Toyin Giwa Media Studies

CD Digipack ~Alicia Keys The Diary of Alicia Keys is the second album the American artist. Recording sessions for the album took place during 2002 to 2003 at various recording studios, along with Timbaland, Dwayne Wiggins and Kanye West. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 618,000 copies in its first week. It became Keys' second number-one debut in the United States and spawned three top-ten singles. Upon its release, The Diary of Alicia Keys received generally positive reviews from most music critics and earned Keys three Grammy Awards at the 47th Grammy Awards. On the front cover, there is an image of Alicia Keys being partly covered by a piano as she is a respected and well known pianist. Her stage name ‘Keys’, has been influenced by Alicia’s love for acoustics and raw attitude to music by having mostly instrumental backing tracks on all her songs. But also a sense of secrecy, as if she’s locking things away. Again the theme of secrets or at least something Alicia Keys doesn’t want others to know, again indicating she has something to tell or share with the audience. Her make-up is humid and desiring to both female and male audiences, however it’s quite minimal and natural which is similar to her music, as it is stripped back only using instruments rather than including the auto tuning her voice, Alicia Keys prefers the maximum affects on the audience as her lyrics have meaning and emotion behind them. Her make-up also corresponds with the golden glow of her skin, the piano keys and the background; this could indicate how she’s leaving her mark in music as well as her audience.

Toyin Giwa Media Studies

In Alicia Key’s front cover, the setting looks similar to the layout and construction of a piano with the curved edges behind Alicia Keys; this also creates a connotation that she could be hiding her feelings in her songs. The background colour looks similar to the piano keys in front of Alicia Keys’ face, which indicates a connection. And also, the colour fits perfectly with the simple text and her skin tone as it isn’t too harsh but allows the white text to stand out against the brown/golden colour and the black of her hair. The most iconic aspect of the front cover of the album would be the different elements dotted around within the mise en scene. For example, the piano keys that cover Alicia Keys’ face allow people to denote her stage name and her genre of music, which mostly uses a piano. In the background, the curved area behind Alicia’s head is almost identical to the curve of a piano which is a preferred instrument of Alicia’s. Therefore making all elements displayed in the image on the front cover, iconic to the genre and the artist herself. The text is clear and simple with nothing being emphasised, by not having capital letters which could suggest Alicia’s natural passion on music, as she doesn’t have to try hard to impress which could be the reason for the lower case letters used. The colour of the text stands out against both the background colours, brown of the piano and black of her hair. The contrast of the white against the black could suggest how innocent she portrays herself and her simple approach to music. High key lightning has been used to enhanced Alicia’s natural skin tone and glow that comes alongside having a bronzed skin tone complexion. The iconic element present on the CD to Alicia Key’s album is the different types of keys which match her stage name, the title of the album and how she feels about her music. Although her stage name generally represents the keys on a piano or keyboard, the keys displayed on the CD could suggest how she’s got the key to her music career and possibly in her personal life. The title of her album can be connected to her design of her CD as a diary would need a key to unlock it, again suggesting needing to unlock something.

Toyin Giwa Media Studies

The image of the piano is the albums back cover and takes up most of the frame. Instead of repeating the artist image which most back covers do, the image of the piano is repeated to show its major role in her music. The image of a piano shows the audience that Alicia’s talent of playing the piano is what is the most important instead of her looks which is a different message compared to other album covers. The colour code of the writing is white, yellow and blue which are bright and stand out against the background underneath it.