How do these album/single covers represent the acoustic genre?

What conventions are used?

Represents acoustic genre through the extremely natural location, connoting the organic style of acoustic music. The natural lighting through the trees also supports this.

Gabrielle Aplin: Panic Cord

The bright colours represent the genre to be creative and upbeat. The balloon signifies nostalgia and youth, relating to the convention that acoustic music often evokes memories and emotion.

Overall, the cover is aesthetically beautiful, representing the soft, delicate instruments and vocals Central camera positioning possibly represents the genre as very grounded and established within the music industry.

Artist is represented as conventionally, very pretty, but also casual and grounded due to her bear feet. However also ambitious and youthful due to the floating balloon.

Panic Cord Continued

Focusing upon the font, Gabrielle Aplin is in Gabrielle- name is in capitals and single is in capitals, whilst the song name is in lower capitals. The artists name in capitals could possibly exaggerate and establish artist credibility within the industry. The central positioning of the font also possibly has the same meaning as the camera composition; very grounded artist . The choice of white font connotes the artists purity and innocence. When considering Gabrielle, her gaze is directly is upon the audience; representing the artist and the acoustic genre as emotionally connecting and personal. The artists positioning could be argued to be quite child-like. Strengthened by the large, yellow balloon, this positioning potentially evoking nostalgia and youth from the audience, as well as representing the artist as youthful (mentioned on the previous slide). There is somewhat an intertextaul reference to story books within the cover; the bright bold colours of the balloon and the artists choice in clothing is similar to that of the primary colours in picture books, as well as the oversized balloon implying a sense of adventure and imagination that is found in story

books.

Ben Howard:Old Pine

Picture relates to single title; a convention is the sense of a relationship between lyrics and visuals (often portrayed within the music videos). With the artists name in the top left hand corner, in a very subtle font, and the artist himself hardly in focus, represents the acoustic genre to be very casual and humble; musically driven, they are selling the music, and the emotion behind it, instead of the artists face appeal. The colour scheme is particularly artistic, and conventionally, visually appealing. This therefore represents the genre as creative, as well as nostalgic as the exposer and greyscale looks like a polaroid photo/ real film etc. The conventional, natural setting and bright, natural light has the same effect as in Panic Cord.

This particular cover represents the genre as particularly emotional and heartfelt due to the high exposure. Combined with the vast expanse of space, the photographic exposure suggests a sense of vulnerability that could be associated with the lyrics within the song, for example.

Old Pine Continued

Also, when considering the image of place, you could argue that it is quite a romantic portrayal of nature and open space. This is because in terms of composition and the rule of thirds, our eye is instantly drawn to the long, dark trees, which are stretching of the cover. This therefore connotes the powerful and heavenly extent of natures beauty; supported by the positioning of the artist himself, being smaller than the horizon and consequently engulfed by the nature.

Kodaline: In A Perfect World

The soft colours represent the genre as very delicate, soft and natural; a conventional representation. This cover exhibits the conventional natural location and lighting, reflecting the musical style. Again, like Old Pine, the people are not the focus of the cover; emphasis is on the perfect world they are in, again, strengthening the conventional relationship between visuals and lyrics within the acoustic genre.

The people within the shot are not the band. Therefore it could be argued that these people are in fact representing the (acoustic) audience; carefree, youthful and casual.

The extreme long shot confidently establishes location; potentially representing acoustic music as universal, implying that the music itself can transport you anywhere (like from the woods in Gabrielle Aplins cover, to the lake within Kodalines).

In A Perfect World Continued

The font construction of this cover is similar to that of Panic Cord; the artists name is larger and in capitals, whilst also being central. Therefore, it could have the same connotations as the positioning of Panic Cord. Whilst being central, the font is also positioned relatively high up, not to obstruct the image below. However, the high positioning could also represent the band as having musical status and importance, as well as almost heavenly and angelic connotations; acoustic music, especially theirs, is pure and emotionally connecting. The use of white could be argued as slightly more subtle than in Panic Cord, suiting the soft colour scheme of pinks and blues. Therefore, the choice in colour may be more for aesthetic appeal, linking the font colour to the positioning; amongst the clouds.