I didn’t comment on the whole Jon vs. Steve Jobs debate earlier this week. Mostly, that was because it’s been a long week, and I’ve been tired at night. In general, I’ve learned that posting while tired doesn’t always lead to the best judgment in terms of what to post, so that was one topic that I really wasn’t up to discussing.
Posts Tagged ‘cover art’
Weighing in on the iTunes debate…
Friday, March 18th, 2011Storm Thorgerson slideshow
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010The BBC site has a video gallery of album cover art created by Storm Thorgerson. This includes some very iconic covers, including Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.
The neat thing about the gallery is that not only do they show the wide range of art that he has created, the audio interview delves into the ideas behind a lot of the work. So often we get to hear the musicians themselves explaining what went into the music. It’s much rarer to get to hear the rationale behind the cover art.
I’ve long said that the cover art created for rock and roll albums is an underappreciated art form, so for me this particular video clip was a rare treat.
In some ways, creating cover art must be far more challenging than being free to create whatever you want. Yes, it’s a marketing piece, designed to sell the music inside. However, it also has to mesh with the music inside, or it won’t truly accomplish its goal. (Though, that being said, true meshing isn’t 100% necessary. One of the first covers to be discussed in the video relies on subverting that linkage. But even at that, it still says something important and vital about the band that created the music inside that cover.)
All told, I found the video quite fascinating, and rather too short. I would have liked to know more about some of the covers that he created. Anyway, go check it out. If you’re at all interested in album art, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Digital Cover Art?
Monday, January 25th, 2010The inventors of the MP3 file format have announced that they have created a new file format called MusicDNA. There’s a decent article on it at Wired.
While this does promise to resolve at least part of my issue with the current digital music marketplace (lack of cover art and liner notes) it raises other issues.
I really have to wonder about the ‘self-updating’ feature of the files. Leaving alone the DRM type issues raised by the commenters at Wired, I have to wonder what would happen when you fire up the player and 10,000 songs start trying to download updates. Even on a high-speed connection that could be a major pain.
If I wanted auxiliary content like blog posts or tour announcements, I’d rather rely on Google to find it. At least it does say that you can shut off the extras. Because personally, I would shut off everything but the lyrics and the cover art. The rest of the stuff is just clutter that will eat disk space like candy. Disk space on the desktop may not be at a premium, but it is on portable players like iPods. Also, I certainly wouldn’t pay extra for the privilege of having to shut off a pile of promotional junk attached to the files.
I think I’m still sticking with buying physical CDs. It’s just less of a hassle.
The Circle Cover Art
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009Unfortunately, the pop-culture reference that popped into my head the first time I saw the cover was the logo from The Ring. Not sure why, other than the obvious shape and the monochrome palette. Really, did they have to be so literal in translating the title of the album to the cover? I realize that Bon Jovi has done some extremely obvious album covers before (Slippery When Wet, anyone?) and some extremely poor ones, but fortunately this one doesn’t fall into the latter category.
From a design perspective, it seems fairly solid, if obvious, in my estimation. With the size of CD covers, and now the minuscule screens of MP3 players, it’s a good idea to have extremely clean, strong images as cover art. While the image itself is in keeping Bon Jovi’s ongoing overuse of black and white photography, it is at least a good photo. The tonal range is well balanced, and the exposure appears to have been carefully controlled. The end result is exactly the kind of cover art that I like when I’m listening to music on my Zune; strong images like this one make it easy to identify the current album in a glance.
All told, it’s a decent effort that accomplishes exactly what it set out to do: provide a clear, identifiable image to promote and sell the album.