MUSE are very well known for their extremely artistic and abstract album artwork. The typically intergalactic image shows a solitary figure staring at planet Earth from space surrounded by a kalaeidoscopic mosaic.
The back cover serves the main functions you'd expect of an album. It displays the track titles and numbers and contains copyright information.
The text on the back cover uses many different colours seen on the front of the album which creates a colour scheme for the album as a whole. You also see the colourful writing on the edges and all the writing is made to stand out through the use of a lightly coloured background.
On the back there is an image of the band walking down a street looking very casual but smart. The back and white image and casual nature of it show a maturity to this, thier 5th studio album.
Conventions of Albums - Back Cover:
Conventions of Albums - Inside Covers/Spines/Booklet:
Conventions of Albums - CD Artwork:
From looking at the album covers you can also tell genres apart very well, as individual artists will tend to be dressed very significantly and the colour scheme with be such that it depicts the nature of the music. However with bands, it is harder to instantly recognise the genre as their album artwork tends to be more abstract, unique and orginal although still giving a sense of the sound you might hear.
Album Covers serve many different purposes. They sell the album, the band/artist as an image, and the work of the record label. People will enjoy looking at the artwork and/or images provided by the purchase of the album and it give the audience a deeper insight into the theme and meaning behind the music.
