The “Top of the World” album cover is a metaphor for the detrimental effect mankind’s overconsumption and greed has on the earth. The visual text depicts a dying world getting the last of its life drained out of it by a huge, metal mosquito. This text is directed towards the consumers of Slightly Stoopid’s music. The only purpose the written text serves, besides stating the band name and the name of the album, is that the album name relates the picture to the album. The overall design has a science fiction feel to it. The effect the design has is eye-catching and intriguing due to how abstract the piece of art is. The album cover is demanding the attention of the consumer. It is demanding that they look at it for what it means, not just what it displays. The physical details of the planet and the mosquito show that the album cover symbolizes what humans are doing to the earth. 

The planet that the mosquito is destroying represents Earth in the future, if the problem is not addressed. When thinking of the sky and atmosphere the first thought that comes to mind is of the beauty of the blue sky when looking up, or of the pictures from space with a white, halo-like glow surrounding the earth. The halo-like glow represents purity and life, but in the image the glow is red, representing death and destruction. The planet is covered in craters which could be seen as a result of the atmosphere being destroyed because there would be no protection from space objects colliding with the planet. The planet could also be personified as a worn down, sickly person. When human skin starts to crack it means that the skin is unhealthy. The cells of the skin are so malnourished and dry that they waste away and die. This is what is happening to the planet, it is so dried out that it is falling apart, dying.  The dry craters on the planet personify scares from welts and sores caused by sicknesses and diseases. The mosquito is creating a new, bigger crater showing that it is the disease.

The most eye-catching part of the image is the huge mosquito standing on top of the earth. The mosquito is a near perfect representation of the actions of mankind. In the eyes of humans, mosquitos are hated bugs that transport diseases and suck their blood out. On a larger scale, humans are doing the exact same thing. The mosquito is drilling down into the earth, sucking it so dry that the surface is cracking and baron. This symbolizes the destruction caused by all the natural resources being sucked out of the earth to feed the wants of the industrialized world. The placement of the drill in the middle of the city is important because it highlights the fact that we, humans, care so much about consumption that we are willing to destroy our home in order to have what we want. The land that the mosquito is drilling into is clearly America. This is very important because it symbolizes that American consumers and the industries created  in America are the roots of this problem of overconsumption and wastefulness that is currently being faced all around the world. There are many details that serve as evidence that the giant mosquito symbolizes industry. The mosquito is a metal robot. Nothing about robots is natural, they can only be created if they are created by man. The mosquito has smoke stacks shooting flames of pollution out into the space, like how factories shoot pollution into our environment. The mosquito is also sucking liquids out of the ground. If looking at it plain and simple the liquids seems to just symbolize the natural resources that are being taking from the world for consumers, but looking at it from a different perspective the liquid is the monetary resources of the general population. The industries are taking the money of the common persons and collecting it all for themselves. The detail of the mosquito that has the most significant impact on the viewer is that the mosquito has a brain. The fact that it has a brain shows that the mosquito can think. It knows exactly what it is doing to the planet, just as humans know what they are doing to the earth. In both cases, neither the mosquito nor the humans are ignorant, but neither stop consuming.The album cover may not appeal to the average person but if they take the time to really look at the album cover it does trigger emotions because it is sad when we realize the reality of what we are doing to the planet that we live on. The understated assumption would be that the viewer has a basic understanding of what humans are doing to the earth. However, the album implies that the viewers do not truly understand how the world is being affected by the human race and that we are slowly destroying the world we live on. The smaller, detailed cities imply that the mass amount of industrialization that our generation has put the world through is slowly killing it as we drain the earth of all the resources that it provides to us. 