With mp3s, etc., the potential for album art is reduced and IMO, many of the current CD covers just don't cut it. Just off the top of my head, these are some of the album covers I'm talking about:
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (hey, that guy's on fire!)
- Steve Miller Band - Book of Dreams (Pegasus with multicolour wings)
- Supertramp - Crime of The Century (prison bars in space)
Whatever happened to this concept? What are some of the other great covers that I missed in the samples above & why? Do you think the less flamboyant covers are a way for record companies to save money in the mp3 age or do people just not care now?
16 comments:
There is a great feature in the Toronto Star
today(4/20) on this very subject....maybe that's
what motivated you, Steve.
Good topic Steve. My own taste is for straightforward photos of the musicians' not-so-straightforward lives/performances. (I'm thinking especially of London Calling -- which gets an automatic bi to the final round of any album cover competition as far as I'm concerned.)
The new album art these days is more about the "packaging concepts" -- clever pockets and folds, etc -- which I think is cool but I certainly wouldn't hold it against anyone for missing the classic LP style.
Daryl, it's just a coincidence that the Star had this today. I haven't read the Star since leaving the "Big Smoke" in '97. Can you post a link to the Star's feature that you mentioned?
Brian, thanks for your comments. You mention packaging and it's a bit of a deviation from my topic but I agree. What do you, or anyone else think of the slipcases for CDs vs. the standard jewel box? I find several of the cardboard slip cases make it very hard to pull the CD out from the little slot. Also, I got one where the "prongs" that hold the CD in place have broken. Unlike s standard jewel case, you can't buy a replcaement holder and swap it out.
Steve: Best topic yet. Could the crappy modern cover art have something to do with the size of the canvas i.e. CD covers vs. LP covers? Back in the day, album covers were music videos before there were music videos. They served the same purpose. They told a story and we spent hours gazing at them as we listened to the music. On a perhaps unrelated note, does anyone go to the movies based on the poster for the movie anymore? Trailers have replaced the movie posters from back in the day.
12x12 was significantly larger canvas.
Do you remember how the albums (even the ones above) looked way less impressive when they came out in the compact disc 5x5 size?
Sure album art has taken a serious nose dive, but what has come in its way is companion websites. Of the top of my head, The Arcade Fire had an incredibly cool and intricate web site built just for their Neon Bible album with all sorts of secret easter eggs throughout.
Its a perfect example of where the album cover went:
http://www.neonbible.com/
Steve: slipcases also difficult to store/display/find sometimes. I like Dan's take on album art telling the story (or as I think of it, advertising), and being replaced by videos.
John, that's a good point about album art being replaced with web site design. As you & I have both posted on Dan's blog, it seems like the music video is now more of a YouTube sourced item than TV. Maybe it just supports the whole move of most popular music towards the computer with downloading, mp3s, etc.?
Dan, thanks for the reference to this post in your blog and no, I don't go to a movie based on the poster. The trailer with live action has replaced it.
Guys: If you think album covers looked less impressive when sized down for CDs, imagine how cheated I felt with my cassettes! I was big into the cassettes, I resisted CDs for many years. Now mixed tapes aren't even made with tape.
Guys: On a side note, where do bands put their hidden Satanic messages nowadays? CD covers are too small, you can't play a CD or computer file backwards, so where do they go? Promoting devil worship with modern technology must be frustrating.
and now mixed tapes are made with bits and bytes… thin air
Hmm, I'm going to go all "side topic" on you now. We still call them "mixed tapes" when they're CDs. Similarly, if you record a show you missed, most people still call it "taping". Do you think those terms are forever ingrained in our vocabulary?
Steve: There's a name for that process in the English language, when a term outlasts the thing it was applied to. My favourite is how people say "The phone is ringing." Phones don't ring anymore. They beep, they buzz, they chirp, but they don't ring.
OK Dan, I'll bite. What's the name of the term?
Steve: If I could remember it, I'd have said it. Clearly, we need an online reverse dictionary. Oh, I thought of another one -- we still measure engines in "horsepower." When was the last time any of us rode a horse?
Steve - just came back from a brief vacation and saw your posting on a topic near and dear to my heart (and my wallet) - i.e., the art of the album cover.
As a former music-industry person and a collector of this type of art and photography for many years, I have had the good fortune to have been able to meet/work with some of the talented designers, illustrators and photographers who have created many of the best-known cover images in the modern rock era and have always felt that they were (in most cases) the most under-appreciated fine artists in the world. Most everyone knows the names of famous artists who've created pop culture icons (Warhol, Max, etc.), but how many people know who created images seen (and bought) by MILLIONS of people - Storm Thorgerson, responsible for Dark Side of the Moon for Pink Floyd (who also did Wish You Were Here); Stanley Mouse, who produced covers for Journey (Captured, plus the Steve Miller cover you use as an example); Roger Dean, who did all those fantastic covers for YES, Asia, Uriah Heep, etc.; Karl Ferris, who created the great photo covers for Jimi Hendrix (Are You Experienced?, Electric Ladyland), The Hollies and many others - the list goes on and on.
And while the size of the canvas has gotten smaller - from LPs to 45s to CDs - or has been left out altogether (as in most downloads), these talented folks are still creating new and exciting art for new releases, gig posters, tour merch, music videos and for use in performance venues.
While young folks certainly don't "buy the album for the cover" (do they even BUY music?), fine art imagery still plays an important part in the promotion and packaging of music and the musical acts that create it.
Anyway, thanks for keeping the topic a lively one -
Cheers - Mike Goldstein, owner, RockPoP Gallery, Portland, OR (www.rockpopgallery.com)
Hey Mike, thanks for visiting and posting. It sounds like you've had some amazing contacts. Your website looks great also. One of the other 70's era covers that I always loved was the Bob Seger,"Against The Wind" cover (with the drawing of the horses in water). Were those artists paid on a per item sold basis or was it a flat fee for their work?
On a side note, my wife and I have always wanted to visit your area. We've thought about flying to Vancouver, then renting a car & driving down the coast. Is there a better/worse time to make such a trip in your view?
Thanks again for stopping by my blog.
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