After looking at the front covers of the 8 Hip Hop albums, I decided to take a look inside and look at the booklets and the case to see if any more work is done on the presentation, as the cover image will still appear on Itunes/media player, it is the rest of the work that you would be unlikely to see.
Cypress Hill "Rise Up" has a continuation of the artwork throughout the booklet, it also has some cinematic style shots of the group and some of these images could easily have been the front cover for the album!
The back of the booklet, the CD and even behind the CD continue the artwork from the front cover.
The first two pages of the booklet look like they have been lifted from a movie poster, to give the CD a cinematic feel, and show the band want their music to be experienced, not just downloaded and shoved onto your Ipod. Rise Up is a great album and the album artwork helps to emphasise this and really makes it worth the £10 it cost. I don't think I have been disappointed with any of Cypress Hill's artwork, they really stand out in the Hip Hop world especially in 2010.
The artwork for Jay-Z "The Blueprint 3" is just various close up shots of the front image, but also has the song lyrics printed in a very nice layout. The booklet also feels nice, it is smooth and glossy which again you can't get with Itunes. I wasn't the albums biggest fan to be honest,I liked a couple of songs but I much prefer his earlier stuff, but as a graphic designer I love the front cover and the booklet and think that it is an example of music design in it's prime, even though the CD looks to be on it's way out.
Eminem "Relapse" has a full booklet and it is fairly decent, a standard album booklet really but it carries on the theme of drugs and rehab with a certificate (possibly real I'll have to look into it) next to an image of Eminem wielding a large Knife. The CD is also designed to look like the lid of a medicine bottle, and when taken out of the case you can see the pills, which I thought was quite clever and showed a lot of thought has gone into the presentation.
The cover on Mos Def "The Ecstatic" is quite an artistic photograph, and while the inside of the booklet is just some messy scribbly writing (done in the most artistic way possible) the back of the booklet is some nicely designed shapes, the CD is black with a multicoloured signature(?) on it, and behind the CD is a Warhol-esque set of four portraits of Mos Def, so you can tell he is into art, and it is again showing the album having more to it than the songs and the cover image.
"Carried Away" by People Under The Stairs actually has a lot of effort put into the artwork, considering they are an underground act and probably don't have a lot of room in their budget for album artwork. The Booklet cover (hidden by the box) has a picture of the two group members "Thes One" and "Double K" after a big party, laying asleep in the early hours surrounded by beer bottles, pizza boxes and albums, among other things. Despite the image being a jokey salute to immaturity, it is quite artistic and shows that behind the serious design of the box is still room for having fun and being artistic in a different way. The booklet then folds out into snapshots of the group meeting other rappers, preforming and messing around, then it flips round into a boardgame (it becomes about a3 size) which has typical party images but re-created with lego men and various other toys. It's an original idea and again you can't get that from Itunes! There is also a backstage pass style card which is a nice touch, showing these guys really care about their fans, and their support means a lot to them. This album has a personal feel to it and it is something your not going to get from an MP3 Download, even if you have paid
money for it.
The cover is in the bottom right corner, the "backstage pass" is next to the CD.
And here's the board game.
KRS One and Buckshot's album "Survival Skills" has several images in a similar style to the front cover, the two of them overcoming dangers of the wilderness, which is really cool and quite funny too, my favourite is of Buckshot catching a fish with a stick. The images look like a cross between photography and paintings so they have obviously been created on photoshop, very clever and brilliant none the less. The CD also has the front cover in silhouette form which I like.
Blakroc is in a cardboard fold out case, and the inside is black and white photos of the various people that put the album together, as well as the CD itself but there is no continuation of the artwork which is a shame but I guess helps give it that 70's feel.
And finally (from the Hip Hop section and for this post anyway) is P.O.S "Never Better"
like I explained in the previous post the album booklet folds out into 16 different pictures and then has 5 acetate images to fit over the top of some of the images to create new images which is really interesting and fun too. The case is really interesting too as it is made out of acetate and the back of it just uses the CMYK colours (which are also used in the fold out images too.)
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