CD cover analysis 1 and 2

The Kills: No Wow

The cover of the Kills’ 2005 album “No Wow” gives us a definite sense of the kind of music it represents. It features the band name emblazoned in very large capital letters above two photo booth or Polaroid images of both members of the band, one holding a piece of paper with the name of the album over their eyes, and the other holding what looks like money in front of his face.
The whole cover comes across as very homemade, the pictures being blurred in places and the band name in a font consisting of hard edges and few curves. The background is also black, telling us something about the image of the band, as the colour black has connotations with evil and superstition. We are given the sense that the cover could have been put together on a whim by cutting out images and letters and sticking them down.
The images used on the cover also tell us something about the image the band is trying to portray, with the exhibition of money having connotations with corruption and greed, and the obscuring of facial features reminds us of criminals trying to hide their identity, which leads us to the similarity of the two images’ composition with photographs the police take of criminals and passport photos. The photos are also black and white leaving the only colour in the band name at the top. That colour is brown, traditionally a murky, earthy, or dirty colour, and this further emphasises the down-to-earth, “lo-fi” image of the band.
The simplicity of the cover also echoes the simplicity of the music and the fact that there are only two people in the band.
Everything about the cover of “No wow” says something about both the image and music of the band, and thus it is very successful in giving people expectations of the band and music.



Siouxsie and the banshees: Juju

The cover of “Juju”, the 1981 album by Siouxsie and the banshees, is very representative of the dark tone of the music featured on it. It features a statue, which looks African, surrounded by torn pieces of paper with musical notes on them. The whole cover seems to have had its colours inverted. The name of the band and album are restricted to relatively small writing in the top right corner, encouraging us to look more at the image than the text.
The statue is a reference to the title of the album, “Juju”. In African culture, “Juju” is supernatural power connected to a physical object, and is often applied to statues and masks. It is a very dark aspect of African religion, and this ties in with the dark themes on the album.
The inverted colours on the album cover also emphasize this, with the musical notes almost appearing burnt, and everything coming out darker than it would have been in its original colours. The colours themselves are mostly black, white, and gold, all colours together suggesting a dark majestic element, gold being traditionally associated with wealth, majesty, and royalty.
The predominance of the musical notes on this cover make it look slightly apocalyptic, especially including the tribal statue, as they give the impression of destruction, being ripped, and given the effect of being burnt by the inverted colours. They may also represent the tearing up of a music rulebook, or it may simply represent a pure act of hate.
Whatever the torn up music shows, it is a very foreboding image, and one that gives us a good sense of the type of music that awaits the listener. It is a very successful album cover, capturing the atmosphere of the music and image of the band at the time.