First off I’d like to apologise to Studio Parris Wakefield for taking my sweet time to get this post together. But at least I’ve timed this post with the day of it’s release.

If you have a Joy Division fan in your life then this release has been perfectly timed with Xmas gift time. Oh and the 20th Anniversary of Ian Curtis’ death.

The Deluxe edition (limited to 500 copies) is SOLD OUT but you can still order the standard edition which is limited to 5,000 copies.

There is some insight into the design process from SPW on their blog. Used here with permission.

We have been working on the design of the new Joy Division box set ‘+-’. Now we are able to share
with you the story behind the imagery.

In Peter Saville’s book ‘Estate 1-27′ Michael Bracewell describes Saville’s work with Factory Records and in particular Joy Division as the ‘…muniments of a crematorium in deep space.’ Thus inspiring Saville to look towards the infinite qualities of the universe to capture the essence of a collection of Joy Division singles.

Tasked with the brief of ‘deep space and nebulae’, Howard Wakefield researched through the collection of Nasa imagery at SpaceImages. While tempted with a nebula called Factory, its name was too good to be true, for it didn’t compare with the more expansive deep blue nebula of Hubble NGC 346 SMC. Peter Saville was keen to see how it could be transformed from being purely documentary, so suggested an inverted, monochrome version.

The Factory Nebula. This image was not used.

The actual NASA space image used aptly named Hubble NGC 346 SMC. Check out the official NASA press release of this image from 2005.

In addition to the compilations cover SPW were also tasked with recreating the covers of the 10 singles. But this was not as simple as it seems.

Of the 10 Joy Division singles, only 3 were ever released on 7 inch vinyl. There were 3 EPS, a flexi disc, a booklet, a 12 inch and even an LP. Compounding this, the artworks didn’t exist in a state that could be used anymore, so the only option was to scan the sleeves.

However, scanning was not possible as each sleeve would need to be cropped to allow for printer’s ‘bleed’, so Saville suggested a border. At which point Wakefield saw the potential of portraying the singles as, not only important musically, but important in the history of music design. The design was as influential as the music and they should be both represented as such. The design concept was agreed – they should be portrayed as pieces in a gallery.

The sleeves were photographed and presented as moments in music and design history, backed with caption-style text on the reverse, allowing the music and the original sleeves to be the stars…

Here are the 10 covers. I think the photography presentation of them actually makes them look better.

SPW also blogged about the origin of the + – (or Plus Minus if you are trying to Google it) which in itself reveals an interesting story about Teenbeat and their lawsuit/PR stunt against the record label.

Where did the title + – come from? What was the influence? In 1988, Factory Records released the Joy Division single ‘Atmosphere’ from the compilation ‘Substance’ – the inner sleeve showed a detail of ‘Plus en Min’ by Jan van Munster.

Naturally, in 2010, during the discussions over titling the forthcoming Joy Division compilation, we were drawn to the 1988 release as inspiration. Calling it ‘Substance’ was too close a title to the original release, however, titling it ‘+ -’ was an acknowledgement to the 1988 release as the newly remastered track list was the same.

As part of the Deluxe box set, Peter Saville was asked to create a piece for inclusion. Originally there was a notion that a new ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ metal plate be created, but the cost was too prohibitive. However a perspex interpretation of the + – was more appropriate as the glow edge referenced the + – image from 1988.

To replicate the orange glow, a choice of two colours were available – Lava Orange or Mars Red. For cost and timing issues, Mars Red was selected.

Regarding the recent Pitchfork story about Teenbeat (the label) and +- (the band) who are suing for trademark infringement and plagiarism. We find this very strange, as the band admit to being influenced by Joy Division. Yet they are comparing their artwork (2002 album +-) which clearly appears to be influenced by the 1988 Joy Division imagery. Is this a stunt? Enough said.

Sadly this is the + – cover is only available when you buy the deluxe edition.

And this is the cover from + – from Teen Beat records.

So Lava Orange is more expensive than Mars Red? Budget is something I think Jan van Munster has never had to worry about. His work is amazing while his website sucks. The + – motive is spread across a lot of his work. I really like the “Brainwave” series with the wobbly neon lights. This could have almost been a cover itself.

