Tuesday, March 11, 2008

"Hey Mr. DJ! Spin That One Again!!"

Something wild about color is it's ability to represent almost anything, a thought, a moment, a person, an emotion, or an album cover? It is interesting to look back and see how different recording artists choose album covers based on different varibles of color. One cannot say for sure that the color reflects the music one hundred percent, but it does have to do with it just a bit.
Take for example Iron Maiden's Fear of The Dark album cover; the gouls, and monsters are their trademark characters for albums and the colors work exceptionally well. In history Iron Maiden album covers were some sort of crazy scene being depicted, it was very bloody, and very graphic, and had some semblance of red hues in it. Fear of The Dark has nothing of that, sure the creature is scary but its not brutalizing the innocent or death and decay. The creature is lit by an eerie blue aurora of the night sky, and jagged scary trees all abound. The tracklist featured alot of experimentation from the band as well as an album cover designed by Melvyn Gran, all this can be traced back to the unorthodox album cover and color scheme used for it.
Oppositely, another famous album cover that gave a sense of the music would be Prince's Purple Rain. The mood of the whole album can be felt from just the album cover, or just Prince on a purple motorcycle, but more so the color scheme from the album. The cover is a photograph of Prince sitting on the aforementioned motorcycle, looking pretty badass, there is a woman off in a doorway, and there is an ominous blue light behind the back tire each suggesting more. The cover goes right along with the subject matter, about love, lust, and that very special lady.
In essence the colors used on alot of albums for musicians translates to how the music might sound.

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