Album Cover Research

The Fray has had a big impact on us with their music and their album covers. This is because they do simple things that send a big message to their audience. This was their first album cover; a light bulb that has been shattered but still has light reflecting off it. I think it gives a warm feeling but also give the audience that things are easily broken but can be fixed. We think this is because the light is reflecting from the roof, so the bulb shattered and was replaced. It may also represent the fragmentation of society emulating the title ‘How To Save A Life’

In these two covers they have used light beams continuing with the light theme, because this is a common theme through several covers it would be fitting for us to copy this idea and incorporate it into our album cover.

The cover to the right has been taken on a slow shutter speed as people walk past which gives the effect of ghosting and that time feels as though it is assign slowly. This may be representative of how much people walk around with their eyes closed, and that maybe we should take time to notice the smaller things.

The cover to the left is on sand and again uses light beams. It looks a slightly sinister with the dark sky and thick cloud coming over to the light area. This is furthered by the desolate environment, but undermined by the power cables, they must lead to some sort of civilisation. This could emulate the title ‘You Found Me’, and how difficult this task may have been. They also took The Fray’s logo from the album and put it on their singles covers, starting off their own house style. This would also be good to use in our cover.

This is the song cover for “The Fray – Heartless” and as u can see they have continued with the shattered light bulb theme. This is similar to their first album cover with but with this one it has a different meaning behind it; that people can be heartless and also the feeling of being heart broken. So the shattered red bulb in the shape of a heart is very symbolic, it has a lot of meaning behind it so we should look to find an image which has a lot significance to the lyrics. It is a sad song but it gives meaning and values to life; it is said that your first love always hurts the longest but after time you begin to deal with it, this is one of the meaning behind the song.