Worst Album Artwork

Following on from all the discussion of the best packaging, there have also been a number of lists highlighting the supposedly piss-poor artwork that emerged last year.

Some overlap with entries on the 'best of' lists [Kings of Leon with that Desdemona-like font and murky palm trees, Anthony Ausgang's trippy cartoon for MGMT] but a variety of different sources selected Jeff Beck's Emotion and Commotion - featuring an image that couldn't be any more flag-wavingly American if it tried. Still, it's seriously classy when you compare it to some time-honoured examples such as the infamous Millie Jackson cover which I've placed, rather aptly, at the bottom.

For even more vintage terrible sleeves, there is also a cheap book available.
Link: Nick DiFonzo - Seriously Bad Album Covers!

Best Art Vinyl 2010

From a shortlist selected by music and design industry figures, a public vote decided that Klaxons' Surfing The Void boasted 2010's best album cover.

With art direction and design by Richard Robinson, it beat the likes of Caribou's Swim, Skream's Listenin' to the Records on My Wall and The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. Which, to be fair, were all great. [Kylie's dire Aphrodite artwork also made the Top 20 - just to prove that, sometimes, there really is no accounting for taste.]

Doldrums

I've been an admirer of Will Bankhead's work since he was paired up with Ben Drury to produce visual work for Mo Wax. More recently I've been impressed with his solo-created sleeves for Pariah and Honest Jons.

Now there are his designs for Joy Orbison's Doldrums label which might be ignored due to the low key look but, for me, that's what makes them so appealing. Admittedly, I love the whole utilitarian approach often involved with underground club records and the hand-stamped information continues that tradition. The minimal text, while also nice from an aesthetic point of view, reflects the whole upfront and non-mainstream aspects usually associated with 'the white label'. Evidently, it's a label that knows its market.

Edits by Edit

Link:
Edits by Edit

A poster series curated by Edit — each designer was asked to represent a musical genre using one shape and one type (stating the genre).

Posters are A1 size and very limited.

Participants:
– Bas Koopmans
– Collective Approach
– Duane King
– Hey Studio
– Manual Creative
– Mark Boyce
– Leterme Dowling
– Nitzan — Edit
– Sane & Able
– Studio Makgill
– Toko
– Trevor Jackson
– This Studio

Especially loving the Detroit Techno poster by Toko. $75. Screen–printed on French–Paper Pop-Tone Sweet tooth stock. Clever.

33.3 Art Show

Link: 33.3 Art Show

A project where illustrators and designers have been contributing their versions of album covers. Some are cute. 'Found' on ffffound.com.

New Kraftwerk books

You wait all Christmas for a Kraftwerk book and then two show up at once.

Now available on pre-order (as advised by my steady stream of Amazon recommendation emails) is Kraftwerk Publikation by David Buckley: a biography about Dusseldorf's most famous cycling enthusiasts. Then there's Continuum's Kraftwerk: Music Non-Stop which is actually a collection of essays and includes intriguing chapters like "Vorsprung durch Technik – Kraftwerk and the British Fixation with Germany". £14.96 and £12.61 respectively.

I previously read Wolfgang Flür's I Was a Robot a few years back so it's the latter that's really got my interest. And my order.

Links:
Kraftwerk: Publikation
Kraftwerk: Music Non-Stop

Boney M: brilliantly mental

The recent passing of Bobby Farrell brought to mind the Boney M albums that my mum used to have. While the foursome’s music might have been temporarily reassessed when sampled by Mark Ronson on ‘Ooh Wee’ or when propelling Duck Sauce’s ‘Barbra Streisand’ and The Avalanches’ ‘Live At Dominoes’, the act was generally considered to be pretty throwaway. Not that I’m now saying that Boney M was much more than a glittery disco group, but I am still amazed that there hasn't been more discussion of the quite preposterous themes that they touched on.

Just over twenty years ago, for example, their ‘Belfast’ was firmly lodged in the Top 40. It peaked at a very respectable number eight: all the more impressive given that this was performed by a black Germany-based outfit incredulously attempting to give their voice to the troubles in Northern Ireland.

Back then a year had passed since the bombing of the Balmoral Furniture Company in Dunmurry, County Antrim and Bobby Sands had begun his prison sentence for the possession of firearms. Via the radio and the world's dance-floors, however, a West Indian vocal harmony group designed by future Milli Vanilli instigator Frank Farian were insisting that, in Belfast, "the people were leavin". For this purpose, the name 'Belfast' had adopted a condemned tone that probably had something to do with the news reports of the time. "When the country rings the leaving bell you're lost" the quartet observed in a baffling display of lyricism that seems solely hewn from a mistranslation of that particular city.

But this was their ‘Waterloo’. Abba had found earlier success through a jolly depiction of conflict and Boney M was hot on their platform heels. Just a mere four and a half years later. But this was even better because it was topical. (And maybe just a little bit tropical?) It was a sensitive subject. Political. A modern equivalent might be Jedward being auto-tuned for a whole three minutes whilst uttering nonsense supposedly about Iraq.

