Wonder''Stevland Hardaway Morris, better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalis, record producer and activist. He singed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of eleven, and continues to perform and record for Motortown to this day. Among Wonder's best known works are singles such as Superstition, Sir Duke, I Wish and I Just Called To Say I Love You'. His well known, albums also include Talking Book, Innervisions, and Songs in the Key of Life. He has recorded more that thirsty U.S. top ten hits and received twenty-two Grammy Awards. the most ever awarded to a male solo artist.''
Album cover analysis
This Steve Wonder cover album which called: 'Characters' is a very good an example of unconventional image of the R&B genre music style. When you first look at it, you get an idea of classy, opera type of style of the music, until you recognize the name of the singer, which could be the singer purpose of bringing something new. The only elements which suggest that it could be cover for R&B music, is the style of clothes and the black glasses which is a symbol of R&B and Hip-Hop music, as in every single video clip, images, the singers have to have the glasses on, even when they are going out, as it's their kind 'images' of how people who likes to listening this kind of clothes should way. As you can see, the clothes look way too un-formal, casually, however modern, by wearing a bright red color's top and blazer, with black trousers. I really like that the style of clothes, and the background pictures, match also the type of writing, which is white, and 'Italic' type. Mise-en-scene, gives me a wrong idea about the music genre the singer is representing.
Ashanti''Ashanti Shequoiya Douglas, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, dancer, actress and model. She rose to fame in the early 2000's. Ashanti is most famous for her eponymous debut album, which featured the hit song Foolish, and sold over 503,000 copies in it's first week of release throughout the U.S. She has won Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&B album. But also, she is currently working on her own publishing company entitled Written Entertainment. ''
Album cover analysis
This Ashanti cover album, which called: 'The Declaration' looks luxury, nice, and interesting because we are introduce into two faces of the singer. The first one, and the one which is easy to recognize is a close-up of her face, where we can see the singer's mirror reflection- by using special editing effect. The another face, is right in corner, where we can see only half of her face, where also have been used mirror effect. What I like about this cover page is the fact that it looks simple and original at the same time, there's one image of the singer, two title, and two props, and mirror effect. Mise-en-scene is just simply black background which makes the singer stand out, but also the color match with her expensive jewellery and black nails. There's are only two main color which stand out, the first one is turquoise of the props and the under title which says: 'The Way I Love You', and white which has been used as the main one for the title 'Ashanti' where we can see 'Italic' type of writing, to attract female audience.The reason why I picked those two very famous and popular R&B artists are that you can see the different of their album cover pages, and how male and female artists, are trying to point out on their genre music. The first album cover page, is completely different, unconvential and unusual for this music genre, as there's not a typical image, symbol/code, mise-en-scene presented to suggest this style of the music, expect the singer outfit. The second album cover, is more likely to represent this music genre, as there's a close-up of the singer face, with some expensive jewellery on. As you can see, there's nothing wrong by using different code/symbols, for the album cover page even thought, for the first five seconds you wouldn't guess the genre of the music style. The important is to use at least, one or two conventional style, doesn't matter if it will be clothes, make-up or mise-en-scene.
