AL*** COVER ART

Posted by: samo7 on 12 January 2002

Aside from Roger Dean has anyone else contributed to this artform?? What are your favourite albums rated on cover-art alone?? Roxy Music comes to mind if you call that art...and I do!

Posted on: 22 January 2002 by Former member

Was the sandpaper sleeve not a direct reference to a famous book, which was a real influence on Vini? The name Durutti Column was also in a story, perhaps some sort of propaganda. I forget.

Posted on: 15 February 2002 by throbnorth

I suppose that with a little ingenuity, it was fairly easy to make an impact with a 12" sleeve, having all that space to work with, but how well you you think designers have coped with the smaller CD format? Small busy designs don't work, and unless your record company is prepared to shell out dosh for limited edition novelty boxes (how do Spiritualised manage that? They must cost a fortune..)you're stuck with 14cm and usually a lot of text to fit in, which is quite a challenge.

The identification between the artist and the label have had to vanish too ..... the music of Traffic, Spooky Tooth and a whole raft of Island groups of that period is forever held for me in a mysterious pink aura - if you listened carefully, you could almost hear the pinkness.

Same with Procol Harum & Tyrannosaurus Rex and the semi-victorian look of Regal Zonophone. For Blue Note & Verve artists, I imagine the connection is just as strong, in fact probably stronger. Nowadays, what label a band is on rarely registers.

Classical music companies hardly seem to bother with interesting covers, although they look as if they try to preserve the prominence of their label (DG, EMI etc). Apart from say, - Nonesuch, which has a fair stab at originality in their design, most covers look the result of a quick 15mins with Photoshop and a World of Art stock photo CD.

I particularly liked Scritti Politti's 'Anomie and Bonhomie' for Virgin, where various carefully chosen small bits of packaging were retouched with the group's name - really cleverly done, and must have taken ages, and Nonesuch's Philip Glass Symphony No 5 which has pieces of stiff textured card printed with the texts the work uses, held together in a paper band. Shame the music's on the dreary side, though.

Any thoughts on recent CD's which can hold their heads up with past masterpieces?

Posted on: 17 February 2002 by shazbut

Pete

I agree very much with your selections.Weasels Ripped My Flesh is not only an excellent cover,but also fits the music therein.

That's why I think the Pink Floyd covers are so good - they are almost part of the music.

Throbnorth

Ther was always something special about Elektra albums from the late '6os and early '70s.They were quite plain (colour photo with their standard lettering) but very effective.

As I no longer buy (and rarely play) vinyl,the effect of covers has somewhat diminished for me.The fold-out extravaganzas of Quintessence are gone and only something like Bill Laswell's Santana remix (Divine Light) comes close,but it's not the same.

Posted on: 25 April 2002 by Mike Sae

I've always been partial to the Dayglo Abortion covers. Pure Canadian hooliganism. In order of preference (tho I haven't heard these albums in ages, a good thing):

If Tony L has any of these I'll die.

Posted on: 25 April 2002 by Former member

Mike, these are stunningly tasteful and subtle.

As for Tony having them, some of the fonts are a bit Germanic...

Posted on: 26 April 2002 by JohanR

Ohio Players "Honey" (se http://www.musicmatic.de/O/OhioPla3a.jpg) is in my taste. On LP it's a double convolut and the inside is even better, if I remember correctly.
It seems that it's available in DTS format on CD. Maybe it makes one feel surounded by the girl on the cover...

JohanR

Posted on: 26 April 2002 by Not For Me

How do you chaps get a decent scan of an album cover on an A4 scanner ?

Do you two or more takes and then paste them together?

What software is good for this.

I would love to be able to make covers from CDs I have made frin the original vinyl. Not all covers are on the 'net.

DS

Posted on: 26 April 2002 by samo7

They changed the North American versions of the covers because they weren't deamed tateful enough...ie, Golden Earing "Moontan"...as if this was going to corrupt are morals. What really blew me away was the North American cover versions of the U.K. band , Charlie, with covers from "No Second Chance", "Lines", Fight Dirty" etc. This did more to corrupt me than any of the European versions but passed the morality tests of good ol' Canada...

Posted on: 26 April 2002 by Former member

Fine with a nice cover. Who do you show it to?
I prefer listening. If it is art it is on the record.

fertile
ferror

Authenticity

Posted on: 27 April 2002 by Tony L

quote:
If Tony L has any of these I'll die.

Haven’t even heard of ‘em. I have a nice Foetus collection though…

“Hammer that screwdriver into ma, into ma brain…”

Tony.

Scraping Foetus off the wheel – ‘Hole’.
Scraping Foetus off the wheel – ‘Nail’.
Foetus Interuptus – ‘Thaw’.
Foetus Inc – ‘Sink’.
You’ve got Foetus on your breath – ‘Wash / Slog’.
Foetus art terrorism – ‘Calamity Crush’.
The Foetus all nude revue – ‘Bedrock’.
Scraping Foetus off the wheel – ‘Ramrod’.

Posted on: 27 April 2002 by Former member

I've always liked this one. As with the Beatles, Televion's music just wouldn't sound as good if the cover didn't make you feel like you'd met the band.

Posted on: 28 April 2002 by Mike Sae

Nice Foetus collection, Tony. They're all in shockingly good condition to boot.

Does anyone have a sizable D.R.I. collection? Some good stuff. I've always wanted to see them live, but

A. They've been banned from Canada

B. I get a feeling that the audience would comprise mostly of Neo-Nazis.

If anything their website is rather fab:
Warning: turn your computer's volume waaay up.