NICKI MINAJ - PINK FRIDAY
This is the platinum selling debut studio album released by Young Money signed artist Nicki Minaj. This was released 19th November 2010.
The announcement in revealing that Nicki was working on an album was revealed through her Twitter page. She tweeted that if she was to reach 1 million followers she will Ustream (a live web stream) for her fans. On the 3rd of August, Nicki reached her target of 1 million followers and did as she stated and went on Ustream where she revealed that she is working on an album called Pink Friday.
Her tweet was “WOW #TeamMinaj we did it!!! We really did it?!?!?! *pops champagne* 1 MILLION followers!!! Thank u to every single million of u!” which was followed by a second tweet being “Ok u guyz. A promise is a promise. Ustream tomorrow. I’ll be announcing the name of the album and much more. Not sure of the time but it’ll be late in the day. I’ll keep u posted! I’m thinking maybe 8pm EST.”
Nicki Minaj calls herself a barbie. This is her star persona and influenced the album art work for 'Pink Friday'. She also calls her fan base "barbz" which is a shortened term for "barbies". She is also well known for her bright pink hair which is her signature trademark.
The album art work conventionally features the artist, Nicki Minaj. The audience can relate to the visual motifs in which conforms to the artist herself. These being the colour pink, pink hair and pink lipstick. In fact, pink is a common theme throughout the album ranging from the album name to the album typography colour. This colour is associated with Nicki Minaj. I think that the album powerfully portrays her star persona. In the album art work, she is portrayed as a barbie which is what she calls herself. Her legs have been extended to be extra long just like a barbie doll. She is also wearing a barbie doll outfit. This outfit is crazy and wild which connotes her persona. She raps in different crazy voices and wild accents which is a sound motif for her, and her crazy outfits are a visual motif. Editing has airbrushed her skin and made it look plastic like making her look like a real life barbie doll. Make-up has also been carefully thought about as her eyes look realistic like a barbie dolls eyes. Given this, she still has her trademark pink theme which reinforces her star persona. The barbie doll look makes her body and skin appear perfect and the pink theme makes her girly. This attracts the male gaze. Nicki Minaj's target audience are mainly young females ranging from 10-25 years old. Males are a secondary audience which have been promoted to by using Laura Mulvey's theory "the male gaze" through Nicki Minaj's body and looks which objectifies her. Reinforcing the idea of objectification is that she is a barbie doll which is a prop.
The front cover of this digipak for 'Pink Friday' is quite simple. The artist is framed in the rule of thirds signifying her importance and making her empowered. The wacky part of the dress is also framed in the rule of thirds. As her star persona is quite crazy and wacky, the dress being framed their reinforces her star persona being important. Mise en scene denotes a variety of different shades/tones of pink. Conventionally, matching her star persona, her pink hair is the brightest shade of pink and is very saturated compared to the rest of the pastel pinks being seen within the album cover.
The typography is also a visual motif. It is the same in everything. The font is the same and the colours are the same. Pink and grey are two colours that match well with one another and bring out the other colour more making it appear more brighter and eye catching. The typography is simple which juxtaposes her star persona as she is wild and crazy. This also goes back to the idea of the male gaze as the typography being simple draws more attention to the image.
This is the spine and back cover of the digipak. Conventionally, the back cover lists in chronological order all the songs on the album. Usually they are listed on the left or the right as psychologists propose that naturally a humans eye will automatically look to the left or the right of something rather than the center. Regardless of where the track list is, albums always have a second image on the back cover too. On 'Pink Friday' the audience can see Nicki still dressed in her barbie outfit sitting down. Her right leg acts as an arrow pointing towards the track list giving it more attention. This idea is objectifying her.
The back cover is split into thirds horizontally. The bottom third is white which has been faded into the pink above it. This highlights the importance of her costume (the heels). It also reinforces the importance of the logos at the bottom of the cover. These are the logos of Nicki's label, production company and distribution company. All albums include this on their back cover rather than anywhere else.
The spine of the digipak is being shown on both the left and the right of the back cover. It displays a darker shade of pink background which matches the colour of Nicki's extremely high heels. The typography matches the track list typography and the album front cover typography. There is no pink text this time as the white text stands out more over the pink background.
Here are some other examples of album back covers:
NICKI MINAJ - MOMENT FOR LIFE
This music video clearly displays Nicki's star persona of a barbie. The frequent costume changes of extravagant barbie dresses are displayed in this music video. Also, her pink hair is in the video too.
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