A Slight Diversion
I think it would be erroneous to say that only books, and illustrators of books, were the primary influence on my artistic style.
I was in a very music-loving household growing up a child in the 1970’s and 80’s. My parents had quite an LP (Long-Playing record) collection, as did I. Many a night, I would sit with the headphones on listening to my favorite bands and artists while I poured over the lyrics and oft-times surreal album cover artwork. Sometimes, the lyrics came in the form of a booklet - and even that would be illustrated.
Bear in mind that this was in the days before CDs. Record albums were 12″ in diameter and so the packaging was large, thin, sometimes textured with printing effects (like embossing, lamination, etc) and the lyrics books (if they were illustrated) were almost like…a picture book for the listener. Of course, The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from 1967 exemplifies this type of visual packaging best.
…as does The Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesty’s Request.
These spawned a plethora of lushly illustrated albums in the 70’s by such artists as Cat Stevens, Yes, Pink Floyd, and my favorite from that decade: Elton John.
In fact, Elton’s autobiographical 1975 album Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy is still a fixture in my studio today. The pseudo-symbolic-Bosch-like world, depicting the hurdles of the music industry and the price of fame, was magnificently rendered by British illustrator Alan Aldridge. It is no surprise to me that Alan also illustrated many children books of the day, as there is a children’s-book-like quality to his rendering style despite the subject matter.
As we all know, compact discs are now the norm for packaging today’s music (yet I wonder for how much longer). Though the visual real estate has receded from the 12″ album sleeve to the 4+” of a jewel case, there are still some wonderful examples of great packaging. Maroon Five’s debut album, Songs About Jane, comes to mind…
…as does Keane’s Under the Iron Sea, both of which utilize a simpler, more graphic style, which I think suits the package size better.
I can’t think of any of my artist-buddies who haven’t dreamed of rendering an album cover for their favorite band. I even toyed with the idea of contacting Elton John when I heard he was recording a sequel to Captain Fantastic - instead, I held out hope that perhaps he would return to Alan to work his magic, but alas it didn’t happen.
But I did get to design the cover for the band Roi and the Secret People. This actually holds some significance as the lead singer, Mike Roy, has been my friend for many years. He even introduced me to a funny, young gal named Angela way back in 1995…
PS - Okay, so I have never prompted for replies before, but I know I didn’t mention a lot of awesome album covers (80’s bands had some great ones like Journey and Asia). So what is your fav album cover?
December 24th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Hands down Roger Dean’s epic triple gatefold design for Yes’ “Yessongs”. The enormity of that album design both in terms of physical presence as well as its imagery was a perfect compliment to the music contained within it.
Runners-up: Gerald Scarfe’s design for Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” (heck pretty much any Pink Floyd album design).
ELO’s “Out of the Blue” -that really cool space ship on the cover accompanied by a fantastic image of the ship’s interior on the inside spread.
I miss LP’s.
Marc
December 25th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Very cool! I’m very happy that you mentioned Yes as they are one of my favortie bands and I love their album art! Album art is always very cool. If I ever had a band and was sucessful enough to make an album [ yeah right] I’d want the art work to be interesting.
Thanks for posting that! It made my day!
December 25th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Queen’s News of the World immediately came to mind. The robot with the bloodied hands and the soul crushing look of regret in his eyes haunted me for years.
Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew and the collage like cover of Styx’s The Grand Illusion.
We played all our Xmas records last night and I had to explain to my 14 year-old cousin what a vinyl LP was. She just didn’t get how you could get music out of it!
I miss records, too.
Sara
December 28th, 2007 at 3:23 am
Dear Toni,
Those are very cool. My favorites are Def Leppard’s Hysteria and Soundgarden’s Superunknown.
December 29th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Dan Fogelberg’s Phoenix came to mind. Simple and to the point.
Nirvana’s In Utero
Red Hot Chili Peppers…a plethora or choices
Definitely Journey, STYX and MeatLoaf’s Bat out a Hell
Alas, art class had many inventions of faux music that will never be viewed.
December 29th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Tony,
20 years? Really? Wow. Well, a chapter in my life is coming to an end. Jen is leaving me. That’s why I didn’t go to the reunion. I was trying to fix my marriage. So now, maybe, just maybe, I might be able to start writing all the songs that are in my head, and tweak some of the songs from the past. I am so excited for you, and as everyone else at South Fork knew, one day we would see Tony D’s name in lights, credits, or books. I always think that if it wasn’t for you, I would have been voted most talented male 1987, but your art compared to my sax playing ability back then was an extremely higher caliber. Keep the imagination running. Something I have recently reopened. Wouldn’t it be awesome to work on a project someday, no matter how big or small. We used to come up with some great stuff a long time ago. 27 years ago @ Murray Middle. Wow. Are you Serious?
January 4th, 2008 at 3:38 am
I think that Alice Cooper had some great covers. Although most of them were photographed, but the Welcome to My Nightmare was classic cool. And of course Kiss had some cool covers. Destroyer being one of them. VanHalen’s 1984 cover was great - a smoking cherub with a styling hairdo - what’s not to love about that 80’s jem.
January 11th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
As a music fanatic and one time dj, all my music is on 12 inch vinyl. A few covers that really stand out for me is Oingo Boingo’s ” Dead Man’s Party “, The Cure’s Disintegration, although a simple cover design, it works perfectly with one of the best albums ever made.
New Order has done several covers that I like including Technique, Brotherhood and Power Lies and Corruption, but also can’t forget about the 12 inch of True Faith, deep blue background with a single yellow leaf suspended in the middle.
I’ll have to go and thumb through my vinyl now.
February 12th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Keane album…
do you know what is the first? i`ve the new album at my blog…
March 16th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
atomic kitten discography…
Man i just love your blog, keep the cool posts comin…..
September 12th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
[…] of Rock-n-Roll, I’ve spoken about the impact of beautifully designed and packaged albums before. And, thought this was over 10 years old by the time I graduated in high school, this tri-fold […]