Billie Jean analysis

Billie Jean has an interesting sketchy style. His images are very carefully composed. He uses different types of mark making and blocks of color to emphasise certain parts. To keep the sketchy quality his work is drawn in blue ball point pen, and I imagine he doesn't use any type of correctional fluid.  The little mistakes and overlapping lines you see contribute to the authentic quality of the marks.

He draws different subject material, from cartoon dogs to pixel smiley faces, peace signs and and basketball players. The shoe looks traced; but considering it's an ad for a shoe; it needs to be less stylized than everything else in the picture. Personally I see why his style and drawings would be appealing, but I prefer more refined styles, even for sketching. If it's a big commercial poster, it shouldn't have as many  overlapping lines.

Album Cover analysis

• Coldplay 'X&Y'

Coldplay chose to have a more unclear and interactive image as their album cover. The symbol says the name of the title, 'X & Y', in an encoded alphabet. The decrypted alphabet is shown in the booklet so you can decrypt the front cover by yourself. There's an extra message on the last page of the booklet also written in the code, saying 'Make trade fair". Make trade fair is a campaign for fair trade between governments. With their original alphabet ColdPlay makes a subliminal message.
The symbol itself is colorful and placed in the centre of the page. Considering that Coldplay's genre is mainly rock, it doesn't suit them very much.

• Chemical Brothers 'Push the Button' 

Chemical Brothers' "Push the button" and Coldplay's 'X & Y' have the same cover artists, Mark Tappin and Simon Gofton (aka Tappin Gofton). The cover art borrows motifs from soviet propaganda posters. All variants of the album and individual track artwork shares the same theme. To avoid being too close to communist posters; Tappin Gofton use various bold colors, excluding red. Further more, "Push the button" is a provocative phrase, unlike the communist posters, which were very suppressive. 

• Beck 'The Information'

Beck's cover is essentially a blank page, with included art stickers for the customer to create their own cover. This is his selling point and his way of encouraging people to buy more physical copies of albums. Because the stickers make the album a special addition, however, all of it's sales are excluded from the UK charts. This says a lot about Beck and his intentions as an artist.

• The shins 'Chutes too narrow'

The cover for The Shins' "Chutes too narrow" has an interesting format and stylized, cartoony imagery. The designer is Jessie LaDoux, who has a very distinctive style. The band's genre is alternative pop, so the cover fits their music. The booklet itself is not simply square, the picture is cut and very interestingly presented.