Anthrax-Live Album How Metal Does the Band Cover Art
http://cgi.ebay.com/ANTHRAX-Live-The-Island-Years-CD-1994-Public-Enemy_W...
I was looking through the cover arts for various bands, and I started noticing something which is summed up perfectly in Anthrax's cover. When bands simply put an image of their band on the cover, it tells little of what kind of music they play, or how they act. Except for certain genres like country and rap, it is difficult to even know what instruments the musicians use unless they are pictured along with the musicians. Also, if you are unaware of the band, it would be difficult to ascertain how "good" their music is, as a band picture cover usually implies a lower grade band. So, how does a metal band show it's metal, and a popular metal band?
Take a picture of the band while they're playing in a packed concert. It immediately tells the buyer what genre of music it is, who all members look like, what instruments you'll hear, and probably more importantly, from the picture it looks like a substantial amount of people listen to the band. The smoky covering of the album gives it credibility as a rock concert picture, with all the smoke fog machines belch out, as well as the font given to the name, with its block lettering with sharp ends, similar to many metal/rock bands like Metallica. It would entice metal fans greatly as such concerts are usually an amazing spectacle, and though you might not have attended, one could feel like a part of the crowd listening to the CD. On the negative side, if you don't like metal, you are not going to buy this CD, due to the image clearly screaming a metal/rock band.
One added comment on this cover art, I think it would be interesting if a relatively new band experimented with photo-shopping their band picture on a huge concert stage in front of a crowd of people. Especially if it was clear that the band and the crowd were of clearly different genres. The humor would be a plausible selling point, in my opinion, similar to the Weezer music video of them playing "Buddy Holly" during a "Happy Days" show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYrJ92b2_O0
It makes sense to show an image of the band playing live for an album with recording of the band playing live as opposed to having a graphic or something else. The image as you mentioned does show the viewer what type of music is on the album, in this instance metal.
Submitted by XxscxX on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 13:23.I would say that to a point this dose make sense but on the other hand just putting a concert picture on the front is not going to tell the buyer 100% that this is this and that is that. Putting your concert pictuer on the front is just saying hey we had a lot of fun. if you went to this concert or one simular but this album.
Submitted by cloud586 on Sun, 02/24/2008 - 17:35.