Why is album artwork important?

As we have entered the digital era of music consumption through streaming services such as Spotify and SoundCloud, we still see the prominence of album artwork, even though the physical music form has died in a sense. 

Album artwork is very important for a few different reasons, one being that it’s the first thing the consumer sees upon listing to the album and can severally influence their choice when it comes to choosing new music. The album cover provides an incite into what is to come, and in some cases can be a statement on its own as it can become more known than the songs, an example of this is the Beatles album, Abbey road released in 1969 as can be seen below. 

 

 

This picture above used for one of the Beatles most famous albums. This picture of abbey road has arguably become more famous and well recognised then the actual music within the album, this is showing how artwork from albums can become a stamp associated with a band/artist and thus promote them by becoming a unique selling point (USP). Furthermore, this can also help maintain the image of the band/artist as they can express their style etc through the album cover. 

 

Above is kid Cudi's album Man on the Moon III: the chosen. This is a great example of how album artwork can project the genre of music As Well as aid targeting the target audiences. From what we can see above the music may have a trippy/ psychedelic side to it but we assume a hip-hop/rap genre, more importantly we do not expect to see the elderly shopping for this album, as this artwork has been designed to appeal to its target audience.  

 

Album artwork can also show certain ideologies and beliefs associated with the band/artist. An example of this is the band Rage against the machine, below is their album ‘rage against the machine from 1992, this is an image of a monk being burned in the musts of the Vietnamese war. This album artwork clearly represents the anti-war ‘anti machine’ ideology attached to the band and lyrics within the songs expressing anti-establishment references as well as anti-war as showing in the cover. 

 

 

Finally, Album artwork can also help sell the physical music in terms of products such as vinyl. As we see a recent boost in popularity of vinyl in the era of digital music, being able to own physical music has become quite unique. Some people nowadays may own vinyl records, but not have a record player in order to play the record, showing how this has become art potentially separated from the music. This suggests that the artwork can become a selling point itself when it come to the physical product of music.