2. DJ KHALED – MAJOR KEY
In the centre of the album
cover we have the main
artist DJ Khaled who is
sitting on very luxury and
royal chair. This gives the
audience the impression he
has power because he is
sitting on a throne of some
sort. The lion next to him is
also a representation of the
power the artist has. The lion
is sort of bowing down to
him, which shows he
worships the artist and is a
representation of us as the
listeners to his music. The
artist is looking at the
camera so there is a use of
direct address to connect
with the audience.
The location of the image
looks to be in a forestry
area. The plants and the
album cover as a whole is
extremely colourful which
attracts a lot of attention to
it, this links to AIDA theory.
I think the location is also
to do with the fact there is
a lion next to the artist.
In the top right corner of the
album cover is the album title
‘Major Key’ along with a little
key emoji next to it. And in
the top left corner is the
artists name.
Parental advisory logo to make the
audience aware of the explicit
language in the music.
3. TRAVIS SCOTT – RODEO
The album cover is quite basic for
Travis Scott’s Rodeo album. The
cover just includes a main image
of a doll version of the artist. The
doll then later became available
for purchase so I think the whole
idea of the image was to promote
these dolls. The image is on a basic
grey background, so looking at it
doesn’t stand out massively.
Travis Scott also released
a deluxe version for his
album Rodeo and
another album cover was
created for it to separate
it from the normal
version.
In this cover for the album we again
see the doll version of the artist
standing on top of a toy monster
truck. This time the image is on a
plain white background which
stands out more than the normal
album cover in my opinion. The
image on the cover is taken straight
from the music video to ‘90210’
which is one of the tracks on the
The album cover is
quite unusual because
it doesn’t contain the
actual name of the
album or the artist. To
know who the artist is
you have to know what
he looks like to
recognise the doll on
the front.
4. KENDRICK LAMAR – TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY
This is the artists third
studio album. The cover has
become very iconic and is
considered to be one of the
greatest hip-hop album
covers. The main image on
the album cover is said to
have many meanings
behind it. What we can see
as the audience is a lot of
black topless men holding
bottles and money
standing in front of the
white house. There are also
children and even a baby in
the image too.
The album cover is
supposedly meant to
represent the aftermath of a
black revolution on the White
House lawn. The album title
and cover is also supposedly
a representation of the novel
‘To Kill a Mockingbird ‘ as its
about an innocent black man
being prosecuted for a crime
he didn’t commit which is
most likely relatable to
Kendrick. The image is in
black and white which is
maybe trying to represent
that it’s a historical moment.
Parental advisory logo in the bottom right
corner, to show that the music in the
album contains explicit language.
5. KANYE WEST – MY BEAUTIFUL DARK
TWISTED FANTASYThe album cover for
Kanye West’s fifth
studio album. This
album cover was
probably the most
controversial album
cover he has put out
there. It was so
controversial that the
main image had to be
censored. I think Kanye
has said that he wanted
the album cover to be
censored, which
probably caused it to
have a lot of attention
surrounding it which
could have been one of
the main selling points.
The album was also given
several different alternate
album covers. These all
have the same look as the
original cover, but the
main image in the centre is
different. They all have
different meanings to
them, for example the
ballerina links in to the
music video to ‘Runaway’
which is a track on the
Parental advisory logo
located in the bottom
right corner of the
album.
