July 2009 Archives

Electronic musician Peaches (aka Merrill Beth Nisker) is known for her sexually explicit songs. So, I thought I knew what to expect when I checked out the video for her most recent single Lose You. After about 20 seconds, I knew that I was heading for a WTF moment.

The cover for Lose You features a lens flare on a woman’s crotch. That’s certainly not as disturbing as the bearded woman and the title of Peaches’ controversial Fatherfucker album. I guess I just hate to see a lazy graphic treatment like a lens flare used on a cover like this. It kinda looks like Peaches may have run out of creative ideas.

The lyrics of Lose You are fairly tame, too. So, I guess that’s why the music video is supposed to be somewhat shocking. I won’t give it away.

Grace Jones is currently on tour and the blogs are buzzing with rave reviews of her performances in Los Angeles and New York. Jones is known for having some of the most innovative album covers of all time. While the cover of her latest album Hurricane doesn’t quite have the impact of many of her others, it is a fantastic album.

The cover for the single William’s Blood is my favorite from this album. It is also my favorite track. The video includes live concert footage. As you can see, Miss Jones can still put on a heck of a show.

Kelly Clarkson’s latest single is Already Gone. I really like this cover. The diamond tear drop is a very nice touch. In fact, the covers for the album All I Ever Wanted and the various singles have all been quite good.

On August 5, 1989, the number one single in the U.S. was Batdance by Prince. The cover hit the stores with the new black and orange Batman logo. Batdance was Prince’s fourth U.S. number one, following 1986’s Kiss. The cover for the Batdance single includes the entire Batman logo. The soundtrack album featured a cropped version of the same design.

One of AAX blog’s Twitter followers is an L.A. alternative rock band called Kingsley. The band has been promoting their music through an online service called Twiturm. Twiturm allows users to share music files via Twitter.

This certainly is an innovative way to promote a recording artist. I was able to download Satisfy, a track from Kingsley’s 2008 album Choices in a matter of seconds. Kingsley was generous enough to provide a 320kbps MP3 with the album art embedded. Cool guys!

I just read an L.A. Times article about an exhibit at the Fullerton Museum Center in Orange County, California that claims to display the “The 100 Worst Album Covers” —and includes Captain Beefheart’s classic Trout Mask Replica. I don’t undertand how this album cover can be considered the “worst” in any category. It has been recognized as a groundbreaking album since its release in 1969.

If the inclusion of this classic album cover is any indication, this museum exhibit has to be a very sketchy. Trout Mask Replica was chosen by Rolling Stone magazine as number 58 of their 500 greatest albums of all time.

Certainly, the cover art for Trout Mask Replica is avant garde. It is, however, quite fitting for the music on the album and its time. The album cover was designed by noted artist and album cover designer Cal Schenkel. Schenkel designed most of Frank Zappa’s album covers and also did work for Tom Waits and the late Tim Buckley.

O.C. museum believes it has found the worst album covers ever
02:17 PM PT, Jul 30 2009

Who doesn’t love a little bad art from time to time?

The pop-music-attuned Fullerton Museum Center has a fresh take on that notion in a new exhibition opening Saturday, “The 100 Worst Album Covers,” which revels in the gloriously wretched imagery and graphics of the LP era.

It’s been assembled by longtime Orange County music journalist, musician and kitsch collector Jim Washburn, who is quick to point out that there were so many worthy contenders that this collection extends well beyond the number in the show’s title.

For every visual classic like the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” or Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” there were dozens, maybe hundreds, that have earned their place in the album cover hall of shame.

Continue reading…

I am afraid to find out what other classic album covers have been included in Jim Washburn’s collection. There are so many really bad album covers, it is a shame that one of the truly innovative ones has been labeled as an example of the worst the music industry has produced over the last few decades.

An excellent example of one of the worst covers would be Sex & Violins by Rednex. It features a stream of urine coming down on the faces of the band. Yuck. I bet this gross out cover isn’t in Washburn’s collection. It is in my top ten of the worst of all time.

An anonymous source sent me what is supposed to be the cover of the first single from Madonna’s upcoming album. Celebration is the title track, so both the album and the single have the same title. The cover is signed by Mr. Brainwash, who designed the album cover.

