Visual Style
In 1997 designer Peter Saville received a call from Jarvis Cocker. “They needed to reposition Pulp” he recalls, “They wanted to present Pulp more as a rock band. The music was a lot deeper, darker and moodier and they called it This Is Hardcore.” The result was one of the most controversial album covers of [...]
RIP Jay Reatard (May 1, 1980 – January 13, 2010). This post was written before his tragic death and we were going to edit it (as it reads a little tasteless now). However, on reflection, we felt that this post was a suitable tribute to Jay’s formidable talent. I was at a play the other [...]
I was thinking today about how it’s better to be #2. The #2 person tries harder and has a goal beat the #1 person, where as #1 can get complacent. And I think the same thing happens with independents musicians. They just have to try harder. That’s what I thought when I saw this post [...]
“One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting.” Gerhard Richter 1973
In WWII, when American soldiers were asked by journalist why they were going to war the standard response was “for Mom and apple pie”. For some reason the dish of apple pie worked its way into the American consciousness as a representative of all that was wholesome and good about the nation; a reminder of [...]
From the hard to make out lyrics (“They called the clip a two-headed cow / Your hate clipped and distant, your luck, pilgrimage,”) through to the murky, unattractive cover art – nothing is made too easy on R.E.M.’s debut album.
The moment I saw this cover, my first question was whether that hair was real. When close inspection indicated that it was real, my next question was: where did they find this guy? The answer is that these are not models – they’re the group.
Illinois was not only the most acclaimed album of 2005, it’s also the second installment in what may be one of the crazily ambitious musical projects ever hatched. Grandly title The Fifty States Project, it refers to Stevens intent to record an album about each of the US States. So far, he’s managed Illinois and [...]
Okay, so here’s the lesson of today’s story: always pick up cool looking hitchhikers.
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 [...]
