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Covered By: Sophia Tsinas
How many of you lose yourselves in the intensity of songs? Probably all of you! But how many of you lose yourselves in the artwork of the album cover? Probably a few of you. When a new album comes out, we all either rush to the nearest music store or even download it on iTunes, but we tend to disregard the cover and its meaning. Don’t lie, we all do it. When you’re counting down the days to the album release, do you think to yourself: “Hey, I can’t wait to analyze the album cover?” No. What we tend not to see is the relation between the artist and the artwork. The artist’s personality is reflected, echoed in their album’s artwork. In the hip-hop and r&b world, some messages are more subtle than others, such as Lil Wayne’s newest album “Not a Human Being Part II” which is an all-black cover with a red butterfly in the center. What is the subliminal meaning behind it? I bet you’d have to Google that! Others, such as Drake’s newest album, “Nothing was the Same” have a direct link with the artist. In this case, it is a profile of his face which makes him the focal point of the album. Why are albums covers so important? We all neglect this fact, but let me try and give you some insight!
Nowadays, everyone is familiar with hip-hop artist, Drake. Even if you’re the rare exception that isn’t, you subconsciously know who he is. All radio stations can’t go a day without playing one of his songs, such as “Hold On, We’re Going Home”, from his new album “Nothing was the Same.” Released on the 24th of September of 2013, Drake’s album hit third on iTunes within the first week of its release. Even though his album is very popular, I wonder if any of you have stopped to capture the essence of its artwork? I bet you haven’t. NWTS has a regular edition and a deluxe edition and two different sets of paintings to show the differences between the two. Both backgrounds are of a cloud-filled sky, with the profile of Drake’s face. The only difference is that the deluxe edition has the profile of Drake’s face as a child. In both, he is looking straight ahead, into the distance as though to look into his future. The artist behind the piece is Kadir Nelson, who’s not-so-famous paintings inspired Drake to have him paint the cover work. “Kadirhas this piece called Cleaned Cotton, which is an image of a slave sitting in a field cleaning cotton. It's just so painful. It has a blue sky behind it, and I was like, I love this. I love this image so much,” says Drake. “When you go buy my album, that’s a real painting, you know? That painting will exist, and I hope that I’ll do enough in my career for the value of that original painting to be worth millions and billions, even if it’s not. It’s at my house.” The contrast between the portrait as his as a child and the one of him as an adult represent how he succeeded in his lifetime as an artist. One of his new songs “Started from the Bottom” shows how he literally started from the bottom and rose to the top. We can by the way he is not well groomed as a child and how his hair is intact as a man. I guess nothing really was the same…
"That's who's sitting on that album cover, that kid that's just somehow gone from his mom's basement in Toronto to becoming a king," he explained of the image. "That's what that album cover is about and there is a lot of deep thought involved in that 'cause you can go crazy doing this.” -Drake
Now if you don’t think so already, this rapper is legendary! Known for expressing his rage in his songs, Eminem’s last solo album was released in 2010. Now if you’re a die-hard fan, you would know that he has the tendency to release a powerful album and then disappear from the spotlight for a while. It’s almost as though he doesn’t want any recognition of his fame. He prefers to get his anger and frustration out there, rather than getting attention for being known as a lyrical genius. Even as one of the richest rappers, he isn’t materialistic. With all the money in the world, he still dresses in sweats and doesn’t want to forget where he came from, amongst the trailer park homes of Detroit. His last solo-album “Recovery”, has a cover that really represents Eminem’s personality. As he says in his songs, he’s had a drug problem, more specifically an addition to prescription pills. The title of the album says it all: recovery. It is made clear that he is referring to the recovery process of his previous drug abuse problem. He even refers to it in his song “Talkin’ 2 Myself” when he mentions: “Encore I was on drugs, Relapse I was flushing ‘em out.” What he means by this is that when he was making “Encore”, he was in fact on drugs and when he was putting together “Relapse”, he was fighting the temptation. With “Recovery”, he is trying to find his way without drugs. On the cover, his back is facing us and he is dressed in baggy sweats, walking on the side of a road. Now this road isn’t just any road, it is 8 Mile Road, situated in Detroit. His late 90’s movie entitled “8 Mile” also represented his geographical location of his childhood, since it played a significant role in his life. Eminem always makes reference to his past to contrast his life with and without riches. That is something to admire in him because he never let’s anyone forget where he came from and he is not ashamed of it. Walking into the distance, we see Eminem clearly yet everything surrounding him is blurred out, somewhat hazy. It is done so intentionally to give us the impression that his future is uncertain and that he is literally on the road to recovery.