Yes, that right. La Toya Jackson has new single called Home. She released it as a tribute to her brother Michael and all proceeds are being donated to AIDS Project Los Angeles. The cover art can best be described as overly sentimental — with Michael pictured looking down from the clouds. The song isn’t half bad, though. I made my 99¢ donation to the AIDS Project.

Rock band AFI revealed the cover for their upcoming album Crash Love via a Twitter and website interaction that I have yet to figure out.

Perhaps some of you tech wizards under the age of 18 can explain it to me. I know that’s not really AFI’s fan base. Perhaps that should have been taken into consideration. Over the last couple of days, we’ve seen two bands do some pretty lame PR stunts to reveal their album covers.

First, Pearl Jam does a scavenger hunt — that would have been cool if there had been a decent giveaway at the end. Now, AFI does this incomprehensible Twitter thing. Lame.

Anyway, here is the cover that I obtained through other means (I have my ways) and added to the AAX gallery.

The cover for Brooke Hogan’s single Ruff Me Up featuring Flo Rida has been revealed. The song was posted on YouTube three weeks ago and has been criticized as sounding too much like Britney Spears’ Womanizer.

Singer/songwriter Kate Earl just sent out a tweet with a link to her new album cover. It has been added to the AAX gallery. The album is scheduled for release on August 18.

Ever hear of Jimmy Demers? I hadn’t either until I watched the video for Nothing Hurts Like Love on YouTube today. The first thing that caught my attention was that the man has an amazing voice. Also, Nothing Hurts Like Love sounded like a Diane Warren song — I’ll get to that later.

So, I’m watching the video and I immediately recognize former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Cheryl Tiegs. And she looks amazing! She’s playing a sexy vampire. I’m not kidding. The video is stylish and sexy — very much in tune with the current trend of vampire TV shows and movies. Did I mention that Cheryl Tiegs looks amazing? I immediately looked up the album on Google and found out that the song was in fact written by Diane Warren.

That takes us to the album cover. Demers is an attractive guy, but nothing about this album cover would have compelled me to pick it up in a store or click through to preview it online. This is yet another example of a total disconnect between the album cover and the artist’s music. The album cover looks like a boring vocal album from the bargain bin.

Spinner.com has announced their participation in an online scavenger hunt from rock band Pearl Jam. The game involves hunting down peices of the album cover and adding them to a Flash animation.

Pearl Jam Launch Album Art Scavenger Hunt

Before Pearl Jam’s new album, ‘Backspacer,’ comes out on September 20, the band is previewing the artwork with an online scavenger hunt. Featuring images from legendary cartoonist Tom Tomorrow (of ‘This Modern World’ fame), nine different album-related pictures have been spread out across the Web, including the exclusive one below. Collect them all, the band assures us, and you’ll get a pretty sweet surprise. So what are you waiting for? Click our puzzle piece below and get to finding the rest!

Clicking the link to the Spinner.com article or the image will take you to Spinner.com where you can begin the scavenger hunt. Clicking the image at Spinner.com will take you to the Pearl Jam website.

UPDATE: I finished the scavenger hunt and downloaded my free song. It is a crappy demo version of Speed of Sound. Meh! Cheap bastards!

The music video for British pop singer MIKA’s new single We Are Golden was just released on YouTube today. It features the young artist bouncing around a bedroom wearing nothing but his boxers. That’s gonna sell a lot of downloads.

Here’s a tweet MIKA sent to us a few weeks ago. Yes, the yoga does come in handy. We Are Golden is scheduled to be released on September 6.

I like MIKA’s last round of covers for his album Life In Cartoon Motion and the various singles. The cover for the new single is just as good. The illustration of childhood dreams is very cool. I will have to find out more information about the illustrator.

Scott Colothan is a man who I can agree with regarding the future of album art. He’s written a great article at Gigwise that focuses primarily on the covers of singles. In the article, he also voices an opinion that I share, “As you can probably tell, I don’t think the single cover, like the album cover, will die.”

