In the early days of Vinyl, the main purpose of a cover or sleeve was to simply inform the consumer what the record consists of, this may typically include a picture of the artist followed by the artist's stage name and the name of the song provided on the record. The CD cover is nowadays a representative of who the artist is and their style. In modern times anyone can judge an artist based on the CD cover, for instance if a cover shows a close up of an artist's face then it demonstrates that their music is more about promoting themselves as a performer because they want people to recognise them with their face. it would be most unusual if a recording artist had a picture of their face on the cover but their music was all instrumental. If on the other hand a CD cover has no picture of the artist atall then it demonstrates that the artist is more into promoting their music as opposed to their image.
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A typical Vinyl sleeve from 1967, judging from the sleeve alone the artist depicted is most likely to be a pop singer because the most dominating feature in the image is her face, she is also smiling which may go to show that her music has the 'feel good' factor. |
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| A more modern cover to a pop album, albeit somewhat more raunchy and flamboyant than the vinyl sleeve above, this is to reinforce the artist's position into contemporary pop music because modern pop in this decade is more about love and sex as opposed to the happy fun jingles that pop music had in it's early days. |
Contemporary pop music has began to demonstate a more surrealist nature as demonstrated here on Lady Gaga's album 'The Fame Monster' the purpose of this cover is to promote the style of the artist rather than the artist themselves.
