Textual Analysis CD cover 2

Here we see the artist Rihanna been represented on her new album 'Talk That Talk'. She is represented in a way that makes her look fierce and sexy. She is represented as sexy because of her lack of clothing and the way she is looking quite seductively at the camera however she also looks fierce with the eye contact she is using and the smoke coming from her mouth which would mean she is smoking and innocent girls don't smoke. Rihanna is also represented as part of the R&B genre as it is a typical convention to have a face close up of an R&B artist on their album cover and Rihannas label Def Jam would not want to break this convention. It  would be odd for Rihanna as an R&B artist to have an abstract album cover that wasn't an image of her as this would be going against the genre conventions.

  

(examples of R&B artists album covers)

The connotations of the image on this album are that Rihanna looks sexy and fierce and because of this it gives you a feel on what her music is going to be like. With the connotation of sexiness, Rihanna is automatically put into the male public eye with her seductive look and looking straight into the camera, it's as if is she is pulling you in to buy it. However with her fierce look she is representing other women, and it gives off the impression what Rihanna is all about which will draw the audience in cause they will be able to relate to her.

This album belongs to the R&B genre. The conventions the album follows makes it this genre, for example how the artist Rihanna is represented on the front cover of the album, more so because the image is a close up of Rihanna. Another convention for the genre would be the lack of Rihanna's clothing. The lack of colour also represents the genre well as many R&B albums tend to be quite dull.

This album would definitely be targeted at an audience 16 and above. I know this because of the 'Parental Advisory' logo in the top corner meaning there is unsuitable explicit lyrics on the album which audiences of a certain age should not listen to.

Rihanna belongs to an institution called Def Jam.They are an American label owned by one of the big 4, Universal Records. Def Jam specifically deal with promoting R&B, Hip Hop and Urban music which is why Rihanna is represented in the way she is so the conventions of R&B are not broken.

Because Rihanna is shown in this was it gives us a feeling of knowing what to expect on the album due to the following of typical conventions to sell the artist.