which cover is the best?
Hi all,
After browsed though all the readings, I picked “Rock List: Twenty-Five Favorite Album Covers”.
This websites contains a collection of album covers or pictures that they selected. I like the website because instead of saying those are best album covers, they claim that those are just favorite album covers that its fans selected.
I think it does make sense to tell that there is no album cover that is better or worse compared with other. So it does not make sense for me to say which the best album cover is. I think it might make more sense to say that the particular album cover is better at certain aspects compared with other covers. The aspects that we have learned in project one (i.e. sense of purpose, audience, etc.)
Annoying album cover can mean an annoying songs insides. So we might not want to choose cover that is disturbing or that might offend some one. Well, of course, what is considered annoying or disturbing is quite subjective. What is considered as annoying to someone might not be annoying for the other. So it depends on what the targeted audience is.
Just like any type of cover, magazine cover, book cover or any sort of the cover, it doesn’t tell what is inside. The cover can be ambiguous enough that it can portray the type of music that does not related to the cover at all. Thus I think we cannot judge what the best is by just looking at the cover itself.
I completely agree with you that there isn’t one “best” album cover. One person’s favorite will be different from the next person. It all has to do with the individuals taste. And as you said the tastes of the consumer will hopefully be similar to others who enjoy the same type of music.
Submitted by aculp on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 21:13."Don't judge a book by its cover" is sound advice in regards to being able to see just about anything objective. I also agree that social perspectives and how they relate to targeting audiences plays a big part of the album cover.
There really can't be such a thing as "best" or "worst" as anyone who pays attention in class/does the readings already knows. Even measures of innovations are disputable, like in the case of Pink Floyd's light prism, which was nothing new but successful because of what it was perceived as.
Perception isn't really anything you can quantify on a list, but it raises questions of how ranges of perception effect popularity and so forth. Is the album cover perceived as great by the most people the best simply because of degree of appeal? Most people would say no, but if perception is everything, the one with the most backing definitely has certain degrees of advantage.
Submitted by bfawaz on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 22:49.It's true that it is impossible to objectively come up with a best album cover, but there are certainly some that target an audience better than others. I value an interesting cover more than one that someone remembers, and think that the Beatles' White Album is excessively boring. Yet, it is well remembered and has sold a ton of copies, but it's so boring!
Submitted by twykoff on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 23:16.I disagree that the album cover doesn't tell what's inside. If the cover is not thought provoking, then the music is probably not the most inspired either. This is not always true, though.
It's hard to make exact rules about album covers, but the way the user perceives the cover is important. It is entirely possible for an individual to have a favorite album cover, but to say that it is objectively the best cover ever is ludicrous.