And lastly SPW also designed a poster for an event at Rough Trade this week. More info here.

Here is a promo video from Rhino on the compilation.

The entire package itself is an impressive piece although the standard of compilation packs/limited edition runs these days is very high. I’m reminded of the Pet Shop Boys “Yes” packaging. At least this one is only $100 and not $450!

Take a look at SPW’s other musical design work and take in just how influential they have been. It also doesn’t hurt that Peter Saville is so closely connected to them also.

This is the fourth in our series of five seminal album covers by female artists

Parallel Lines, the third album by Blondie, was released in late 1978. By 1979, when they were finally huge in the States, the band felt the need to start a “Blondie is a Group” button campaign. Even for those discovering the band’s considerable appeal today, it’s so easy to think of Blondie as Debbie Harry and her backing band.

This is of course disrespectful to the musicians that created some of the best pop songs of all time – but it probably has more to do with Harry’s diaphanous star quality than any shortcoming on behalf of the others. A talented songwriter, confident performer and irresistible vocalist, she’s one of those few that manage to genuinely walk the: “women want to be her, men want to be with her” tightrope. As Rolling Stone puts it, she “invented a new kind of rock & roll appeal that brought New York demimonde style to the mainstream”. I was reading a book about the birth of hip hop which suggested that if graffiti tributes were the measure, then Harry was certainly the number one sex-symbol in the Bronx.

When Parallel Lines was being recorded, Blondies’ Machiavellian manager Peter Leeds was well aware who his meal ticket was. “I was not fond of Peter” Harry told Q magazine “He told the boys that they could all be replaced, I was the only important one.” While the cover for Parallel Lines is widely regarded as an iconic classic, ironically for the band it’s a symbol of manipulation and contributed to the dropping of Leeds as manager. “I don’t think it’s a great design, personally” says Harry.

The story revealed in Q’s “The 100 Best Record Covers of All Time” is really interesting and not at all what you’d expect. Apparently the band were sold on the idea that they would fade in and out of the stripes, which was the one element they liked. The facial expressions – Harry’s sexy as hell scowl contrasted with the guys’ goofy grins – were also Leeds’ idea. According to Harry, he tricked them into pulling the expressions once and then proceeded to make the cover without showing them.

“Everyone just flipped out” Harry said “We were shocked that the artwork had been completed without our approval and that the decision had been made without the band.”

It was the final straw and Leeds was replaced by Alice Copper’s manager Shep Gordon. But at least the duo-chromatic cover, with the guys either predicting Reservoir Dogs or remembering the mod craze of the 60’s, featured the whole band. Singles artwork would be even more selective.

Much has been made of Harry’s influence on future female artists but it’s also interesting to see the “Blondie is a Group” dilemma replayed with such striking regularly. Should a band with a charismatic female lead singer resent the fact that she gets the lion’s share of the attention – or just be grateful for the attention?

Or is this just something that many bands have to deal with regardless of gender – after all, when most people think of Blur isn’t it Damon Albarn that comes to mind?

This record cover from 1981 is a homage to Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (“The Lunch on the Grass”).

The large scale oil on canvas painting by Edouard Manet was finished in 1863 and caused instant controversy, due to the scandalous combination of a naked women next to two fully dressed men. Their casual, relaxed demeanor underscores the pervading sense of weirdness the canvas exudes – particularly for its era. While today it looks like a relatively tame juxtaposition, at the time it was a provocation to say the least. Of course, Le déjeuner sur l’herbe can now be found in the venerable Musée d’Orsay in Paris and is an important part of any syllabus discussing the modern art period.

Bow Wow Wow, meanwhile, are now little more than a footnote of the 1980’s New Wave movement. They were founded by Malcolm McLaren, former manager of the Sex Pistols and New York Dolls, to promote the New Romantic fashion lines he released with partner Vivienne Westwood. McLaren must be one of the great post-modern operators of the last fifty years, an artist and promoter that combined aggressive opportunism with a sharp eye for the next big thing. To put together this band he stole most of the lineup from Adam Ant and then auditioned vocalists to join as the lead singer. After many fruitless months he eventually discovered his vocalist in 14 year old Annabella Lwin, who was working behind the counter at a dry-cleaning shop. The band would go on to create an eccentric and noisy combination of 80’s pop and world music and today they are most remembered for their amazing cover version of “I Want Candy”.