Colothan presents an interesting collection of single covers as his personal top ten. I’m not sure that I agree with all of his choices. For example, number one on his list is the very creepy Windowlicker by Aphex Twin.

The Best Single Covers Ever - My Top Ten

And why is single artwork often overlooked?

by Scott Colothan
Wednesday, July 29, 2009

We’ve all read the headlines. ‘The Album Cover Is Dead!’, ‘The Death Of The Record Sleeve!’, ‘Album Artwork RIP!’ and so on. Endless column inches and website space has been wasted by journalists and bloggers spouting their obituaries while anguishing the loss of the “cultural institution” that is the album cover at the supposed grimy hands of downloading.

[…]

While I love everything about album artwork and don’t want them to “die a death” as widely and portentously predicted, if writers are going to waste their time mourning anything then surely it’s the physical single cover?

[…]

Below I present some of my favourite single covers from over the decades, many of which will feature in complete gallery countdown on Gigwise next week.

Read the article at Gigwise…

You will have to visit Gigwise to see Colothan’s entire list. I must say that I was disappointed that it isn’t more focused on many milestone covers that influenced the way singles have been marketed over the years.

There are many pioneers who began to position singles as collectibles in the early 1980s. The Smiths and Depeche Mode are prime examples. Both groups used cover art for their singles to encourage fans to buy them up in large numbers. My list of top ten single covers would include Hand In Glove by The Smiths and New Life by Depeche Mode.

  

In addition to launching enormous sales of singles by both bands, these covers where both revolutionary from an artist perspective. Hand In Glove is one of the first to feature male erotica, a photograph by the renowned Jim French. New Life, the second single for Depeche Mode, features a man climbing out of a vagina. The cover was banned and the single was not released in the U.S. Yet, it was the second of over 50 singles released by the band over the following 27 years.

While I can appreciate amusing and quirky covers like Aphex Twin’s Windowlicker, I don’t really think that it can be considered a milestone cover. However, I certainly do agree with Colothan that the covers of singles are often overlooked or take a backseat to album covers. Here on the AAX blog, I try to give equal attention to notable single covers. Singles are often the focus of our New and Notable articles.

Every now and then, I run across an illustrator that I really like. When I saw the cover for The Builders and the Butchers album Salvation Is A Deep Dark Well, it was definitely one of those occassions.

Lukas Ketner is an amazing talent. When I browsed through his blog, I liked just about everything he has on display — from motorcycle helmets to comic books. Please take a few moments to check out his other work.

One of the nice things about Ketner’s album cover is that it seems to work very well with the image of band. When you watch the music video for Golden And Green, you’ll see that quite clearly. This is an innovative band and they’re lucky enough to have an illustrator who can add to their creative vision. There is so much going on in the album cover, it is completely captivating.

Famous Album Covers is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs. It is a collaborative effort by some very talented artists who create “some of the most famous album covers you have never seen.”

I recently submitted my second “famous” cover to the blog. It was inspired by my spam filter.

Since the release of her eponymous debut album in 1995, Acai Berry has established herself as one of the most accomplished performers of the digital age.

The wife of a Nigerian prince, Acai has pioneered online marketing in the music industry. She has sold over 40 million albums worldwide strictly through email advertising.

Her 15th studio album, Spice Up Amorous Dish, is already the best-selling album of 2009. It comes on the heels of 2008’s “You’ve Received a Greeting Card” that included the hit dance track “You Can Wear Cartier Watch Now.”

The track listing for Spice Up Amorous Dish is as follows:

1. Virtualization Webinar
2. Let Your Love Stick Grow (Radio Edit)
3. Career Advancement Opportunities
4. Winning Notification
5. Possible Friendship
6. Credibility by Maximizing Your Productivity
7. All-Night Love Cascade
8. Increase Your Member
9. Qualitative Drugs For The Cheap (Bonus Track)
10. Let Your Love Stick Grow (Junior Vasquez Remix) (Bonus Track)

There are many wonderful album covers to browse through on the blog. Some are humorous. Ohters are poignant. Check it out. If you’re into album covers as much as I am, you’ll love it.

