Blueshadow's Bon Jovi Blog » cover art

Weighing in on the iTunes debate…

admin — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 02:41:39 +0000

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.

I’m going to buck the trend and say that for the most part, I’m with Jon. (And you’ve heard that from me before.) I love cover art. People like me are the reason why they sell frames for album covers. Sadly, I was born a bit too late for the days of vinyl–by the time I was amassing a music collection of any real size, it was all CDs, so I own very few actual vinyl albums. However, even in the age of the CD, the cover art still mattered, and there was still an insert for notes and lyrics.

In terms of the content of albums, the album format does serve an important function. It can be misused to prop up songs that are nothing more than filler–but it can also be used to take songs that are a tough sell on their own and allow them to reach an audience. Songs like ‘Dry County’ are the songs that albums were built for.

Had I been using iTunes at the time when I bought Keep the Faith, I would likely have left much of the album behind. I would have abandoned ‘If I Was Your Mother’ and ‘Dry County’, for no better reason than that they were not what I expected. And without those songs, I probably would never have seen all that Bon Jovi had to offer, and never would have looked deeper.

Yes, you can get burned buying albums by the cover alone–to this day I don’t really care for Poison’s Native Tongue, and I bought that one based on cover art and the name of the band. But more often than not, the albums where I’ve gotten ‘burned’ was a matter of discovering my own personal taste and learning about various artists.

To this day, buying music is still one area where I am a complete Luddite. I work in a heavy technology field, and it astounds people that I still interact with music through physical media. But I’ve stuck with buying CDs because as far as I’m concerned, it does provide a superior experience.

Storm Thorgerson slideshow

admin — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:10:13 +0000

The 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.

So I finished Brutal Legend…

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:17:46 +0000

I finally finished Brutal Legend this past weekend. It’s taken me awhile to finish the game, even though I didn’t find the main story mode to be particularly difficult or long. (Having the Xbox decide to develop the Red Ring of Death does tend to put a crimp in my gaming schedule.) Honestly, I could have done with a longer story mode. I didn’t find anything to be all that great about the multiplayer mode, especially since none of my friends have Brutal Legend. If a few of my friends were interested in playing some stage battles, I might get more mileage out of it. But as it stands, the multiplayer mode holds no real interest. (Most of my friends would rather play Halo Wars.)

The rest of my follow-up is after the jump. Consider yourself warned: there are spoilers after this point, so if you’re haven’t beat the game yourself and don’t want the end spoiled STOP NOW.

….that should be sufficient spoiler space, even for a big monitor…

Like I said above, I found the story mode to be a tad short. I just feel that there were so many more things that they could have explored in the world created for the game. Maybe the problem is that the game as a whole was too easy; I was able to blow through it far too fast. (I should have cranked the difficulty up I guess.) I suspect that part of the problem was the hybrid nature of the game; it can’t make up its mind whether it’s a RTS game or an action game, and it winds up being both, and dumbing both down a lot. Neither mode has a lot of subtleties to it. The stage battles can get a little more interesting, but compared to other real-time strategy games that I’ve played, it’s pretty simple.

That being said, I did enjoy the stage battles, but that’s mostly because I am epic fail at playing true real-time strategy games. As I’ve said before, I just don’t seem to have the multitasking ability necessary to keep up with those games. I’m always too slow at playing them. The simpler systems in Brutal Legend operated at a level much more in keeping with my abilities.

Overall, I found this game to be incredibly gorgeous from a graphical perspective. I am easily impressed on this count, mostly because I hadn’t really gotten any up-to-date game consoles in a long time. (Really. The last two consoles that I had before the Xbox 360 were a Nintendo 64 and a Wii, neither of which is particularly impressive from a graphical perspective these days.) But even so, from a design perspective, this game impresses me. It certainly holds true to an artistic style that just screams HEAVY METAL. What’s astounding is the number of variations on that theme that they came up with–more that I had ever realized were possible. (The Drowning Doom ventured a little far from the heavy metal and are edging over into Tim Burton-esqe Goth territory, but that’s a relatively minor quibble. Drowned Ophelia looked totally awesome. That’s next year’s Halloween costume there.)

I was playing with the blood/dismemberment and swearing filters turned off. I have to play back through again with them turned on, just because I want to see how they manage the end of the game without any blood or dismemberment. I figure that they would have to keep the whole thing with the heart dissolving, even though that’s kind of gross (and dismemberment-y) because of the plot point that it made.

All told, I’m glad I bought this game. It’s been one of the most fun games that I’ve played in a long time. (The Ghostbusters game for the Xbox is probably a close second when it comes to pure fun.)

Digital Cover Art?

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:02:15 +0000

The 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

admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:13:10 +0000

Unfortunately, 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.

Cover Art, Liner Notes, iTunes and Zunes

admin — Sun, 31 May 2009 15:40:01 +0000

Earlier today, I was talking to a friend about the store that sells used CDs that’s on the way to my parents’ place. It is honestly, one of my favorite places there is. Then I came home and was catching up on Metal Excess, only to see that he’s summed up what I’ve always felt about buying music.

There’s something fascinating about having that physical object. To some degree, it’s like being a trophy hunter; filling that giant CD tower or the shelf of LPs with the best of your favorite bands is much like the fisherman putting the prize marlin above the fireplace. You went out, hunted successfully, and returned home with your trophy.

Like he said over at Metal Excess, buying it from iTunes doesn’t feel real. You can’t hold it in your hands, and reading liner notes (assuming you even get liner notes, which usually isn’t the case) on a computer monitor is not the same. One of my favorite sets of liner notes is in Richie Sambora’s Stranger in this Town. They’re full of gorgeous pictures of Richie, along with the lyrics to all of the songs. I can remember sticking that CD in the player and just listening to it, with the liner notes unfolded across the floor in front of me, following along and taking it all in. Try that with a computer monitor. It was part of the experience of that album–something I could hold in my hands. The acknowledgments that give a little window into the creation of the album, the ability to follow the lyrics, the opportunity to ogle some extra pix–all that is lost in a digital format.

Plus, in my case, I have a Zune. Now, I love the Zune interface, I find it to be intuitive and very easy to use, but forget about looking at cover art on the screen on that thing. It’s the size of a postage stamp, and the cover art display in the Zune software isn’t much bigger. Something like an iPod Touch and iTunes might be a bit better, but still not that good. It’s bad enough what the small format of CDs has done to cover art. Once bands start designing for the screens of MP3 players, it’s all over as far as cover art is concerned. At that point it’ll just turn into head shots. Bon Jovi would survive just fine in that world–after all, Jon Bon Jovi is about as photogenic as a band frontman gets. But what about guys like Meat Loaf, or Dio? They aren’t exactly pretty boys. But the cover art of their albums? Masterpieces. If I could find an LP of Bat Out Of Hell in good condition, I’d frame it and stick it up on the wall.

Personally, I think losing cover art is going to be a blow. I mean, look at the world that was created for Brutal Legend. All of that was inspired by cover art from heavy metal, but that kind of art probably won’t ever be created again. Cover art is going to end up being one of the shortest-lived forms of art there has ever been. Kind of like the stereotypical image of a rock star–live fast, die young. Someday they’ll exhibit album cover art at the Guggenheim–and mourn its early demise.

In the meantime though, I intend to continue expanding my music collection the old school way. Besides, if I buy used CDs, they’re still cheaper than iTunes.