Note Lwin’s nudity in the single cover above, because it was McLaren’s enthusiasm for showing his lead singer in the buff that would land the band in trouble. She was only 15 years old when the photography for the cover of See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy. was taken. Her outraged mother cried exploitation and involved Scotland Yard in an attempt to keep her daughter from leaving the country with McLaren. After all, who would let their underage child be sexualised just to sell records?

McLaren’s powers of persuasion resulted in a compromise, with Lwin able to remain in the band on the condition that she was not marketed as a “sex kitten”. An alternate cover was issued in the US and UK (while the offending cover art was still released in many major European markets).

Bow Wow Wow would attract further controversy for “referencing” African music a little too closely – with many suggesting that it came closer to plagiarism. And in more than one case you could accuse them of unoriginiality.

But the cover for See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy. is still considered a classic today. The composition and photography are beautiful and the performances and fashion perfectly update Manet’s iconic image. It also neatly encapsulates McLaren particular genius – in updating a once reviled but now canonised painting, he succeeds in refreshing its controversy. The viewer is again shocked at the woman’s presence in the picture, only this time because of her age.

Is it creepy? Brilliant? Both? Would it even raise eyebrows today?

No one belongs together in unholy 80′s union more than Duran Duran and Patrick Nagel. One look at a Nagel print I think of Andrew McCarthy knocking back a Chi Chi after a solid game of Frogger wondering whether to go with the white denim or white sports jacket with the pastel polo…or maybe the pink tee?…

Patrick Nagel designed the cover to Duran Duran‘s American top ten (Australian #1) album RIO in his innovative trademark fashion – commonly described as a distinctive mix of art-deco and Japanese style woodblock.“The Nagel Woman” became something of a phenomenon in the 1980′s, primarily from Nagel’s work being regularly featured in Playboy magazine and patronage by film studios, fashion/music magazines and corporate clients like IBM.

Nagel’s process is one of creating more with less. He is often said to have started with a line drawing of a photograph then taken out elements he found unnecessary (Nagel figures often lack detailed digits and extremities) then adding large blocks of matte pastel and cropping the frame at a slightly skewed angle.

An alternate Nagel cover for a 2001 re-issue.

Nagel was something of a contemporary art phenomenon in the 80′s – if you grew up in this era chances are you came across his art, or a derivative of it, without even knowing it. The squared eyes, pinks, puces, mauves (I swear to God he never used a primary colour – apparently Nagel used more Paynes grey than any other painter – for an excellent recollection of Nagel’s practices head over to The Art History Archive) off the shoulder poses, Brigitte Nielsen haircuts – it’s all Nagel.

If you want something to look like the 80′s, chances are you’ll borrow from Nagel – those of you who are familiar with the GTA Vice City artwork (you’re reading a blog about album covers, you’re probably supposed to be working, I’m sure you’ve never played a computer game) will notice Stephen Bliss’s homage in the awesome cover/booklet art from the game.

In a tragic, but morbidly humorous turn, Nagel (who apparently enjoyed his fair share of booze, cigs and fast food and hated exercise) suffered a fatal heart attack after a celebrity ‘aerobathon’. Thankfully he didn’t associate with the type of folks who might prop him up with sunglasses and run around pretending he was still alive, slamming his nuts into poles and pushing him from speedboats.

So who better to pair up with the 80′s biggest coke/glam mullet-fringe titans than the Toulouse Latrec of the skinny ties? Even Russel Mulchahy pulled a few Nagel moves in the video for Rio (pre – Highlander).

For those of you who really want to live like ’80′s guy’ – here is what I believe to be a reliable Chi Chi recipe – now go and conquer wall street.
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup ice
2 oz vodka
1/2 oz blue curaçao
1/2 oz cream of coconut
1/2 cup fresh or canned pineapple
scoop of vanilla ice cream
chunk of pineapple for garnish
PREPARATION:
Pour all ingredients into a blender.
Blend until smooth.
Pour into a chilled margarita or highball glass.
Garnish with the pineapple.
If the mix turns out too thick add juice; too thin add ice or ice cream.

