We thought we'd try a new thing where we look at artists' careers through their album artwork. That's about it. It's a simple concept and we're going to dive right in. First we're going to look at Female Pop Divas (male ones are a whole different story) and we've chosen 5 of the biggest in terms of worldwide success and/or Icon Factor (a made-up factor that we made up).
To start with we're going to look at Mariah. Notice the muted pallet, the abundance of sepia and noire. The close ups. The soft focus. The pink. The sparkles. THE HAIR. Mariah has never been our cup of tea, and none of the writers for Shiny & New particularly like her, despite soft spots for certain songs of hers. We havent got much more to say about this other than that it reflects her melodramatic, yet essentially boring music. None of these album covers are particulary iconic... I mean, they're memorable or recognisable but not ICONIC. On top of that, most of them aren't actually that aesthetically pleasing, either.
Next we move on to the underdog of global female pop icons. Despite having had briefly HUGE success in the 80s, her continued success has been sputtering and sporadic. In terms of how iconic these covers are, well... they're NOT that iconic. If you asked most people of the street, or even most music fans, they'd struggle to remember what Cyndi's album covers look like. Nevertheless there's some beautiful photography, and the offbeat, colourful designs reflect her music and style as Madonna's twisted little sister brilliantly.
Which brings us to Koylie Minoigue (the Austroilian pronunciation). Kylie is the poor man's Madonna, and despite being massively famous worldwide, still isn't all that big in America. Despite finding Kylie weak, boring, emotionless, flaccid and puppet-like we have a MASSIVE penchant for her music, much of which is really brillo pads pop and electro. The typography on the album covers is ANYTHING but unique (has she ever stuck to ONE logo?) and some of the earlier coverart is EXECRABLE at best, but the bland but stylish images sort of capture the essence of Kylie, don't they?
Our next study is Janet Jackson, a deeply mysterious woman, who throughout her career has managed to flit her way between deeply brilliant and meaningful pop and soul, and completely forgettable tripe. Her album artwork sort of reflects this. There's not much consistency, but strangely they sit quite nicely next to eachother. It's quite odd to connect the artist who is sexily and broadly smiling like a catalogue model in some shots, with the more troubled looking lady inhabiting the more iconic shots (from Rhythm Nation, Control and The Velvet Rope). In terms of how Iconic these cover squares are... these are probably the most iconic yet. But that's because we haven't covered....
Madonna. The Queen of Queens. She needs no introduction. Her album artwork speaks for itself. Every single one of these album covers is Iconic, and not just because she's the most famous person on the planet. They are all brilliant album covers. The only consistency is that they're consistently brilliant and each one perfectly represents what the music on the album sounds like. One of our writers might complain that she doesn't stick with one logo, but when the rest of the design is this good, you really CANNOT complain.
Long Live The Queen!!!
To start with we're going to look at Mariah. Notice the muted pallet, the abundance of sepia and noire. The close ups. The soft focus. The pink. The sparkles. THE HAIR. Mariah has never been our cup of tea, and none of the writers for Shiny & New particularly like her, despite soft spots for certain songs of hers. We havent got much more to say about this other than that it reflects her melodramatic, yet essentially boring music. None of these album covers are particulary iconic... I mean, they're memorable or recognisable but not ICONIC. On top of that, most of them aren't actually that aesthetically pleasing, either.
Next we move on to the underdog of global female pop icons. Despite having had briefly HUGE success in the 80s, her continued success has been sputtering and sporadic. In terms of how iconic these covers are, well... they're NOT that iconic. If you asked most people of the street, or even most music fans, they'd struggle to remember what Cyndi's album covers look like. Nevertheless there's some beautiful photography, and the offbeat, colourful designs reflect her music and style as Madonna's twisted little sister brilliantly.
Which brings us to Koylie Minoigue (the Austroilian pronunciation). Kylie is the poor man's Madonna, and despite being massively famous worldwide, still isn't all that big in America. Despite finding Kylie weak, boring, emotionless, flaccid and puppet-like we have a MASSIVE penchant for her music, much of which is really brillo pads pop and electro. The typography on the album covers is ANYTHING but unique (has she ever stuck to ONE logo?) and some of the earlier coverart is EXECRABLE at best, but the bland but stylish images sort of capture the essence of Kylie, don't they?
Our next study is Janet Jackson, a deeply mysterious woman, who throughout her career has managed to flit her way between deeply brilliant and meaningful pop and soul, and completely forgettable tripe. Her album artwork sort of reflects this. There's not much consistency, but strangely they sit quite nicely next to eachother. It's quite odd to connect the artist who is sexily and broadly smiling like a catalogue model in some shots, with the more troubled looking lady inhabiting the more iconic shots (from Rhythm Nation, Control and The Velvet Rope). In terms of how Iconic these cover squares are... these are probably the most iconic yet. But that's because we haven't covered....
Madonna. The Queen of Queens. She needs no introduction. Her album artwork speaks for itself. Every single one of these album covers is Iconic, and not just because she's the most famous person on the planet. They are all brilliant album covers. The only consistency is that they're consistently brilliant and each one perfectly represents what the music on the album sounds like. One of our writers might complain that she doesn't stick with one logo, but when the rest of the design is this good, you really CANNOT complain.
Long Live The Queen!!!
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