“Weird Al” Yankovic – Straight Outta Lynwood

ALBUM COVER ANALYSIS

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CIRCLED POINTS – GENRE & MISE EN SCENE1. “Weird Al” Yankovic written in a gangster/ghetto type font matches the Hip-Hop

convention

2. Straight Outta Lynwood written in graffiti type font matches the Hip-Hop convention

3. Blue Chevrolet that he is standing in front of is part of the money and expensive cars imagery

4. Al is dressed in a gangster fashion, reiterating the expensive clothes ideology

5. The scenery looks rough and dangerous, conventional of Hip-Hop album covers

CIRCLED POINTS – STAR IMAGE• Al is striking a pose where he is imitating how a rapper would pose. He is parodying the

genre of Hip-Hop and its conventions successfully by dressing in these clothes (especially the baseball jacket that says Lynwood) as he is humouring his target audience with this parody.

• He is standing in a rough scene, which aims to portray him as a rough, yet approachable artist, which is not normally what a Hip-Hop artist would aim to convey through their art. He also has a bulldog sitting next to him, a dog universally known for being rough and violent and the image of that fits perfectly into this parody album cover.

CIRCLED POINTS – TARGET AUDIENCE• Al’s audience knows that the lead track of this album is White & Nerdy and they know that

he makes album covers based on his lead track. Therefore, the audience expect this to be the album cover and he has perfectly targeted his audience that will listen to him regardless of what specific genre he parodies.

• His target audience are likely to enjoy this album cover because they know Al was behind the creation of it

CIRCLED POINTS – SYNTHETIC ARTIST• Al’s audience already know he is a synthetic artist, because most parody artists are. Al

has perfectly demonstrated the synthetic imagery of the genre he is trying to parody.

• The theme of the album is specific to the single, and so is every theme for each album he has released in the past. This is exemplary of the synthetic ideologies and themes he is trying to promote because that is the only category of artist that the parody genre fits under.