1. Analyses of CD Covers Alex Norton

2. Album 1 – Just Jack – Glory Days Relaxed cheerful colours (orange, green and sky blue) help create a relaxed atmosphere. This is because blue has connotations of peaceful innocence and helps to promote the idea of this album being aimed at younger people. Green is also a very childish colour and reminds people of grass (it is grass shown in the album cover). People associate this with happy childhood memories. This again is a reference towards childhood memories. The shoe (representing the normal) is being melted and pulled apart by the strangely coloured people (representing the abnormal). This shows that normality is being affected by the contents of the album showing that it is very unique in its approach towards Just Jack’s music. The name of the artist is found at the top of the album across the page, helping to emphasise his role in its creation. Also it is in bright orange. This stands out against the pale blue and white that is the background colours. This will help to highlight the artists name and album name making it more appealing to the audience. The album looks like a painting. This gives the impression that it is very free-spirited and relaxed, meaning that the target audience will be a very relaxed person possibly young adults between the ages of 14 and 25. The album cover is showing obscure creatures surrounding a converse-style shoe. The obscure creatures give an obvious effect to the shoe (melting it). This helps create the idea that Just Jack’s music is going to have a drastic effect on the people around it, helping to show it is good music. The album cover seems very childish in its design. This helps to promote the relaxed attitude towards Just Jack’s music. However they all appear to be working together in tying the shoe laces. This helps to promote teamwork and creates a very friendly atmosphere that will reflect the cheery styling's of Just Jack. Dyer suggests that the album will fulfil the audiences need for community. This is shown by the creatures in the video working together to pull apart the shoe. This helps to promote a social friendly message to the audience. Maslow suggests that it is fulfilling the audiences need for affiliation (acting in a group). This is clearly shown by the creatures working together to pull the shoe apart. Burton’s theory groups people by social and media groups. I think that the social group for Just Jack’s album cover would be a mixed teen audience. This is shown by the relatively simplistic album cover with very few colours. This is appealing to the teenagers because it stimulates their sense of humour.

3. Album 2 – The Black Ghosts The lack of colour helps to emphasise the old fashioned scene on the cover. Also the old-fashioned imagery is reflected by the amount of medieval materials that are used e.g. coffin and candles. The scene is shown to be very religious as they are by a coffin and are dressed in monk robes. There faces are very pale making it seem that they are undead. This creates a very eerie feeling that makes this album look like it belongs to a relatively hardcore rock band. This is not the case as the band the Black Ghosts focuses more on electro styled music than on rock. This is shown by the strangely styled album cover. This helps to show the unusual style of music that is electro as it is a very unconventional style The Black Ghosts is written in a very old-fashioned font. This reflects the scene below. Also the font changes from black to white when it enters the scene. This may be to help represent The Black Ghosts as an icon that is good rather than the negative gothic/medieval scene that is shown. The fact it changes from black to white can also represent their changing from good to evil. As this is the case The Black Ghosts are shown to be a very positive influence on the decidedly negative scene. As there is religious symbology it could be seen as The Black Ghost’s as offering ‘sanctuary’ to the audience. This fits in with Hartley’s ideas as the album is appealing to their need for safety. Burton’s theory groups people by social and media groups and Hartley advances on the social grouping even further. I believe the social group that this would fit into would be an educated younger-middle aged male audience. This is because it is a relatively controversial album cover that they are given a choice whether they listen to (more adult). Also it uses subliminal messages (the black ghosts name changing from black to white) and this appeals to educated audiences more. Maslow would suggest that The Black Ghost’s would appeal to the audiences need for safety. This is because the Black Ghost’s would offer sanctuary to the audience. The dark colours and hidden faces make the audience feel isolated. Dyers utopian solution theory would suggest that the Black Ghost’s will provide a solution to the problem by creating a community.

4. The word example is written in white font on a black background. This helps it to stand out from the rest of the page. Also the word ‘example’ has connotations of role models. This could mean that people are meant to idolise the man and to use him as a role-model. The man is shown with a quite low camera angle that faces him head on. This helps give him an aura of importance. Also he is shown a number of times instead of a group of different people. This would mean that he is extremely vital to the audience and that they ‘need’ him (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). The album cover is divided into twelve different boxes. In each of the boxes the man is shown to be doing a different action. Depending on how it is interpreted he either has many different skills e.g. being an astronaut or having a completely split personality e.g. being dressed as a bear. This could be perceived as being negative as if he has the disease schizophrenia. However if he is meant to appear with many skills then this will be an extremely positive as it would actively encourage the audience to try new things. This album cover is targeted at a teenage audience. This is because the album features some more mature themes, e.g. The insane man in the bottom left corner with swearing on his shirt. A younger audience would not understand some of the strange features on the album cover. However it is not completely adult as there are some childish features such as him dressed as a bear. This lowers the target audience age to teenage and young adult. Hartley splits audience into different social groups. Namely; age, gender, ethnicity etc… Using Hartley’s social groups I have concluded that example’s new album is aimed at teenagers. I would say this because it appeals to the teenagers sense of humour. Also they will relate to example as he is shown as a rebellious young adult. Dyer would suggest that example creates a certain level of confusion. This makes the audience want to listen to the album as it would provide them with a large amount of clarity about the reasoning behind the album cover. Also it provides a large amount of energy (he is shown in many different places at once) this appeals to people who are suffering from exhaustion. Album 3 - example