Homework: Max Davies: Album Cover Analysis: Fatboy Slim - You've Come A Long Way, Baby

You've Come a Long Way, Baby is the second studio album by Fatboy Slim, an English electronic dance and Big Beat musician. It was released on 19 October 1998 on the label Skint Records.

The album peaked at number one on the UK Album Chart and number thirty-four on the U.S. It hade four singles on the album: The Rockafeller Skank, Ganster Trippn’, Praise You and Right Here, Right Now, all reached the top 10 in the UK charts.

It was certified 3x platinum. In 2000, the album was ranked number 81 in Q magazine's readers' poll of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever".

The album title was taken from a marketing slogan for the cigarette brand ‘Virginia Slims.’

The cover to this has two versions, the UK version is of the fat man, holding a cigarette and a grin on his face. The other is the US version is rather boring, it is a rack of vinyl records, the reason of this is that Americans may take offence as the obesity levels are very bad.

This is the USA version of the album cover:

Genre

From typical albums covers, the conventions are that it will have a name or image of the artist, the album name or attractive features. With this type of genre I research other

albums from the electronic dance and I found that DJ’s tend to keep there image hidden, such as The Chemical Brothers. This album complies with these conventions as Fatboy Slim is not presented, however we are lead to believe the ‘fatboy’ on the cover is the artist, as the name is fitting.

Lettering/Font

The lettering used on this cover fits with the genre as ‘Fatboy Slim’s’ font is quite urban and resembles graffiti, a subject that links with electronic dance. Slim uses this font throughout career, it is a way of establishing an artist image.

Image

The cover of ‘You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby’ is quite humorous. It is a picture of a fat boy with a cheesy grin on his face protesting the he is ‘number 1.’ This could be a message given from the DJ through the image of someone else, could be saying that he is the number 1 DJ.

The scene behind him is of an average street in America, the whole cover could be a dig at America for some reason. The back cover features a license plate with the state of Texas on it, this finalises that it is set in America. As Fatboy Slim being British, it is confusing that the cover is set in America, some audience may not agree with this as they are patriotic and refuse America music.

Star/icons

This album cover for me is a true classic as it is unexpected, a does not covey any feature of selling a stars image. The fact that he wanted a picture of a fat boy on his cover makes me laugh, as it is not as attractive and some customers may disapprove. I think the cover shows that Slim is unpredictable and no one knows his next move. This point is back up with his crazy videos.

Representation

The representation of this album is hard to relate too and understand. But this is a key characteristic to this genre of music, the fact that the music is aimed at a niche market means they can get away with a lot more unorthodox features other than a mass market.

Also stereotyping is hard to see in this cover as we are unsure on dance music’s stereotype.

Audience

Fatboy Slim is a very accomplished artist and a true master at his art, and this is why music lovers listen and enjoy his music. Customers will buy this album because of his genius and good music, this means that his marketing and representation is not as important than this. 


Front:

Back: