There’s so much mystery about this cover that perhaps it’s better to start with what we do know. The image was taken by London-based Jake Walters, a commercial photographer with an impressive portfolio across fashion, celebrity and editorial portraiture.

The adorable baby, with its cheeky little expression so at odds with Morrissey’s stern gaze, is the son of Charlie Brown, Morrissey’s assistant tour manager.

Design practice No Allegiances is responsible for the design and packaging. Having noticed the subtle Mexican sounds in the music, they took their cue from Mexican folk art and vintage California. The typography was inspired by the work of legendary illustrator and printmaker José Guadalupe Posada.

The packaging also features a still life, Bodegon Con Jarra de Vino (1914), by A. Fuentes.

Noting the chiaroscuro of both the cover photography and painting, No Allegiances ran the LP and special CD version on fabric-textured stock to “makes the record feel like an oil painting hanging in the Louvre that you shouldn’t have just touched.”

But what does it all mean? The arresting image on the cover of Morrissey’s ninth studio album caused an instant deluge of speculation when it was first surfaced late last year.

Widely reported as celibate, the image of an awkwardly paternal Morrissey seemed unlikely. It also followed two other popular covers where the indie icon held a gun and a violin.

The consensus opinion seemed to be that the title referred to his years of refusing sex and that the baby on the cover symbolically represented an absence born of this choice.

Complicating matters further are the symbols – one of which appears on the baby’s forehead and the other on his arm. When the image first appeared online the file size was too small to fully make these out. Was that a W on the baby’s forehead? Did it represent the outgoing president of the Unites States?

Um, no – the baby has a butterfly on his forehead, while Morrissey’s arm seems to feature a caterpillar. For me, this awkward symbolism is the cover’s one misstep and adds little to what appears to be an instantly iconic image.

If it’s meaning is opaque, it’s no accident. This is after all this is Morrissey – a cultural figure that has always defied easy categorisation. An artist that has referred to himself as being “a fourth sex”; that famously campaign for animal rights and vegetarianism. A man who has flirted with the nationalistic far right and in the nineties developed what Encyclopedia Brittanica described as “a growing homoerotic obsession with criminals, skinheads, and boxers”.

Anticipating speculation about his latest cover, he had already drafted a response on the sleeve notes to The Years of Refusal:

“If you ask why the new album has the title it has (‘Years of Refusal’) and why on the cover he is holding the baby, after holding on previous covers the violin and the gun, because after all people will want to know, or more rumours will spill into the world and its voracious, agitated internet shadow, the sigh will almost crack into real annoyance. If you sail close to the gale force wind and bring up the sticky situations he finds himself in when he talks of his mythical old England, its disappearance and/or cultural and commercial conversion, and heretically flirts with the flag, and faces expulsion from the entertainment scene, then the sigh and the awkwardness will know no bounds.”

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

I’m pretty sure my Dad had a really big crush on Rickie Lee Jones. Her name resonates for me because he was a huge music fan and started buying CDs when the format was released. He bought all of hers as soon as they were reissued and I vividly remember looking at this cover when I was a kid and listening to her biggest hit Chuck E.’s in Love.

It turns out that my Dad was not alone in his affections. In researching this cover, I’ve come across plenty of love letters to the Jones that appeared on the scene in 1979, with her alluring air of hipster cool. Blogger Al Barger puts it this way: “Obviously, Rickie was THE ultimate romantic fantasy object of any cool guy my age…The time less spiritual of my classmates were spending concentrating on the Farrah Fawcett poster or some such, I spent enthralled with that album cover with the beret and chewing on the cigar.”

At the time she was in a relationship with one of the only guys on the planet who could match her in the cool stakes (and shot for shot). Jones and Tom Waits were known as rock music’s “bohemian couple”. The first sleeve she ever featured on was Wait’s 1978 Blue Valentine and the photos on the back cover make for an image that is even parts trashy and alluring.

A quote on the Tom Waits Library provides more detail about their romance: “The first time I saw Rickie Lee she reminded me of Jayne Mansfield. I thought she was extremely attractive, which is to say that my first reactions were rather primitive – primeval even. Her style onstage was appealing and arousing, sorta like that of a sexy white spade. She was drinking a lot then [1977] and I was too, so we drank together. You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.”

Getting smashed was something that the young and beautiful Jones was extremely keen on and it would be naïve to suggest that her aura of cool wasn’t sustained by rampant self-destruction. In 1979 she staged a remarkable breakout, with a single and an album in the Billboard Top Five and five Grammy nominations. She even made the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine (the issue that sold like hotcakes).

Time Magazine dubbed her ‘The Duchess of Coolsville’. She was greeted with the kind of critical and commercial adulation enjoyed by Amy Winehouse – and I make that comparison in more ways than one. In recent interviews, she has talked about “using drugs to the extent that you know this time you might die. Whereas some people seem able to take dope a little bit for their whole lives, they are not going to take it to their demise. And those of us who are addicts are in great danger because nothing is ever enough.”

The photo and cover design are by Norman Seeff, who was responsible for Playing Possum sleeve and for the portrait of Mitchell used on the Hejira cover. I realise that this series of covers by women artists has also become something of a Seeff retrospective as well, which is testament to how incredibly in demand we was in the seventies. It’s well worth visiting his site to gawk at all the famous faces that he has helped to immortalize.

In this portrait of Jones, he creates a bohemian and jazzy atmosphere that evokes the music on the album. An article in The Guardian perfectly describes the appeal of this album cover, which “became iconic – the hollowed cheeks, beatnik beret, dangling cheroot; she looked so cool.” But for a beautiful woman in her mid-twenties her face is far too care-worn and gaunt. Her focus is exclusively on her smoke and the intensity with which she regards it tells you much of her compulsive nature. It’s not clear whether the beautiful light behind her denotes sunrise or sunset – but if it’s morning you assume she hasn’t been to bed and if it’s evening that she’s just woken up.

She could be Winehouse or Cat Power, or even Courtney Love, but perhaps she was one of the first women to realise (even subconsciously) that her weaknesses could become her brand; her addiction her hallmark.

Another famous cover from the 1979 was Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English, who had a substantial head start grappling with addiction.

Faithful seems to be holding the cigarette more out of habit than anything else and the blown out lighting and gesture instantly brings to mind the squinting pain we all feel doing the “walk of shame” after a big night. It’s just that her big night had been going for over a decade.

Today, both Jones and Faithfull are clean. They are still writing, recording and performing music. Former ‘it’ girls, they are now something far more admirable – battle-scarred survivors who have seemingly wrestled their demons and come out on top.

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?

True Blue was released in 1986 and to this day remains the best-selling Madonna album. I remember my older sister buying it and listening to it constantly. Shortly afterwards she got into The Smiths and informed me that Madonna “was shit”. True Blue spawned a bundle of top-ten hits and boasted the pop star’s first famous reinvention, from lace-covered “boy-toy” to a platinum blonde, toned man-eater. Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine called it “the supreme archetype for late ’80s and early ’90s pop music” and said that with this album “Madonna made the transition from pop tart to consummate artist, joining the ranks of ’80s icons like Michael Jackson and Prince.”

Of course, Madonna never had the musical talent to rival her 80’s contemporaries Michael Jackson and Prince. Her gift is in picking the right producer and tune for the moment and repackaging herself to suit the times. As Joni Mitchell would snarkily have it, she’s “hit talent out of the ballpark. She’s become the most famous person in the world by hiring the right people.”

One of those people was the late Herb Ritts, the photographer behind this cover. He began his career in the late 70’s and would eventually become the leading celebrity and fashion photographer of his time.

Ritts’ work became short code for high gloss, commercial photography. In the advertising industry there was a joke that lazy or desperate art directors would say: “I’ve got an idea, Herb Ritts!”, when they couldn’t come up with anything original. He was also an accomplished fine arts photographer and when his work was displayed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1997, more than 250,000 attended the show.

As is so often the case with Madonna, she managed to spot him on the way up.

“I met Madonna in ’83 or ’84, when I was commissioned to do an ad for a movie called Desperately Seeking Susan” he recalled. “I remember that day. I was in New York City in an old factory loft with lots of windows. She arrived early and marched into the studio with all her “boy-toy” belts and black lace, very definite. She opened a cigar box with all of her jewelry, mainly little silver crosses. She said, “I’ve seen all your work in Lei magazine. You’re good.” She knew who I was, though I’d only been shooting for a couple of years.”

The True Blue cover is the most recognizable and sensual picture he took of her. The cassette tape and poster version is even sexier.

It’s a perfect example of what a post-modern operator she is – the hair Monroe’s, the jacket James Dean’s, the eyebrows Frida Kahlo’s. The images from the shoot are also a reminder that at her career zenith she was just, well, incredibly rootable.

Yet as Nathan Rabin – for my money the best writer on the web – points out in the AV Club, “there’s nothing particularly natural about Madonna’s sex appeal. It’s largely a matter of attitude and lighting, iconography and shrewd calculation, exhibitionism, and a finely honed gift for provocation. It’s telling that many of Madonna’s most fruitful artistic collaborations are with photographers and music video directors. Depending on the angle and the outfit, Madonna can look like Marilyn Monroe reborn or the boogeyman’s grandma.”

On this cover she gets the angle and the outfit just right.

Postscript:  One of our readers crack_ho pointed us in the direction of a fascinating interview with Jeri Heiden, the Art Director who worked on a number of Madonna covers including Like a Virgin, True Blue and Like a Prayer. Well worth checking out.

As one of the biggest-selling music artists of all time, Michael Jackson helped to set the template for contemporary cover art. This is the cover of his first solo EP, as he made the fateful decision to pursue a career away from The Jackson 5.

While the art direction and design have dated, what makes the cover so appealing is Michael’s sheer charisma and charm. He’s the very embodiment of youth – full of exuberance and casual optimism; his wide smile and cockiness all the more adorable because he appears to be wearing his big brother’s clothes.

Wikipedia defines tragedy as ‘a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure’. The cover of Got To Be There is most resonant today as a poignant ‘before photo’, given what a tragedy the artist’s life eventually became. He scaled a pedestal shared by only a handful of other entertainers, an achievement that only served to make his self-destruction more compelling.

Jackson album covers are no doubt being dusted off in households around the world, as people make an effort to remember him at his peak.

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?

For Bob Evans’ (aka Kevin Mitchell) third album, he took a decidedly different approach to the artwork. Goodnight, Bull Creek! alludes to his native suburb outside of Perth and his departure for new terrain. The artwork is a departure as well from his first two albums: Suburban Kid and Suburban Songbook.

The new look, while still nostalgic and romantic, has more of a storybook, hand-crafted quality to it. The liner notes are an excerpt of Bob’s studio diary from the recording, with lyrics being placed on his website instead. All captions to the booklet illustrations are Bob’s own.

Sleevage caught up with Kareena Zerefos, the illustrator of all GNBC!-related artwork. The artwork is based on a series of photographs by Andrew Christie, a Perth friend of Bob’s, and re-interpreted by Kareena. Her other album artwork credits include Sparkadia and The John Steel Singers. And if you’re a regular at venerable Sydney live venue, The Hopetoun, undoubtedly Kareena’s work gracing the walls has given you a moment’s pause over your schooner.

Q: What type of illustration & design work do you typically do? How do you describe your style?

KZ: Most of the work I do involves hand drawn illustration, which I often work in with some computer generated design elements – particularly for commercial projects. I love working for clients within the music and fashion industries, and I’m lucky to have the opportunity to do this quite a bit.

I would describe my style as being delicate, nostalgic and whimsical.

Q: How did you get involved in the Bob Evans album artwork?

KZ: It was back in December last year that I received a lovely email from Kevin, he had come across some of my work while looking for inspiration for album art and after having a bit of a chat about it all, I ended up working on the artwork for Goodnight, Bull Creek!

Q: What was the brief for the artwork?

The brief was fairly open, I suppose the main criteria basically was to draw “a simple walking picture” of Kevin. This was great because I was able to have a bit of a play, which allowed the artwork to evolve in its own way. We ended up deciding to show this evolution with the artwork for the first single release from the album, Someone So Much.

Photo by Andrew Christie

Someone So Much – single

Q: How did the music play a role in the artwork?

I think Goodnight, Bull Creek! has a really honest, personal feel to it – similar to the older Bob Evans raw folkish sound [but I suppose a little bit more rock and roll!] and I wanted to sort of tie everything together like a storybook through my illustrations. The most important thing to me was to try and capture the honesty, but also the energy and, to some extent, earthiness.

Q: How did you go about creating the artwork?

The artwork was created with a multitude of hand drawn and painted layers. It started out as a sketch to get an idea of composition and also posture, then it was really about finding the right expression in the face and finally bringing in more colour, texture and movement. I worked with all of these elements in photoshop to evolve these as the ideas developed.

Someone So Much – EP

Q: Tell us about the font choices.

We became quite interested in the idea of the artwork being a little bit like that of a vintage storybook [a bit of an obsession of mine!], so when playing around with different ideas for the type this was what I had in mind. I based the type on an existing classic serif typeface, but tweaked it a little to make it a little more personal and unique.

Q: What were the biggest challenges with the project?

Working with portraits is generally one of the most challenging things to do, particularly when there is a tight deadline and a small number of reference images to work from. Finding the right expression, depicting a realistic likeness and making this work with the overall figure and composition was quite difficult with this piece.

Q: What’s next for you?

I’m about to head over to Sweden and Denmark for a little inspirational trip, there are some fantastic artists and designers from that part of the world, and I’m also really interested in the landscape and history. When I return I’m hoping to have a bit of time to explore new ideas and materials for my personal artwork… and besides that, I’ll take it as it comes .

Kareena’s artwork is being featured alongside that of Daniel Boud and Greedy Hen at the World Bar in Kings Cross.

If ever there was doubt about what was the inspiration behind the latest cover for “Yes” from the Pet Shop boys I think this quote covers it all.

“When we had our first meeting about this album, Neil and Chris said that this was their most ‘pop’ album in a long time and the idea of creating something very bright and colourful – as we had for their ‘Introspective’ album – really appealed to them,” says Mark Farrow. “They had also been inspired by the Gerhard Richter 4900 exhibition at the Serpentine gallery which featured panels of brightly coloured squares.”

Farrow Design once again provided the design and continue their long stading relationship with the band. While some record labels treat design agencies like disposable toys it’s nice to see bands sticking by design houses for extended periods of time.

Here is Gerhard Richter (that has to be one of the most German names I have ever heard) talking about his 4900 exhibition.

Personally I hate this type of minimal art BS. But I do like it when juxtaposed with a stained glass window like this one featured on his Wikipedia page for the Cologne Cathedral.

Is the colored squares forming a “tick” which is a literal translation of the album name lazy or inspired? While I think in an artistic sense it is lazy (or uninspired) from a graphic design point of view I think its a beautiful solution. The art can be easily translated to a number of mediums and it lends itself to a multitude of remixes and interpretations for future singles. As seen below with the Love Etc. singles. And more importantly, for bands these days, it was probably cheap to produce. Although Farrow’s services would not come cheap.

Oh and to throw in another positive the artwork reduces down to a thumbnail well and so browsing iTunes or Amazon it’s simple enough to stand out.

The album photos also features the coloured squares breaking up photos of the duo. This might have been done to hide the fact they only had two photos and no idea for this part.

In addition to the album there was also a Limited Edition double disc seen below.

But you can’t call yourself a fan unless you buy the super limited edition 11 x vinyl edition which will consist of the album tracks split over eleven separate vinyl records, each in a coloured sleeve, all housed in a smoked Perspex case. Yours for just £300! Ouch. Sorry they are sold out already.

Here’s two highlights;

• Additional 12th sleeve contains giclee art print hand signed and numbered by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, plus heavyweight information card containing full track list, credits and colour key.
• When correctly arranged the eleven album sleeves will allow you to make up your own tick, measuring some eight feet in length.
(Why would you want to do this!! Seriously) If you have done this please send us the photo.

These limited edition sets were produced by The Vinyl Factory which seems to be making a name for itself producing hi-end fan porn.

If anyone has paid attention to what NIN has been doing lately you can see that this trend is here to stay. It seems to be a legitimate way for fans to make some real dosh. It’s the new basketball cards where collecting stuff will someday pay off….

This time the album is white and the limited editions are black where as it was the opposite for the “Fundamental” album which was black with the single in white.

Here is the official film clip and the pre-release “listening clip” for the Love Etc singles. I love that labels are embracing the “listening clip” as a legitimate way to promote a song.

Here’s the official clip. Sad no pixels in this one. It reminds me of a Gilbert and George piece of art.

As we always seem to hark on about it’s nice to see the Pet Shop Boys official site take on the look of the album. Although I wish they would do away with the 100% flash interface, especially in the news section.

Lastly the actual CD itself (yes music still comes on CD’s) is devoid of colour.

Freud’s Corner: Is the tick a subconscious symbol for the male erection?

You can read more about the cover here on Creative Review’s blog.

Live album artwork is a tough call… How does a designer create a striking and original concept when they’re usually provided with a stock-standard single (probably grey-scale or sepia) photograph of an artist on stage in front a legion of adoring fans?
Here’s a predictable photo+brief. Go forth, unleash your genius!

The Cat Empire’s first live album, Live On Earth managed to dodge the live album drudgery minefield. The creative agency Debaser, still featured the mandatory gig pics, but also provided saturated colour & high contrast, reinforced the band’s identity as a live act, conveyed the multi-faceted nature of the band*, & threw in an extra shot of a guy in a ski-mask for good measure.

* rock / jazz / hip-hop / pop / ska / reggae, if you didn’t know… I’ve never in my life seen a granny shaking it with a teenager in a hoodie during a turntable scratching solo other than at an Empire show – it’s… unique.

If you live in Australia and go to more than one gig a year, you’ve been to a show. Their live show reputation precedes them: on the opening night of the Sydney Festival this year, they played to 100,000 people in The Domain. They hold the record for the most consecutive shows at Sydney’s Metro Theatre (8 sold out gigs) & the largest audience ever in Darling Harbour. The six of them have toured since 2000, playing in Cuba, Japan, all over Europe, Canada, the USA, & of course Australia (hence the name Live on Earth) and tallying up a massive 650 shows in the last 7 years.

So it makes sense to use a photo-mosaic to convey their sheer number of live shows and sizeable audiences. The high colour saturation captures the energy and wildness of their shows. Also, how the hell else do you show a horn section + turntables + african drums + keys + dancing nuns all in a single image?

I’m grateful they didn’t resort to the cliched photo-mosaic style popularised in the 90s which adorns so many college dorm walls, where the comprising images may as well be photos of Persian cats for all the detail we can see… The Cat Empire photos allow us to see the fans and band members in equal perspective (the first time the band has featured prominently on a cover), and attempt to form no greater image other than the simple and iconic Cat Empire logo.

Speaking of… the Cat Empire crowned cat-eye logo (known as “Pablo”) has been a single thread running through their back catalogue – it has featured prominently on all their artwork, and is reminiscent of the omnipresent NIN logo. It’s fantastic when a band makes a conscious stylistic decision to find an image / font / concept that represents them and actually sticks to it, like the Weezer Century Gothic logo, NIN logo or Iron Maiden’s Eddy .

Of course, the world’s love affair with Helvetica has been continued on the Live On Earth album. The choice was for Ultra Compressed, although it has been slightly distorted for their usage. Having recently seen the Helvetica documentary, sans-serifs are haunting my dreams.

The kids responsible for the artwork are Dave Homer & Aaron Hayward of Sydney firm Debaser, who are responsible for most of the fantastic Australian album art for the last few years including Empire of the Sun, Jackson Jackson, Paul Kelly, Faker, Kisschasy, Tim Finn, Powderfinger, etc etc…

The Live On Earth album is available from Feb 28 in Australia, but you can download a free 25min live version of The Car Song off the album at www.thecatempire.com.

I am at two minds about this album cover. Part of me hates it, part of me likes it. No part of me loves it but every part thinks it’s interesting. It looks like nothing else on the shelf at HMV at at a time like this that is a good thing.

The actual music itself is pretty good also. I expected the worst then was surprised that I had heard a few of the tracks already. Damn girlfriend and her morning radio fix.

What strikes me most about this cover is that it’s a fairly unflattering photo of her and for a debut album you’d expect the standard over produced beauty shot. Not a American Apparel reject with glitter.

I heard a funny quote somewhere that “Glitter was the herpes of craft”. So true it’s hard as hell to get rid off.

It somehow reminds me of Minor Threat’s cover.

At the risk of sounding like a weirdo I just finished reading a book on body language and from what I remember the pose here is showing nervousness, the hands between the legs is to protect herself. They could be hand cuffs that were photoshopped out? The down pointed head with the eyes raised is meant to symbolize a child looking up at the parent to gain sympathy. Princess Di used this all the time.

