Analysing an Album cover



• The title of this album is presented in the form of a tattoo on Rihanna’s left forearm which reads “Talk that Talk”. On a denotative level this tattoo appears to be similar to the phrase “talk the talk” which means to say something which sounds boastful but is in fact accurate. On a conative level, it appears as though the lyrics that are featured in this album’s music will sound legitimate to her target audience as if Rihanna can sing or ‘talk’ in a way that her target audience can relate to.

• This CD cover presents Rihanna in a mid shot, which focuses on her face and clothing. She seems to be wearing a party a black and white blouse and three rings on her index, middle and ring fingers. One her face, she is wearing dark red lip stick and a lot of mascara around her eyes. In addition her hair is shown to be very unruly and she has her hand covering her head. On a connotative level it appears as though Rihanna has just spent a night out partying and is now in the aftermath of those events. This could be implied by Rihanna’s attire and the make up she is wearing. Additionally she is holding her head as if she is currently suffering from a headache or a hangover. This presents Rihanna as being rebellious and also implies that the music featured in this album will be very loud and similar to party music.

• Rihanna is wearing very thick red lip stick, along with her tongue sticking out of her mouth. The red colour of her lip stick symbolises love which could imply that this album’s music may contain themes of love. Additionally the fact that the red colour is shown through Rihanna’s lip stick is effective in terms of representation as the red also signifies passion as she looks very seductive as she is licking her lips.
• Furthermore this same signifier is used to reinforce the theme of rebellion that is being promoted through this album cover. This is evident as Rihanna is seen sticking out her tongue which is commonly seen as a sign of rudeness and immaturity.

• Rihanna’s eyes are covered in mascara which contrasts her fair skin. She has a large amount underneath her eyes. Her eyebrow is significantly narrowed as they are both vertically pointing downwards. One of her eyes is partially covered by her unkempt hair. From a conative point of view, these aspects of Rihanna’s facial features show Rihanna as being somewhat of a bad influence on her target audience. This is shown as she has blackened eyes along with pointed eyebrows which give her a dark and disturbing expression as she glares to the audience in the cover.

• Rihanna’s full name isn’t shown on the cover. This is because she is already very well known worldwide which would mean that Rihanna only needs to use her image in order to sell her music as her face would be instantly recognisable in many different countries due to her worldwide fame. Instead of her full name, the letter ‘R’ is seen on the left hand corner of the CD cover. This letter can be seen as being somewhat of a recurring motif for Rihanna, as this same letter/symbol was also featured on Rihanna’s previous album ‘Rated R’. In addition this consistency could also indicate this album may contain very similar elements to Rihanna’s previous album.

• The font of this motif is very large with jagged edges. The colour of its font appears to be white and grey along with many small overlapping words on its surface which gives this motif a newspaper like texture as if this letter was cut out of a newspaper article. On a conative level this shows that Rihanna is currently very famous, as her name has been associated with the current news. 

Ideas for my group’s Album cover (Beautiful by Eminem)

• We could have a shot of local area in London, such as an area in Tottenham or Enfield, a housing estate or the area of London where we will film our protagonist. This would be seen as us creating intertextuality of Eminem’s single cover for his song ‘Beautiful’ which features a shot of Detroit.
• We could have a shot of a cemetery which will be one of our main locations in our music video.
• We could include a shot of our music video’s protagonist standing on a roof. The protagonist will be in silhouette, but presented as looking down in order to express his depression. This can be another form of us creating intertextuality to Eminem since this would be similar to the first shot of his music video ‘Not Afraid’ which consists of Eminem standing on the edge of a building roof top.
• For the album cover of our music video, we could have an image of the music video’s protagonist sitting alone in pub/restaurant (or any place for socialising). The protagonist would be by himself while he is surrounded by a large group of people who are all talking to each other but are all ignoring the protagonist. In addition the protagonist is shown to be wearing bland and grey attire while everyone else is wearing colourful clothes.   This Mis-en-scene of clothing would be used to show how everyone apart from the protagonist is satisfied with their lives and are in good positions whereas the protagonist has an uninteresting life and is depressed. Additionally this poster would also act as intertextuality of the ‘The 40 year old Virgin’ film poster in which the protagonist is shown to be alone at a local place while everyone else is socialising and kissing.