Visualizing Musical Style: Colors

Last week we talked about some ways of thinking about the use of human figures, in particular faces, on album covers. A face can provide a sense of human connection, but as we saw last week, some of the more fascinating use of faces are when the they are obscured. 

Other album covers forgo the popular choice of featuring a face. How might we think about these album covers?

One way of interpreting these covers would be to focus on color. There is a lot of fascinating discourse about the meaning of color in the world of graphic design.

There are at least two primary ways of thinking about the meaning of color. One is a psychological perspective, which attempts to understand color meanings and effects of color for our psyche. It seems reasonable that universal parts of human experience like night (black/absence of light), day (white/light), blood (red) could have some deeply embedded meanings. But attempting to determine universal one-to-one relationships between colors and meanings only stretches so far. 

The second way of thinking about meaning and color is more flexible. This is the idea that color works as a kind of language. We have associations with certain colors, which, like words in a language, may shift and change over time or across cultures. Nevertheless, to the extent that we share the same “color-language” there is meaning that color communicates. 

Of course color is not really a language, and any one color could have thousands of different meanings. But it is interesting to see what some of the associations that designers think of when using color.

Again this week I am looking at Spotify’s recent releases as a sample, but in order to focus more closely on color, I am looking specifically at covers without faces. (Of course color and the human face can be used together in interesting ways too, like in Joji’s recent release Nectar or many of the classic Blue Note jazz records.) 

Listen to Blue Train - Remastered on Spotify. John Coltrane · Song · 1958.

Listen to Ew on Spotify. Joji · Song · 2020.

I’ll be borrowing from the Color Design Workbook’s guide to color associations. I don’t think we should take these as the definitive list of color meanings, but it provides an interesting starting point for thinking about the color in these examples.

The table below is adapted from the book. Do these color associations ring true to you?

Color	Associated with	Positive	Negative
Black	Night Death	Power Authority Weight Sophistication Elegance Formality Seriousness Dignity Solitude Mystery Stylishness	Fear Negativity Evil Secret Submission Mourning Heaviness Remorse Emptiness
White	Light Purity	Perfection Marriage/Wedding Cleanliness Virtue Innocence Lightness Softness Sacredness Simplicity Truth	Fragility Isolation
Red	Fire Blood Sex	Passion Love Blood Energy Enthusiasm Excitement Heat Power	Aggression Anger Battle Revolution Cruelty Immorality
Yellow	Sunshine	Intellect Wisdom Optimism Radiance Joy	Jealousy Cowardice Deceit Caution
Blue	Sea Sky	Knowledge Coolness Peace Masculinity Contemplation Loyalty Justice Intelligence	Depression Coldness Detachment Apathy
Green	Plants The natural environment	Fertility Money Growth Healing Success Nature Harmony Honesty Youth	Greed Envy Nausea Poison Corrosion Inexperience

Let’s look at some of the new releases on Spotify that emphasize color.

Black

Listen to Fearless on Spotify. SAULT · Song · 2020.

SAULT, Untitled (Rise)

Black is the primary color for SAULT’s new album cover, and it seems to communicate aspects of seriousness, solitude, stylishness, mourning, heaviness. One element not on the list that cannot be ignored here is Black as a racial category. Blackness in this sense is a theme that runs through SAULT’s work. Does the music reflect any of the stylistic/mood elements of “black” from the chart above?

White

Listen to Cold on Spotify. Chris Stapleton · Song · 2020.

Chris Stapleton, “Cold”/“Starting Over”

(Off) white is the primary color of Chris Stapleton’s new single “Cold”/”Starting Over”. For me, the cover communicates the simpleness, truth, and isolation aspects of the chart. Do you think the music reflects any of these aspects? Stapleton has often been pitted against contemporary image-driven mainstream country artists. Perhaps this aspect of his persona complements the use of an all white cover—a refusal of the slick, heavily produced Nashville aesthetic. What do you think?

Multicolored?

Listen to Make Me An Offer I Cannot Refuse on Spotify. Sufjan Stevens · Song · 2020.

Sufjan Stevens, The Ascension

Sufjan Stevens’ new album The Ascension combines many primary and secondary colors: red, purple, blue, yellow, orange, some white and black. Why this multicolored mix? Are there any colors which are dominant here? I think, on the one hand, the geometric blocks of various colors recall church-like stained glass. On the other hand, they resonate with the kaleidoscopic effects of psychedelics. The mix of religious (organ, choral sounds) and psychedelic (electronic/synthesized sounds, vocal processing) seems to perfectly sum up the musical aesthetic of the album as well.

What colors are in your album collection? Let us know in the comments.