Chamillionaire – Major Pain
This is Chamillionaire’s album cover for his CD that he released titled Major Pain. The theme of the CD is war and military therefore the album is called Major Pain because war creates pain among the people within the war zone. Interestingly, this does not promote values of bravery and strength but focuses on the consequences of war.
The Font choice that Chamillionaire chose connotes the military, and connotes the air force in particular. This is connected to the tank in the middle of the cover with the centre of the image to represent war and the involvement of it. It represents the dominant values of men with tanks, guns and aggression. All these are linked to the army which is stereotypically associated with males. The image is also linked to the lyrics themselves because the all have hate and some refer to war for instance one of the tracks is called “I’m Reloaded” and “War to your front Door”. The cover looks like a squadron insignia and connotes a pride in the military and perhaps a glorification of conflict. Currently the involvement of troops in the Middle East has led to a resurgence of interest and pride in the military – perhaps artist is tapping in to the zeitgeist.
Their presentation of masculinity and male vales dominates this album cover because of the military, violence and war. The preferred reading would be that Chamillionaire is going to inflict pain on someone or perhaps he has already done it. However, and from listening to the lyrics of the songs that he created for this album the oppositional reading is that he has problems with his life and he is giving a warning to the people who created those problems for him that he will inflict pain on them if they are not careful.
There are dark colours on the album cover with yellow and red, these colours represent war, pain and death which is also linked to the theme of war which Chamillionaire has created to for his album cover. For example the red and yellow connote explosion and fire which is associated with pain which is connected to the title. The bottom of the cover looks like camouflage connoting the army and the camouflage they use to conceal themselves by merging into the surroundings making themselves a harder target to spot hence forth harder to kill This links to the chameleon that Chamillionaire uses as his sign which represent that he is as discrete and as camouflaged as a chameleon and that he is not an easy target.
Chamillionaire tends to not use people on his album covers because he doesn’t want to show himself to the public. This connotes that he is like a chameleon who doesn’t like to be seen by the people around him much. This could also connect with him not liking the police, I first got this idea when a heard his music because he always mentioned him not liking the police and trying to avoid them.
The name Chamillionaire is a portmanteau of the words millionaire and chameleon, I think he chose them two specifically because they mean something to him but from my point of view I think that millionaire would be that he is a millionaire and what comes with money, power. He is showing that he has power which also links to the military style album cover. Next is the chameleon which my opinion from what I heard is that he hates police so he chose to have a chameleon as part of his name to represent that he is discreet and keeps his distance from the police just like a chameleon would do from their predators.
The parental advisory sticker represents the restrictions of younger audience from listening to the music within the CD without an adult checking it first to make sure its ok for them to listen to the content. This is due to the songs having excessive use of profane language and drug or sexual references in them. This also has a link to the front cover of the album because on the cover there is a war and during a war there will be bad language used.
The stitches on the word pain represent Chamillionaire himself recovering from the pain that the record label put him through by kicking him out of the record label and is now back which takes me to the war and military album cover which represents Chamillionaire bring war to them in an indirect way which isn’t physically affecting them. This can link to the Uses and Gratification theory in that he is allowing his audience to form a personal relationship with him and what he has been through.
The bronze star on the cover is from the military and is only awarded to a soldier for heroism and meritorious achievement in ground combat which might represent Chamillionaire being heroic to be going against a well known record label by himself.
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