Album cover analysis #2

This album cover is taken from Lady Gaga's second studio album 'Born This Way', released on May 23rd, 2011. The album was released by Gaga's record label 'Interscope Records', and is largely under the dance-pop genre. However, the album also contains aspects of other genres within each of the songs, including heavy metal and rock and roll, and it is from this combination of genres that the album cover arises.
The main image of the front cover is a close-up shot of the artist, taken in black and white. The only item of colour within the picture is evidently Gaga's lips, which are a rich red colour. Her hair has been volumized in order for it to fill a large majority of the album cover. Her black eye make-up and her overall expression portray a fierce attitude. Her lips are parted her teeth portrayed in order to reflect aggression. The red of her lips represents passion or perhaps danger. Within the image, Gaga's hair reflects the lighting and has a silvery tint to it. This links to the rock image she is portraying, in that rock is often associated with bikers, metal and black. This also links with the back of the album, where a smaller image of Gaga is shown, this time a long shot. The image is that of a motorbike posing as Gaga's body, with the same image of her head used on the cover of the album, being placed on the end of the motorbike. This image is very abstract and somewhat strange, however is expected from Lady Gaga, due to her creative nature usually expressed within her styling and fashion choices.

The audience for this particular album will range from the age groups 14 -25, which is quite a wide range. I think this is due to Lady Gaga being quite a versatile singer in both her songs and her overall image and attitude, as she is quite a fun and different artist. Also Gaga's main genre influence is pop music, and this often has a wide range of audiences in that many people find pop music to be one of their guilty pleasures.

The title of the album 'Born This Way' also links with the images found of the cover of the album. Gaga is representing herself to be different and odd, yet her album title is suggesting to the audience that she was born this way, and she is proud. This is also the name of one of her songs upon this album. Both the title and the name of the artist are displayed in the top left-hand corner, in small font. This allows the image to stand out the most upon the cover. This also suggests that potential buyers can recognise her as an artist without her name being enboldened and displayed in large text.