The genre is Hip Hop, and the artist is Public Enemy. We can see that it is a hip hop album from the clothes that the two band memebers (Chuck D and Flava Flav) are wearing. They are wearing street clothes that are typical of African Americans from inner city areas, such as Public Enemy's home town Long Island, New York. The bands logo, of the figure of the cop been viewed through a gun, coupled with the setting album cover, with the band members behind bars, has been created to voice the bands anti-police image, which is part of the music that features on the album. By making the genre and the albums strong stance on the police abvious on the cover, it is easy for the album to be noticed by its target audience (hip hop fans and people of a like mind).
'The Number of the Beast' by Iron Maiden
The genre is Heavy Metal and the artist is Iron Maiden. The album follows the conventions of Classic Heavy Metal as it depicts scenes of fantasy. On the cover none of the members of the band are present but the band's mascot 'Eddie the Head' is, a convention which would follow for all of Iron Maiden’s album and single covers. The character Eddie is a zombie and largely associated with the band as he is used for all their merchandise and appears in their videos. By using him on the cover of this album, it would instantly recognised as an Iron Maiden album, even without the bands logo. On the cover Eddie is standing over The Devil. It appears that Eddie is controlling The Devil through strings on his finger (like a puppet) but we see that The Devil is controlling a smaller version of Eddie, this raises the question: who is in control? With the use of complex satanic imageery, the album is immediatly attractive to a fan of the genre and it suits the music featured on the album itself, with many of the songs touching on dark themes and mythology.
'Rated R' by Queens of the Stone Age
The genre is Rock and the artist is Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA). The album genre is not clear by the cover as it is largely plain and none of the band members are visible. As Queens of the Stone Gae do not have a permenant logo or image, it is not immediatly clear that it their album, as the bands name is written in a small plain font near the bottom right corner.
The album cover is largely plain but the presentation of the album title (and the title itself) is a reference to MPAA R Rating. An R may be assigned due to, among other things, a film's use of language, theme, violence, sex or its portrayal of drug use. By making reference to these themes, and basing an album look on something that is aimed at older audiences, they are already attracting their target audience of young adults and stoners. It also makes the album's lyrical themes (hard use of drugs and alcohol) more obvious.
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