Scoundrel Club - 1987

Foot Of The Mountain - 2009

Foot of the Mountain, the ninth studio album from Norwegian pop band a-ha, was released last week. The first single is the title track Foot Of The Mountain and I’ve been enjoying it for several weeks. The covers for both the single and the album are quite nice. They look very similar to that the band’s last album, Analogue, and its various singles.

While I normally don’t feature mixtape covers on the AAX blog, I recently ran across one that is a cut above the rest. It is also a good subject for my new Déjà Vu category.

Many of the fans of Brooklyn MC Theophilus London weren’t even born when Elvis Costello released his 1978 album This Year’s Model. Costello’s second album, it featured the hit Pump It Up and was produced by Nick Lowe. The album cover was designed by the late graphic designer Barney Bubbles (aka Colin Fulcher).

The cover for London’s This Charming Mixtape was designed by London’s label The Lovers and Knox Robinson as a wonderful homage to either Elvis Costello or Barney Bubbles — perhaps both.

When I stumbled across London’s cover, I didn’t really have a déjà vu moment. But, I assume that others will — even though This Year’s Model is over 30 years old.

What many people don’t know about the cover for This Year’s Model is that it was originally designed with the “E” in Elvis and the “T” in This cropped off and included a multi-color band on the opposite side (similar to many Peter Saville designs).

For those of you who are too young to remember Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model, here is the music video for Pump It Up.

Heavy metal band Megadeth has revealed the cover art for their upcoming album Endgame. The album is scheduled to be released on September 15th through Roadrunner Records.

The cover reminds me of the marching workers scene from 1984. It is very consistent with the band’s previous albums. The fly border is a very nice (and creepy) touch.

Beck’s brewery has an innovative art project going on at Flickr.com that will undoubtedly be of interest to album art fanatics. Beck’s Music Inspired Art - The 100 Cover Project is a Flickr group where Flickr users can claim one of a list of 100 albums and then submit their own design inspired by the album.

About Beck’s Music Inspired Art - The 100 Cover Project
By now you’ve hopefully seen our “Music Inspired Art” project, and the 10 commissioned album covers from the pens and tablets of some of the UK’s best artists.

Now we’re opening up the project to you. The covers you’ve already seen were taken from a roll of 100, created by taking the top 25 from Pitchfork’s “Album of the Decade” lists.

And now we’ve seen how good 10 of them look, we want to finish the set!

So the rest of the list is below. If you would like to submit a cover, just send us a message through Flickr claiming it, or use the forum post above, and we’ll put your name next to the cover, and wait on your to upload it to the pool.

Visit the Flickr group…

Here are a couple of examples of what has been submitted so far:

In addition to having a habit of taking off his clothes for photo shoots, British pop musician Frankmusik (aka Vincent Frank) has a respectable second single from his upcoming album Complete Me. Confusion Girl is a catchy tune that is currently #29 on the U.K. charts. When I saw the video on YouTube last month, I thought that it would be a little more popular.

As for the cover art for Confusion Girl, I am surprised that it features a photograph of a scantily clad woman. With all of the provocative photos of Frank that seem to be popping up all over the Internet, I assumed that something similar would grace his recordings. Perhaps if that were the case, he’d be moving higher up the charts.

I like the video for Confusion Girl. Again, there is a disconnect between the imagery in the video and the cover art. We’ve seen time and time again that successful recordings have a unified look to the album, singles, and music videos. The cover for Confusion Girl doesn’t tell us anything about Frankmusik — unlike the photo of him naked and holding a keyboard. If there’s one thing John and Yoko taught us it is to make taking off your clothes payoff with record sales.

The advent off the online digital music store is quickly approaching its 10th anniversary. Yet, we have seen very little innovation in the graphics that are used to market digital music. Small versions of the cover art are used to illustrate the product in the online stores, such as iTunes and Amazon.com. It is now standard for these graphics files to be embedded in the digital music file and displayed for browsing and play on our computers.

According to an article in today’s Financial Times, Apple is working with major record labels to bring back the album as a viable digital sales format. The project is codenamed “Project Cocktail” and it appears to be a combination between a digital booklet and a digital music player. I’m not sure that I would find such a product useful. Like most people, I don’t tend to listen to an entire album from beginning to end unless it is exceptional. I prefer to listen to my own playlists of various artist.