The artwork was also used for the single cover of “Hungry Like The Wolf”

Here’s a recent 2007 interview with Malcolm.

Design of the sleeve was done by Malcom Garrett of Assorted Images who also studied at the same school as Peter Saville.

I’ll leave you all with this Professor Farnsworth mashup.

Here’s a quick post. Mostly due to the limited information out there on this release. But I thought the simplicity and humor was quite interesting. I can just imagine this being a smart ass response from the designer as to what the cover should be and someone though they were serious.

The previous XTC release Go 2 was an interesting cover that poked fun at the art of album covers. This cover is just a simple visual pun. In fact the majority of the XTC covers are quite fun.

This was a US only single (their first) released from XTC’s “Drum and Wires” album.

If anyone has info on the designers behind this I’d be very grateful.

What makes this cover for XTC’s Go 2 interesting is that it was from Hipgnosis, the same UK design group that brought us some of the most original and memorable covers for bands like Pink Floyd, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Yes and Black Sabbath.

Hipgnosis’s trademark story like imagery is replaced by copy poking fun at the art form that’s made them famous. It’s unlike any of their work before or after. I’d also say there was nothing like it at record shops back in 1978, this is same year Saturday Night Fever was released.

The back cover continued where the front left off.

Both the album and the cassette had slightly different text. Obviously due to the size limitations of the cassette.

As with all good ideas the temptation to copy them was too great for a few other designers. Hey, for an album released in 1978 who’s gonna know right? While the art direction may be different the idea is the same. The following all are interesting covers but I feel as XTC was the first it deserves the credit.

First up was Flipper’s Generic Flipper from 1982.
Here the execution was condensed down to just one word.

Public Image Ltd.’s 1986 Compact Disc gave people browsing the local record store no doubt what they were buying. With the Album, CD and cassette versions all displayed their literal name.

P.I.L were actually called out by Generic Flipper for ripping off their idea. See WIKI entry for more details.

The Designers Republic used a similar treatment in 1997 for the 2nd print of Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy.

And most recently Hard-Fi have been patting themselves on the back for “breaking the rules” for their 2007 Once Upon A Time in the West release. Read this article on NME if you need a dose of ego driven BS.

The Times have a better article regarding this found here.

And the same treatment for the single Suburban Knights.

There also the System of the Down’s 2002 ‘Steal This Album’, however I feel this is different enough (and inspired by book) to warrant it’s own feature and will post up soon.

Final Analysis:
While the more latter examples are bolder, XTC’s long form copy actually draws you in and compels you to pick it up and read it. (Well it would if it was still in print) I doubt many of you skipped over what was actually written on the cover and very few didn’t find it a refreshing read.

P.S: I wonder if Hipgnosis charged the same amount for this as their other more elaborate covers?

As the debut album for Joy Division it must have been a big decision to go sans text. It’s fortunate Peter Saville had the support of label manager Tony Wilson, featured in 24 Hour Party People, which allowed such great ideas to go ahead. It paid off, it’s minimalist yet still visually interesting. The cover and the music are as timeless and influential as each other.
(Update: fixed my inaccurate info)

I originally thought the lines were sound waves from a track but Wikipedia tells me it’s exactly 100 successive pulses from the first pulsar discovered PSR B1919. Just shows how little I know.

If you’re a mad Joy Division collector check this page for all the versions of the album you can track down and spend thousands on.

Here’s a scan of the original technical illustration from the Cambridge Encyclopaedia Of Astronomy which you can actually still buy on Amazon. I’m not sure if this reduces the “artistic integrity” of the design as it’s really just a scan inversed.

I found these custom NB’s with Unknown Pleasures artwork, more photos here. Pretty sweet but who wears NB’s anyway :)

This has since been shown to be an artist’s homage to Peter Saville (link).

You can also get this as a Threadless shirt here. Although it’s probably sold out like all the good shirts on Threadless.

Update: Tony Wilson died Aug 10 (today) from cancer in Manchester’s Christie Hospital ages 57.