Music used to be heavily associated with its accompanying artwork. Once, an album’s cover image was the only way of truly visualising the music: An hour of sound, a year of writing and recording, six months of mastering and promotion, and at the end of it a single image to accompany the work.
Creating this image was a noble endeavour. The cover of Sgt. Pepper’s, which cost a hundred times the average price to produce, has become an instantly memorable image known worldwide. That is the power that album art can have. A great piece of cover art has the potential to become part of the imagery of a generation.
Dark Side of the Moon, Nevermind, The Velvet Underground & Nico – these titles conjure the imagery instantly into your head. The graphics of great albums become part of icons of an era or a movement, just as much as the music itself becomes part of history.
The great artists of yesteryear were masters of producing iconic imagery: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Rage Against the Machine, all understood the power of creative visuals. Today, the only major label artist I can think of that still produces brilliant art is Radiohead.
The arrival of The King of Limbs limited edition ‘newspaper’ album recently is what inspired this piece. Working closely with the graphic artist during the recording process of their albums means Radiohead consistently produce imagery that adds to their music. Stanley Donwood (pseudonym) has been collaborating in this way with the band since 1994, even winning a Grammy in 2001 for best recording package for his work on Amnesiac. The poster for Thom Yorke’s phenomenal gig in Cambridge last February (with art by Donwood) still takes pride of place on the wall above my bed.
Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Art by Chris Bilheimer
The King Of Limbs’ packaging is depictive of a Sunday paper, wrapped in a polythene bag with supplements that fall out as you unfold it; even the CD itself comes in the sort of thin card pouch used for CD giveaways. The print is a collection of lyrics, art, photography, poetry, and prose; its interesting, relevant, and, most importantly, an addition to the music.
It is also unusual for its ephemeral nature; you can’t really keep and treasure it, most newspapers are made from chemically treated paper that removes the lignin. The King Of Limbs will absorb light, turn yellow, curl, age, and decay; it is a truly organic piece of art. It is this level of detail and imagination that is missing from almost all other music-art.
Prince’s Lovesexy is simply hideous. Kevin Rowland’s My Beauty is just vile. I can’t even show Scorpion’s Virgin Killer for ethical and legal reasons. But, at least they tried. At least someone (however misguidedly) put the thought and effort in to try and create something unique and interesting.
Scanning through the album chart in HMV is a display of monochrome blandness; picture after picture of gurning, idiot pop stars glaring at you from behind their porn-star fake smiles. To make an ‘arty’ album cover these days all you do is shoot the band in black and white. On a beach. At sunset. ‘Arty’ album covers these days look more like bad, polygamous marriage proposals.
I miss having art with my music, and I’m sure I can’t be the only one. Please, please bring back original and interesting album art, lest the music of this decade be forever being associated with the monochrome image of Adele scratching her head.
Radiohead – Kid A – Art by Stanley Donwood & Tchock
maybe the problem is that you're looking in hmv… you seem to base your argument on a kind of 'good old days of album covers' vs 'now' – but most of the albums that you argue for (vaguely avante garde-ish in their time, often on indy labels, etc) wouldn't be selling in hmv anyway.
if time has something to do with it, then it would seem to be that albums are 'packaged' differently, now – i use to pretentious inverted commas because they're not really packaged at all. for lots of people who (illegally or legally) download, the artwork is simply something that comes up on their computer screen, never a physical accompaniment to the thing. i suppose, on that basis, you could argue that album art has been downgraded in importance. but i don't think that's true.
people are still making good artwork, honestly. you just have to search it out, but that's always been the way. equally, people have been gurning on album covers probably for as long as album covers have existed.
Sir:
Without prejudice to the intrinsic worth of album artwork, I beg leave to suggest that Mr Holland might have lost sight of the primary purpose of purchasing a compact disc (or series of compact discs). Perhaps he should, instead of expending his effort upon sentimentality, take it upon himself to let loose his own imagination and create his own artwork. Alternatively (or additionally), he could avail himself of the fine juxtaposition of visual art and music on offer at Kettle's Yard.
Stale, as always. Good job.
if this is ironic then it is genius
Pipe down, dickhead.
Also, Kettles yard is wank at the moment.
Jagshemash this guy is on wrong website
10,000 Days. Won a Grammy for best artwork in 2007.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000_Days
Get a physical copy of that and trip some balls.
just whatever you do don't listen to it…
No, you absolutely shouldn't listen to it. In fact, take that CD out right away and put on Lady Gaga. Or perhaps some Justin Beiber.
Lateralus is better IMO. Also has phenomenal artwork.
http://www.artvinyl.com/en/nominate/nominations.h…
Yeah, really dull…
And those 50 barely scratch the surface of good recent art. Dire artwork is by no means a recent phenomenon. Go and look at the selection of records in a charity shop or the record collection of any average older person – you'll get an idea of album artwork that is actually representative rather than the distorted retrospectives of coffee- table-books and weekend newspaper supplements.
I will let James Last have the final word: http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=329490