Toys In The Attic Analysis

What does an album cover do? Music itself is not visual, only sound that often times is paired with visuals. This is because together, a visual and a sound, enhance the effectiveness of the piece as a whole. An example of this would be in a movie when a dramatic scene is shown, a dramatic song will be played with it to enhance the scenes effectiveness. Album covers utilize this unique fusion of mediums in a similar way to make the album more marketable, and to create a visual effect on the music making the content more enjoyable. If an album cover is effective than the consumer will know what the music is going to be like without having to listen to it. The artist attempts to do this through uses of genre conventions, rhetorical appeals and …show more content…
You can see this through the design choices that are made in the artwork and also by understanding the context of the piece. The album “Toys in The Attic” was released in 1975; this is a time when president Nixon was going through the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam war was coming to an end. These sort of things create feelings of mistrust with the government and lead to the rebellious nature mentioned before. The main focus of the album cover is a baby stepping into the picture while holding a pair of keys. This could represent the want to escape reality because of some of negative things that had been going on in the world. The title would also seems to support this, “Toys in The Attic” is an old saying for going crazy or losing hold of reality. To the contrary, “The White Album” seems to defy the logic of using images and color to form meanings. Here we see nothing but white and “The Beatles” embossed onto the cover (also white). It does not even have an actual title to speak of, instead the color white serves as the title. “The White Album” was released in 1968 which was around the peak of the The Beatles popularity and the civil rights movement. The decision to have only their name on the cover implies a certain arrogance saying that all they need on an album cover for it to sell is their band name. Also in a time when the liberties of …show more content…
The purpose of both of these albums is to sell and to tell the audience about album, but with two different examples taking very different approaches it's interesting how this is achieved. With “The White Album” simply being white it implies a certain arrogance and it leaves you confused. With “Toys in The Attic”, it takes a more classical approach with images that appeal to its target audience. Both albums were almost, or the best-selling album each band had, so they were both effective. “Toys in The Attic” is effective in that is very appealing to its target audience and sensitive to its genre. Not only will this allow for the band to attract new fans but bring in all the old fans. “The White Album” is effective in that the consumer is curious (with no images on it) and then sees “The Beatles” written on it. If it were not for the band's reputation effectiveness could not be achieved. However this does not allow for the band to bring in more fans. It assumes that they have, in some capacity, reached their ultimate fan