Apple joins forces with record labels
By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles, Kenneth Li in New York and Joseph Menn in San Francisco

Published: July 27 2009 01:01 | Last updated: July 27 2009 01:01

Apple is working with the four largest record labels to stimulate digital sales of albums by bundling a new interactive booklet, sleeve notes and other interactive features with music downloads, in a move it hopes will change buying trends on its online iTunes store.

[…]

Physical album sales have fallen sharply as music retailing has evolved from CD album purchases in retail outlets to digital downloads of songs from online stores.

[…]

Apple is working with EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music Group, on a project the company has codenamed “Cocktail”, according to four people familiar with the situation.

Continue reading…

This comes at a time when many people are lamenting the demise of the traditional album cover. It remains to be seen whether or not Apple can come up with a quality product that will include quality graphics. Their most recent digital sales format, the Digital 45, was a huge disappointment. The digital booklets contained poor-quality scans that added very little value or incentive to purchase.

Here’s what Eliot Van Buskirk of Wired magazine blog Epicenter had to say about Project Cocktail: 

Take today’s widely-echoed Financial Times report about “Project Cocktail” — an attempt by Apple and the four major labels to re-imagine the digital album with soft (as in onscreen) album art. They hope album art that embraces digital technology, rather than merely providing a miniaturized version of the original album cover, will entice music fans to start buying digital albums again. Apple and the labels envision fans gathering ‘round the glow of their laptops — or tablet PCs — to listen to music together, the way they used to before they retreated into their own digital pods.

Source: Epicenter

There is no doubt that cover art will continue to be a part of the way music is packaged and marketed. How that art will be formatted for digital sales in the future is anyone’s guess. Personally, I don’t have much faith in the innovative talents of Apple. It will take a visionary artist to take album art to the next level and Apple just doesn’t seem to have that kind of talent on board.

Recently, I found a another website that features what are supposed to be the “worst” album covers. The site is called Cover Browser and it boasts over 450,000 covers of comic books, books, and more.

The section called Worst Album Covers displays many of the album covers that are typical for these websites, Scorpions Lovedrive, the Ethel Merman Disco Album, Village People Renaissance, etc. It also has many of those weird albums that seem like they were invented by the Photoshop geeks at Fark.com, such as Paddy Roberts’ Songs for Gay Dogs.

Most of the scans are pretty bad. I’m certain that many of them have been floating around the Internet for quite a long time, reproduced, compressed, and posted without much concern for quality.

As I was browsing through this particular collection, I came across an album cover that I do not think belongs in any “worst” collection, Because They Can by Nelson.

This album cover was designed by famed photographer William Wegman. Wegman is best known for his photographs of dogs, particularly Weimaraners.

Wegman’s photographs are part of the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He is well-respected in the world of fine art.

So, seeing Wegman’s work included in a collection of worst album covers just doesn’t sit right with me. Personally, I think the Nelson cover is amusing and very appropriate for its time. Perhaps many people are not as familiar with Wegman’s work as they were 15 years ago, when the album cover was created.

The fact is, Nelson aren’t popular anymore and even photos of the duo with their long blond hair are viewed as somewhat of a joke. It is unfortunate that an album cover that is a self-parody of that image is seen as being worthy of being included in Cover Browser’s collection.

Many people have fond memories of the videos Wegman did for Sesame Street. They are absolutely brilliant.

The video for the first single from Arctic Monkeys’ upcoming third album Humbug was released on YouTube on Friday. The cover for Crying Lightning is certain to be somewhat controversial due to the fact that it features a woman who is naked from the waist up. The cover reminds me of Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing Shocking with its somewhat freakish nude mirror image female figures.

Cover art for singles rarely draw as much fire from retailers as album covers, since they are usually not displayed on forward-facing racks. So, don’t expect this cover to be banned for showing a bare breast or two.

The video for Crying Lightning is a very nice production. The “band in a boat” images remind me of something I just can’t put my finger on. Neither the cover for the single nor the video seem to have any relationship to the album art for Humbug.

