CD Covers- Research

During class time we textually analysed the music artist Jay-Z's current album 'The Blueprint 3' shown beside, we also analysed his previous album covers over his career to see the change in Jay-Z image and representation as an artist. Studying this artwork we as an audience can see a change in reputation as a mainstream artist, at the start of his career where he has very little control if not any say in how he is representation- he is portrayed with a thug look and close-ups of him, this makes the audience feel slightly intimidated by him. As Jay-Z becomes more successful as a recording artist we see his albums and image develop. This latest album becomes less about his image and more about his music! This is because Jay-Z has more of a creative control over his music and representation. He has become more mainstream and popular showing that what Jay-Z is doing is sell-able. Jay-Z seems to have more control over this now rather than at the start of his career where the record label had all the control. Jay-Z has become a producer not only for himself but for other artist and is more creditable in the music industry than ever before. Is it obvious that Jay-Z wants to bring it back to basic to the music, he wants the audience to forget his image for a second and focus on his sound his music. I feel through this album Jay-Z has gained more respect as an artist.

This is successful and effective for Jay-Z but will be hard for a new band or artist to achieve with the audience having little awareness of who they are. I want a mix of image and music representation for the overall marketing package of my band 'The Madettes'.