This probably would have been the cover photo had someone wearing a suit be allowed to make the decision.

The cover artist is Isabelle Lumpkin may not have much info on here official site but she’s on Friendster although that might change once she knows you can Google her name and it appears. That’s good right?

Her site seems to match the style of the cover which makes me feel either she is really into that style or Santogold label chose her and said “we’ll have one of those”. That’s a pretty negative view but it happens! Here’s a bunch of other art done for the singles and promotion pieces. Nice to see the theme continued throughout the series.

I found this clipping from here site but unfortunately it’s fairly impossible to read. I assume it’s a tongue in cheek “How to make an album cover” guide.

While searching around I realized Santogold was also part of that Pharrell filmclip for Converse a little while back. The clip is still a fav of mine.

Check out Santogold’s Myspace page here. No official site it seems. More info on who produced the album (a all star cast it seems) here on the Wikipedia page.

I also found that Sterolab’s latest album “Chemical Chords” sleeve also features glitter and cut out typography. Designed by Intro.

Will we see more glitter in 2009? Mmm maybe not. Cut out text maybe but still unlikely it’ll catch on. Too much work in this digital design world we live in.

This is the song I got stuck in my head now

Oh wait I get it now. SantoGOLD and gold glitter!!!

And if you are wondering about the lack of updates we are working on Sleevage 2.0 right now in the hopes to make it easier for everyone to contribute. You can also follow me on Twitter to see how busy I am @100ftzombie

Final Note: Also this was posted very late I’ll reread and edit during daylight hours.

Australia is falling in love with Empire Of The Sun, Luke Steele (The Sleepy Jackson) & Nick Littlemore (PNAU). Their track Walking On A Dream has been storming the airwaves here and to our excitement on a slow wet Friday, Empire Of the Sun have given us a look at their new artwork, we just had to share it with you. We will follow this up with a more detailed report shortly. But for now, we like what we see!

While you are waiting, make sure you check out their stunning new video for Walking On A Dream. The video was shot recently in Shanghai, China by Josh Logue from Mathematics.

To download a remix, or more info check out their: Official Site, or Myspace

Coldplay have started to unveil all their artwork for their 4th album ‘Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends’. Coldplay’s new single, ‘Violet Hill’, will be available as a free download exclusively from coldplay.com for one week starting today, April 29 at 9.15pm (AEST). This is a full week ahead of the single’s conventional paid-for digital release, on Tuesday May 6th.

Artwork: ‘Viva La Vida’
Here is a little background about this amazing work of art. It’s by Eugène Delacroix (French Romantic Painter) and was painted in 1830 titled “Liberty Leading The People”. Eugene Delacroix is numbered among the greatest and most influential of French painters. He is most often classified as an artist of the Romantic school. His remarkable use of colour was later to influence impressionist painters and even modern artists such as Pablo Picasso.

Liberty Leading The People; Painted on 28 July 1830, to commemorate the July Revolution that had just brought Louis-Philippe to the French throne; Louvre.

This painting, which is a sort of political poster, is meant to celebrate the day of 28 July 1830, when the people rose and dethroned the Bourbon king. Alexandre Dumas tells us that Delacroix’s participation in the rebellious movements of July was mainly of a sentimental nature. Despite this, the painter, who had been a member of the National Guard, took pleasure in portraying himself in the figure on the left wearing the top-hat. Although the painting is filled with rhetoric, Delacroix’s spirit is fully involved in its execution: in the outstretched figure of Liberty, in the bold attitudes of the people following herm contrasted with the lifeless figures of the dead heaped up in the foreground, in the heroic poses of the people fighting for liberty, there is without a doubt a sense of full participation on the part of the artist, which led Argan to define this canvas as the first political work of modern painting.

Liberty Leading the People caused a disturbance. It shows the allegorical figure of Liberty as a half-draped woman wearing the traditional Phrygian cap of liberty and holding a gun in one hand and the tricolour in the other. It is strikingly realistic; Delacroix, the young man in the painting wearing the opera hat, was present on the barricades in July 1830. Allegory helps achieve universality in the painting: Liberty is not a woman; she is an abstract force.

