Semiotics in Beetles’ Album Sleeves: Rubber Soul and Abbey Road
As one of the, most influential rock bands in history, Beetles left the world a legacy of great musics and fashions of the day. Numerous studies have been conducted about their music texts, but rather few have been done in the visual elements of the band’s contribution, which is an indispensable part of their artistic treasure.This study focus on the sleeve of two of their most successful albums:Rubber Soul(1965) and Abbey Road(1968). Through the application of semiotics framework by Roland Barthes, the research analyzes the signifier and the signified to solicit the implied cultural meaning of the layout. More specifically, this research tries to answer how this sleeve design successfully supports the aesthetical arguments of the band and the commodification of this album as music industrial product.
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