Why Album Covers Matter
Albums in this generation, the fast-paced consumption of media has been highly abundant. Fueled by short video streaming platforms, music is reduced into smaller chunks of audio. This feeds the short attention spans of the audiences. With that said, modern artists’ direction towards capturing and intriguing new listeners is through crafting an aesthetically-pleasing album cover.
An integral part of music is its visualized entity. This shows the connection of the cover to the artistic direction and evolution of the musician. Most especially, the overall feeling of the sound is characterized by the artist. Throughout the years, music has been more than just sounds and compositions. Connecting different senses in art strongly derives the sense of artistry and individuality of the musician.
Album Marketing
As simple as can be, sometimes musicians want to create an engaging atmosphere for fans with endearing representations and haunting easter eggs across their albums. Seen through different forms of media, album covers are also indicators of the project’s selling point. Most albums in the Hip-Hop genre in the current year embraced the late 90s aesthetic in different projects such as 21 Savage’s “Savage Mode II”, exhibiting the late Memphis covers, and; Tyler, the Creator’s “Call me if you get lost” donning O.D.B.’s project.
The overall scenery in the music industry engages in representing the artist’s individuality while also drawing inspiration from past music periods. Artists are more lenient of their craft today because of the control of their art in different forms. Furthermore, the album art immortalized multiple musical projects in popular culture. Serving their prominence in their own genre. Iconic album covers provided a strong marketing tool to reiterate their sound to the masses even before listening to it. While also having surreal imagery in the popular scene. Iconic albums like The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” and Nirvana’s Nevermind have their fair share of fans, resulting in art’s main-stay in the hipster references and even the common people of different generations.
Embodiment of the Music
As I said earlier, the visualized representation of music is important for its consumption. More often than not, people start to listen to projects who have intriguing music covers that direct their minds in listening to the coherent artistry.
Album covers matter for the artists and the audiences because it provides the lovechild of the musician to the music. Feeding minds with controversial themes or straightforward images, compact projects empower the music’s ability to reach the masses and reveal the physical construct of the direction.