Viva La Vida will be available in Australia & NZ on the 14th of June, while the artwork is now on display at the Louvre, Paris.

Violet Hill single artwork

One of my favourite album covers, and subsequent single design from last year is Roisin Murphy’s ‘Overpowered’. The concept came from Scott King’s idea of Roisin representing a ’24-Hour Pop Star’, whether grabbing a bite in a greasy spoon, riding the
bus into town, or doing her shopping. Dressed in glamorous and extravagant outfits designed by the
likes of Gareth Pugh, Givenchy and Viktor & Rolf, she looks ready to perform at a moments notice.

The back cover is a simple type affair.

While the inside fold out is a collection of quotes, statements and excerpts from the treatment for the film clip. A nice quote is “I got signed to EMI because I reminded them of Robbie Williams” Roisin Murphy. There’s plenty more so check it out when you’re in the local record shop.

The images (Art Directed by Scott King, Photographed by Jonathan De Villiers) encapsulate her love of flamboyance and natural eccentricity as a popstar ‘street diva’. In combining banal situations and the glamourous absurdity of costumes and lighting, it highlights the sense of the popstar construct, but in a fresh and exciting way. I also like the simple neon coloured labels written in hand script text, it doesn’t take over the image and is a visual cherry on top of a camp christmas cake.

The three singles (forth to be released in July) each feature an over the top dress and similar situation to the cover. The single “Overpowered” features a dress by Viktor & Rolf.

The second single “Let Me Know” features a dress by Gareth Pugh. Who according to the Wiki page had “yet to sell a single dress” as of March 2007. Let’s hope this cover shoot helped him afford bread this week.

The third single “You Know Me Better” features a dress by Givenchy. She’s also drinking a Guiness, which relates to her Irish heritage.

Roisin has a pretty good Youtube channel found here. With behind the scenes montages of the photoshoots from this album in addition to film clips and live videos.

Mini interview with Scott King and a behind the scenes look at the album cover shoot.

Here’s an Interview with Roisin. Which has embedding disabled?! Silly!

Here’s another random shot of Roisin from the shoot.

CR Blog also have a good review of the cover here. Which I grabbed the fold out images from to save me from having to scan them.

The photographer Jonathan De Villiers recently shot this great campaign with DDB London below for Harvey Nicholss. More info here.

While the band Waikiki may no longer be active (they disbanded in 2004) the influence of this singles art is still prevalent today. You might be sighting the resemblance to the “Supergrass Life on Other Planets” release from the same year but I’m referring to the vector grass. This simple graphic element was everywhere in Australia between 2002-2005 and you still see a few examples today.

The fact that whenever I see vector grass now I refer to it as the “Rinzen” grass. The design collective only have themselves to blame reusing it themselves quite a bit (see below) but it was also “used” by many other designers around that time.

Adam who post’s on here regularly is good friends with the guys from Rinzen and confirmed this was the first use of “the grass”.

Rinzen is the Aussie equivalent of The Designer Republic. Which are the designers of the “Life on Other Planets” release.

While the collective is now strewn around the world the group still call themselves Australian. You’d be hard up to name another contemporary design company with as much international success. Jeremyville and NathanJ come close.. The previous Aussie design icon was a little less “cool” namely Ken Done. Note: I’m leaving fashion out of this discussion.

I had seen the “Supergrass” album in quite a few design books and we’ll post it soon, but as this was released 3 months earlier it should have precedence. I guess it’s the rainbow and almost mirrored design that makes them look so similar. It’s also funny I’m so obsessed with the grass element and the band that I’m comparing the design to is “Supergrass”. Well funny in a weird way at least.

The single featured above was from the album “I’m Already Home” which had interchangeable covers and a sticker set.

And here’s a few of the alternative covers people could choose to add the stickers to.

All the CD’s were decorated with simple circular design with a matching colour palette.

There was also another single released off the album titled “Complicated”. Which reminds me of an episode of Astro Boy where the girlfriend and boyfriend are fused together by a car crash. (I think it was Astro Boy?!)

I really like this whole series and how the rainbow is present throughout them all. It’s probably one of the few times you can say “ahh nice rainbow” without someone handing you a “My Little Pony”.

If you crave more of Waikiki the record label informs you to check out Howling Bells which was formed from most of the members of the former band.

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.