Bobby Farrell, Liz Mitchell, Marcia Barrett and Maisie Williams also brought notorious 1930's criminals (‘Ma Baker’) and Russian mystics/mad monks (‘Rasputin’) to Top of the Pops. It was educational. Just as long as you didn't pay too much attention to the words. Otherwise lines like "but the kasachok he danced really wunderbar" [which was brilliantly rhymed with 'czar'] would cause confusion when eventually encountering more clearly researched teachings in history, geography, German, Russian, English and – quite possibly – P.E.

In a number of bedraggled forms, Boney M still toured. A colleague once had to review 'The Real' Liz Mitchell as part of what he described as "One of those 'No, I'm not dead' Disco Tours". Apparently she resembled "a superannuated Cheeky Girl dancing like a helicopter spiralling to its doom". I'm almost certain that this, too, was somehow creative expression meets social commentary.

Then there are the album sleeves. Ridiculous, ropey and just a tad overblown: perhaps a true indication of what was in store for the listener.

Alex Steinweiss: Creator of the Modern Album Cover book

Spotted this book a while ago although it was in deluxe packaging on the US version of Amazon with a price tag featuring hundreds of dollars. 477.75 of them, to be exact. (Although it was discounted from $700.)

Next month a new version arrives in the UK with an pre-order figure of £38.24 - which is far more viable were I to treat myself.

There's a link to that version here:
Alex Steinweiss, the Inventor of the Modern Album Cover


"This title presents music for the eyes. The man who launched the Golden Age of album cover design. Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover as we know it, and created a new graphic art form. In 1940, as Columbia Records' young new art director, he pitched an idea: Why not replace the standard plain brown wrapper with an eye-catching illustration? The company took a chance, and within months its record sales increased by over 800 per cent. His covers for Columbia - combining bold typography with modern, elegant illustrations - took the industry by storm and revolutionized the way records were sold.

Over three decades, Steinweiss made thousands of original artworks for classical, jazz, and popular record covers for Columbia, Decca, London, and Everest; as well as logos, labels, advertising material, even his own typeface, the Steinweiss Scrawl. He launched the golden age of album cover design and influenced generations of designers to follow. Less well known - but included here - are his posters for the U.S. Navy; packaging and label design for liquor companies; film title sequences; as well as his fine art.

This title includes essays by three-time Grammy Award-winning art director/designer Kevin Reagan and graphic design historian Steven Heller; Steinweiss' personal recollections from an epic career; and extensive ephemera from the Steinweiss archive. Record collectors and graphic designers rejoice! Previously available in a limited edition, the book is finally available in an affordable trade version."


Some more info from Burning Settlers Cabin:

There was a time in the 1970s and 80s when record album designers were gods. If you saw one on the street you bowed down immediately and kissed his or her hand. They had the power to decide what was cool, and what was not. They could ignore budgets and demand the sleeve be wrapped in rubber. I had one teacher who would come to class and start with, “Sorry I was late. I was having lunch with Mick.” He didn’t mean Mick Hodgson at Ph.D. It wasn’t that way from the beginning. It started with Alex Steinweiss. Steven Heller, Kevin Reagan, and Steinweiss have written a new book, Alex Steinweiss: Creator of the Modern Album Cover

Working at Columbia Records in the 1940s he changed the industry. He replaced the previously generic stamped covers with remarkable 12×12 posters. These album covers reference European modernism, A.M. Cassandre, and Salavdor Dali in form. They succeed in combining this high art aesthetic with wit and levity. Without knowing who made it, one of my biggest influences in high school was his cover for Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2. I’m pretty sure I somehow transposed the Russian landscape here into a poster for the school musical, Oklahoma.

Records as YouTube visuals

While I've been thinking about design for record release info and the connection to audiences of the time, it's also worth bearing in mind how these have become used more recently for uploads on YouTube. Most usually being vinyl rips and therefore being a particularly relevant visual form.

There are loads of examples of this, but here are just a few:

Metroplex

I'm reading Dan Sicko's book on Detroit techno at the moment. It's making me consider the design used by the Motor City's record labels. It's also making me listen to a lot of vintage Cybotron, Mayday, Model 500 and Reese.

The 2010 edition of Dan Sicko's excellent book can be purchased here:
Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk

Meantime, anyone unfamiliar with Juan Atkins' Metroplex, might want to start with the following album: 20 Years of Metroplex

Warp20

Links:
Warp20: Chosen
Warp20: Unheard
Warp20: Recreated

I posted some of these before but never together. This particularly shows the variations in the 'Mobius band' set created for the Warp20 release(s). Designed by YES Studio with photography by Dan Holdsworth. Print editions also available from YES. (The deluxe box set sold out ages ago, by the way.)