can tell this because this robot looks
taller than the others, and Convoy is the tallest band member. This album cover very much depicts the playful
nature of the band.
Album art has a huge impact on
whether or not a person will like that particular band, singer, or genre of
music. In turn, it also had an impact in the decision of whether or not a
person is willing to invest in the music and support a particular band. People judge the quality of the
music or the band on the album cover, and though some may deny it, every one is
guilty of doing that at some point. People are attracted to art in general, so
album art has a big impact on choice in music.
