Sam Smith is a new artist whose album artwork conveys loneliness and negativity through its black, white, and grey color scheme, reflecting the serious themes of his songs. This allows audiences to feel sympathy and empathize with Smith as a lonely figure, developing a relationship that boosts his popularity and profits. Smith's single artworks contrast brightly with the album artwork, using color to appeal to a wider audience, though they do not reflect the album's themes as directly. His music video for "Stay With Me" reinforces the lonely and everyday themes of the album artwork through shots of Smith alone and in everyday settings.

1. Artist Research
Sam Smith

2. Current Album Artwork
Sam Smith is a new artist so the album cover above is the only one he currently
has. However, there are defiantly links. The colour scheme is black, white and
grey. This reflects the other songs on his album like “stay with me” and “leave
your lover” as it signifies loneliness are negativity. It could also show simplicity
and sophistication. These messages do link with the music that this artist
produces as they are about serious events rather than about ‘having fun’. This
artwork definitely conforms to Blumler and Katz’s theory of uses and gratifications
model. The audience can develop a relationship with Sam smith as him being
alone in the artwork and the title being ‘In the lonely hour’ means the audience
feel sympathy for him or could even empethise. Institutions may include this to
gain popularity for the artist as there is an emotional connection, therefore
creating more profit.

3. Single Artwork
Sam Smith’s single artworks juxtapose with his album artwork. Analysing his album
artwork meant I was not expecting this kind of artwork. Everything from the colours to
the messages contrasts with the black and white layout of the other cover. This may be to
reach out to a wider audience. These two covers link more with the genre theories of
pop as they are colourful and connote happiness and fun. Even though these messages
may not link with the songs on the album it does tell the audience about Sam Smith as a
person and artist. It shows he is a fun person and artistic, again creating a relationship
with them. However, it is not as obvious as the album cover. But, this could be done on
purpose as the singles are to ‘tease’ and ‘hint’ at the audience and the album cover is t
reveal him.

4. Music video’s
Sam Smith’s music video for ‘stay with me’ includes a lot of the themes and
meanings that his album artwork connotes. Many of the shots show him
alone backing up the relationship with the audience that has been built.
Something that emphesises this message is the setting. He is walking down a
street or in a bedroom connecting him with everyday people which most of
the audience are. Below is the music video.