ABSTRACT
Imagery of hair and identity in album covers: Beyoncé, Björk, Madonna, and PJ Harvey by Özgür Çalışkan. A study of the visual content of album covers of four singers: Madonna and Beyoncé (popular music artists) and PJ Harvey and Björk (alternative/indie music artists). Cover photography of music albums has been an important element of artists’ representation and a medium to grab listeners’ attention. The album cover has become an art form to reflect musicians’ styles, expressing their identities and ideas. This chapter discusses these singers’ musical styles, considering the visual representation of their hair on select album cover photos. It reveals the relations between two different art forms – music and photography – in terms of the meaning of hair as a visual element that conveys ideas about identity and ideology.