“Magna Carta”, Jay-Z’s newest album released in July of 2013, has a creative and artsy meaning behind it. The words “Magna Carta” is also known as The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, originally issued in Latin in 1215. Magna Carta was the first document forced onto a King of England by a group of his subjects (the feud barons) in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. This is quite controversial seeing as though Jay-Z’s last name is Carter, which sounds a lot like “Carta”. It makes it seems as though he has so much power in the music industry that they have to create something as powerful as a treaty to limit his powers. Ari Marcopoulos chose a sculpture by Battista di Domenico Lorenzio entitled “Alpheus Arethusa”. It is quite interesting because one person is turning away, but he has his arm reaching aroundeven though they’re together, they’re also going away from each other. He says: “For me, the album is about this duality: being rich and figuring out how you can help others in a good way, and not just handing money out. Like: If you give a bum five dollars and he gets drugs or beer, did you actually do him right? Or do you find a more structural way of helping people with the money that you have? I had a hard time because I don’t really work with visual puns or metaphors in my work, but I tried to get at that with the cover. It's an ambiguous image.” There is a subtle image of power in this artwork that requires you to really look up what the artwork is all about. It isn’t just a picture of a sculpture with Jay-Z’s name on it: it’s much more than that.
“Watch the Throne” an album created of both Jay-Z and Kanye West, was released in 2011. Their album is a very powerful, full of messages to decode with lot of meaning behind them. There are also some songs that are quite upbeat and fun, unlike the majority of the album which is sang on a rough tone, illustrating the intensity of power in their voice. It was designed by designer Riccardo Tisci, lead creative mind at Givenchy. It is very rare for fashion designers to design album covers, I find that it gives it a unique vibe to it. He explains how the gold embroideries are supposed to embody power, which represent Jay-Z and Kanye West as two powerful artists in the music industry.
Do you consider yourself as a sinner or a saint? If it was up to J. Cole, we’d all be categorized as sinners. With his new album released in late June of this year, “Born Sinner” skyrocketed on iTunes with hits such as “Crooked Smile” and “Power Trip”. Those songs used to pass repeatedly on the radio, every day for four months straight. Let me tell you, those were in fact the theme songs of my summer. The artwork to his album is quite simple and straightforward. In the center, we find what seems to be a shinny, metallic representation of a human, with two horns sticking out of its forehead. The horns are a direct link to the devil which represents evil, the root of all sinners. Above this illustration is a gold crown, representing some sort of king, glorifying the devil. Unlike his deluxe edition, the regular cd’s artwork is black with seven vertical gold lines making their way down the middle of the album. This goes to show that J.Cole is trying to represent the gates of heaven, which is quite ironic since the title refers to sinning, which is not that angelic. The meaning behind it is quite mind-boggling,because society believes that children, up until a certain age, are born innocent. As children, we are helpless and don’t seek hatred in. It is only in the future that we mold ourselves and emotions such as jealousy and greed start to form. However, J.Cole is trying to say that at some point in time, we all sin in some way, therefore we are born that way, it isn’t developed. It is something that we possess from birth. So let me ask you, are you a born sinner?
Even though some album covers require a lot of interpretation, Frank Ocean’s “Channel Orange” does not. The album is completely orange, with its name branded in the top-center of the cover. The artwork is pretty self-explanatory; an orange background to represent the album’s title (Channel Orange). However, what do seem to be subtly integrated in the title are the two different fonts differencing the word “Channel” from the word “Orange”. If you look closely, you can see that the word “Channel” is of a darker font and seems to have certain haziness to it. This is significant to the album’s name, because the blurriness is meant to represent the salt and pepper grains of an old television. There is no deep meaning to it and that’s how Frank Ocean liked it: short sweet and to the point. Even though the artwork lacks depth, I assure you his songs do not!
Lil Wayne unveils the cover art for his new album I Am Not a Human Being II. A red insect resembling a butterfly appears against a black backdrop on the unconventional artwork, which was designed by DONDA, the creative content company founded by Kanye West. Previously due February 19, the follow-up to 2011’s I Am Not a Human Beingwas released on March 26th, 2013. He allowed Kanye West to do the artwork himself and once it was done, all he had to do was approve it. “He had an explanation behind it – he said, he chose the moth butterfly thing because it has so many different stages of life, and it goes through so many forms and changes, and no one can figure it out, and it’s always beautiful,” says Wayne. “At a time it’s ugly and at a time it’s beautiful too. And that’s me.”I find this is really beautiful because even though it just seems like a black background with a red butterfly on it, it has a deep meaning behind it that you wouldn’t know about right off the bat.