Care Bears On Fire is a Brooklyn, New York rock band comprised of 8th grade girls. They play their own instruments and have just released their first album Get Over It! When you watch the video, just keep in mind that these kids are 13 and 14 years old. I think that’s pretty amazing.

They list among their musical influences Sonic Youth, The Donnas, Ramones, Joan Jett, The Buzzcocks, and Patti Smith. That’s pretty darn cool for kids in middle school.

U.K. pop trio Dolly Rockers are scheduled to release their new single Gold Digger on August 30. Those of you who are old enough to remember the 1980s will hear something familiar when you watch the video for Gold Digger.

The song is a rework of Kid Creole and The Coconuts’ Stool Pigeon combined with samples of Tom Tom Club’s Wordy Rappinghood. The cover art for Gold Digger has not yet been released. But, I was able to find the covers for both Stool Pigeon and Wordy Rappinghood online.

In a recent interview for an Oklahoma newspaper, musician Andrew W.K. spoke about the censoring of his 2001 debut album I Got Wet by retailers.

He said that it’s easy to get lost without a visual hook to catch a record executive’s attention. When he started marketing his debut disc, 2001’s “I Get Wet,” Andrew W.K. took the extreme route: he gave himself a bloody nose, and the resulting photo became his album cover.

Ultimately, the album cover was censored with a black sticker, but that was music to Andrew W.K.’s ears.

“This was my dream all along: I wanted an album cover that had to be censored,” he said. “Sure enough, a lot of people who bought the CD said they wanted to see what was behind the black sticker.”

Source: NewsOK.com

The interesting thing about this kind of marketing strategy is that it rarely works more than once — for the artist or for those using the same type of graphic image in the future.

A similar album cover was created for New York DJ Cazwells’ 2007 single Watch My Mouth and it barely got noticed. It seems that people are no longer quite as shocked by bloody faces — unless they are the faces of children.

Journal for Plague Lovers, the 2009 release by Manic Street Preachers, featured an illustration that appeared to represent the beaten and bloody face of a young boy. It was banned in may retail stores in the U.K. and drew concern in many other countries.

Whether it is toilets, nudity, or violence, the more we see in the marketplace, the less likely we are to be offended. If an album is good enough to stand the test of time, the effectiveness of a marketing gimmick like a deliberately offensive cover will wear thin. The public will become increasingly jaded and recording artists will have to go to other extremes to get noticed.

DJ/remixer Tommie Sunshine just sent out a tweet directing followers to a ton of free remixes for artist like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Major Lazer, Felix da Housecat and more.

http://soundcloud.com/tommiesunshine

Actor-turned-rapper Drake has a hit single with Best I Ever Had. The music video is about a womens basketball team and features some unintentional comedy during the “acting” segments.

I like the cover design for the single. It has somewhat of a Saul Bass feel to it due to the creative use of typography. Frankly, I’m surprised it doesn’t feature the women with enormous breast implants and skimpy outfits that appear in the video.

AAX user gege had a déjà vu moment when he saw the cover for the Blue Note classic Somethin’ Else. After a little searching to refresh his memory, he discovered a remarkable similarity to Try! by the John Mayer Trio.

Posted by: zeefritz

Posted by: Gulickson

Ever have a feeling of déjà vu when looking at an album cover? If so, let me know and I may feature the album covers on the AAX blog. Just send an e-mail with links to the covers in the AAX gallery to blog@albumartexchange.com.

My birthday is in September — just in time for the release of the remastered Beatles box sets on the 9th of the month (hint, hint, hint). There are two box sets, one mono and one stereo. I’m interested in the stereo version (I’m not enough of a fanatic to want the original mono recordings).

Both sets look fantastic. Here are the publicity shots. The first is the stereo set and the second the mono version.

The cover for Queen Latifah’s upcoming album Persona was revealed yesterday. It is sheduled to be released on August 25. It is an interesting album cover that shows Queen Latifah in various costumes. When I first saw it, I assumed that Persona is a greatest hits album and the five versions of the artist represents stages in her career. I was wrong.

