Magazine album advert

I have chosen to discuss the promotional magazine advert of Plan B's album 'The Defamation of Strickland Banks'. This is because I feel it is a very effective advert due to the image of the artist himself holding an old-fashioned microphone, the colour matching the dull greyish shade he is coloured with. This draws our attention to the focal point of the image - the typography. The words 'Plan B' are capitalised and coloured in a bold red, followed by 'The multi-platinum album of the year'. The fact that we are so drawn to the text helps us to initiate the success of the album, enticing us to want to purchase said product ourselves. The smaller image on the bottom of the advert shows us what the album looks like which further helps promote it as we can recognise it for potential purchase. The initial mood and genre of the album is portrayed through the artist's facial expression on the cover of the album. Plan B is recognised for telling his life through his lyrics, and the visual interpretation of his face matches this and hints at the music offered to the buyer. 

Magazine Advert Analysis

     This magazine advert is promoting Rihanna's 2009 album 'Rated R'. The overall image clearly presents her change in image as an artist and her music's change in style. In contrast to her previous album advertisements, this image creates a dark, angry and sinister tone. The advert gives an implication of the genre of music on the 'Rated R' album. Through the use of predominant black and white colouring and the gothic image of the artist, the audience can assume that hip hop, rock or dubstep may be key music genres on the album.

     The close up image of Rihanna dominates the advert, suggesting promotion of her image is just as, if not more important than the promotion of the music. As she is staring directly at the camera (and therefore the audience) a degree of relatibility is created. However, at the same time she is depicted with her hand covering half of her face, which creates a sense of mystery and suspiscious nature to the artist (reflective of the music). Rihanna's style comes across as quite gothic and rocky in the image, as she has dark and heavy make up and extensive jewellery. This reflects the dark tone of the whole album, which is important for a magazine advert to do. As well as this, people already fans of Rihanna can relate to the signature 'R' in the background of the image, which shows whilst her style has changed, her identity as an artist remains.

     The song titles 'Russian Roulette' and 'Hard' in bold red font captures the audience's attention as the colour contrasts to the black and white. This influences the audience to go and download or listen to these singles in particular, as they effectively represent the album.

     Overall, this magazine album advert directly targets its audience, by being extremely representational of the music, something I want to emulate in my own advert.