Textual Analysis 2 (Robyn-Body Talk)

For my final textual analysis I will look at the album of Swedish artist Robyn’s seventh studio album Body Talk (2010) in. The main theme of the album is electro/dance based music. The album came in three parts with Body Talk being the collective instalment of the mini album collection, meaning it featured the best singles from the three chapters of the Body Talk collection. The main core of the album comes from the use of synthesizers and the use of electronic instrumentals. I will look at how the album case is mad conventionally to create the over all artist recognition and look is translated through the use of the stylistics for example; how the use of mise-en-scene can create a hard persona for a heavy metal artist in contrast to creating a subdued image for a classical artist. I will also look at the conventional elements of album case such as; the use of the album name and artist name on the album case. Like the other albums analysed the predominate image of the album is the artist, taking up most of the room on the cover. This allows use (the audience) to identify who the main artist is instantly, however the image is disorientated to match the theme of the album giving it a surreal image. This in turn acts like a concept image for the album itself, due to the nature of the songs on the albums are mainly made up of personal notes from the artists life. If we look at this compared to the album cover we can see that is depicted with the use of the main image of the artist. Within the image we can see her surrounded with various small coloured panels some of the panels that are surrounding her face had the image of facial features on them, for example; mouths, eyes and areas of hair. Again we can depict the meaning of the image however it becomes a more literal image of the albums name; ‘Body Talk’ the image of the body talking comes from the panel of bright colours around the artist body and the presence of the mouth gives a even better sense of imagery to the artists image. Another point of which we could focus within the mise-en-scene is the use of the colouring within the digesis the wide use of bright colours suggests a subtle sense of positivity within the album a happy sense of feeling due to the nature of its contents. Its almost like the colours and the nature of the panels act like stain glass giving a colourful yet transparent effect to the character of the artist. The style of the font also has a sense of overlaid sections of lettering creating a sense of different colours over the top of each letter giving a coloured out line, this acts much like a kaleidoscope with the use of the overlaid colours giving a new sense of colour. This could also emphasis the sense of a happy connotation within the album due to the nature of the tracks all been based around the sense of happiness and cheerful dance music. This style is continued over to the spine of the album, the use of the blue back ground with the sense of bright overlaid colours. However when we look at the back of the album the theme has changed and become more like lined paper. However the image on the back of the album can be depicted and co-notated as the style in which cassette track list’s where set put in the mid-seventies much like lined paper they were laid out in a list, making it obvious of the sense she is trying to create with the album. A sense of simplicity with the colouring and image of the front cover and a the sue of the basic track listing on the back crates a all around image of simple, yet powerful imagery.