Persona is new material and a return to hip hop for Queen Latifah. So, I’m not quite sure what the album cover represents. Otherwise, she looks great in all of the depictions. I’ve always liked her style.

The Museum of Bad Album Covers is a website that features over 150 of some of the worst album covers ever produced. The site is organized into numerous categories such as, Metal Mayhem, Should I Shoot The Stylist Now?, and Gay and Lesbian Village.

Rapper Pitbull began tweeting about the cover for his new album Rebelution yesterday. So, I kept an eye on his MySpace page for it to appear. It kind of reminds me of “Goldfinger meets Rambo” — because of the girl painted in camo and the tuxedo.

I have uploaded the low resolution image from the artist’s MySpace page to the gallery. I am sure a high resolution image is forthcoming from our AAX users.

On July 22, 1989, pop singer Martika charted #1 on Billboard Top 40 with Toy Soldiers. The song appeared on her eponymous debut album.

Check this out. SpeckyBoy has posted a collection of 30 classic album covers that have been recreated using Lego toys.

I dislike the new Madonna album cover so much it inspired me to do a mash up with it and the new Whitney Houston cover just to prove a point.

1. The album covers must be part of the AAX gallery.
2. All of the elements in the mash up cover must be present in one of the two originals. However, you do not have to use the original images. For example, if there is a black car in one of the original covers, you can use a black car from a stock photo instead of the one on the cover. 
3. Submit your mash up along with the AAX links to the original cover images via e-mail to blog@albumartexchange.com. You must also include your name or AAX forum username.

I will publish mash ups as I receive them. I will not guarantee that your mash up will be published (but I’m not going to be too picky).

The cover for Madonna’s upcoming greatest hits compilation Celebration was added to the AAX gallery today.

This cover reminds me of the recent Butterfly Boucher cover. I really don’t like the application of blue eyeshadow and pink lipstick. It is very cliche and adds nothing to the image.

Both Madonna and Butterfly Boucher are beautiful women. They don’t need some graphic artist painting their faces up to resemble Mimi from the Drew Carey Show — remember her? For those of you who don’t, perhaps you’ve seen Tammy Faye Baker.

This is one trend in album cover art that needs to stop right now. The dripping, splattered type treatment used on the Madonna cover are just a bit overused, too.

British singer/songwriter Claire Hamill has made ten of her albums available as free downloads from her website. Hamill has been recording for almost 40 years and is one of several artists to have made their recording available to the public online. Hamill does request a donation, a portion of which is given to support families in Guatemala.

http://www.clairehamill.co.uk/music.html

None of Hamill’s album covers have yet been added to the AAX gallery. If you have any of her albums in your collection, please consider scanning them.

Hat tip: AAX user gege

Ultra records has posted the video for Kim Sozzi’s Feel Your Love on YouTube. It is from her album Just One Day, which was released yesterday. I hate to make this comparison, but the cover for the single reminds me of one of those ads for surgical breast enhancement.

The cover for the upcoming Lynyrd Skynyrd album God & Guns has been revealed on the Roadrunner Records website. The album is scheduled to be released on September 29. This album cover has not yet been added to the AAX gallery.

It has been a few weeks since our last Album Cover Mash Up. This latest installment is the second by Lindy. I think it is pretty funny.

If you want to participate in the AAX Album Cover Mash Up, all you have to do is follow these rules:

1. The album covers must be part of the AAX gallery.
2. All of the elements in the mash up cover must be present in one of the two originals. However, you do not have to use the original images. For example, if there is a black car in one of the original covers, you can use a black car from a stock photo instead of the one on the cover. 
3. Submit your mash up along with the AAX links to the original cover images via e-mail to blog@albumartexchange.com. You must also include your name or AAX forum username.

I will publish mash ups as I receive them. I will not guarantee that your mash up will be published (but I’m not going to be too picky).

Here’s an amusing article from the L.A. Times Culture Monster blog about a spelling error that has delayed the release of a classical album. Oops!

Spelling mistake delays ‘Doctor Atomic Symphony’ CD
10:00 AM, July 21, 2009

Classical music fans who were looking forward to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s world-premiere CD release of John Adams’ “Doctor Atomic Symphony” on Tuesday are going to have to wait another week — and they can thank a typo for the delay.

That’s because a minor printing error at Nonesuch has caused the shipment to be pushed back to July 28. A misspelling of the conductor’s name meant that the cover art had to be reprinted, resulting in the one-week postponement, according to the music company.

The first album cover (pictured) misplaced the “t” from St. Louis Symphony music director David Robertson’s name.

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Just a few minutes ago, A Fine Frenzy (Alison Sudol) sent out a tweet that includes a link to download a version of the first single from her upcoming album Bomb In A Birdcage. The song is called Blow Away and it is really good.

http://twitter.com/AFineFrenzy

I have added a new category to the AAX blog called Reveals. The first album to be featured is a new album by Phish. Joy is scheduled to be released on August 25. The album art was revealed today on the band’s online store Phish Dry Goods.

The album’s fish eye design reminds me of Pixies’ 1991 release Trompe le Monde. It is a somewhat creepy design, but nicely executed. The eyes on the Phish cover are arranged in what appears to be an expanding galaxy. The Pixies cover is the first thing that came to mind when I saw it.

Joy is Phish’s first album in five years and the release date has been delayed from July, which was originally announced. The band has a loyal following, so this album has been eagerly awaited by fans.

A 600 x 600 version of album cover has been added to the AAX gallery. If any AAX users scan the cover or find a larger version online, please upload it.

The new album by New York rock band Assembly of Dust was just released in stores today. As a special promotion, the band is offering one free download a week on their website. All you have to do is enter your e-mail address. I do not know how long this promotion will continue.

I really like the look of the album cover and the band’s website. The choice of typography and colors are quite nice.

http://www.aodust.com

If you’re interested in the history of album art, you simply must visit Sleevage. The blog features regular articles about notable album covers and the designers who created them.

Today, I was happy to see an article about one of my favorite albums, Blondie’s Parallel Lines.

Parallel Lines

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.

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British boyband JLS (short for Jack the Swing Lad) are topping the U.K. pop charts this week with their single Beat Again. Both the cover art for the single and the music are pretty typical for a boyband — nothing innovative or particularly interesting.

I ran across this cover for a free digital album via Twitter today. Eating Cornbread On The Millenium Falcon by hip hop producer Hannibal King (not to be confused with the Marvel Comics character) features one of the funniest concepts I’ve seen in a long time.

Scottish electronic musician/singer/songwriter Calvin Harris will be releasing his second album Ready For The Weekend on August 17. The title single Ready For The Weekend is scheduled to drop the week before. I really liked Harris’ first album I Created Disco and the series of covers created for it and the various singles.

However, I was very glad to see that the cover for the Ready For The Weekend single did not feature the pair of trademark sunglasses (or whatever they are) that appear on the I Created Disco covers. The use of the glasses was just a bit too repetative and I don’t think they are interesting enough to carry an entire marketing campaign. 

Imagine my disappointment when I saw the cover of the Ready For The Weekend album this morning. There are those glasses again. Except this time they are being worn by a female model. I guess Harris thinks this eyewear is like his sequined Michael Jackson glove.

The video for Ready For The Weekend debuted on YouTube two weeks ago. Neither the album cover nor the cover for the single has yet been added to the AAX gallery.

Here are a few covers that have been written about over the past few days and recently added to the AlbumArtExchange gallery.

London alternative rock band Bombay Bicycle Club debuted the music video for their single Dust On The Ground this week. The video is very British — almost a mini Merchant and Ivory film set at an old English manor. I like the style this band is presenting. It is also reflected in the mysterious fog on the cover for the single.

All I have to say about Shit Robot (aka Marcus Lambkin) is that I am very glad he does not have album art other than the record labels. I can only imagine what a robot made out of doo doo would look like. I don’t have to imagine what his music is like, though. Samples can be found on his MySpace page. It can be described using one of the two words in the band’s name (guess which one).

Both the cover and the music video for DJ and dance music producer Sharam’s Texi are stunning. The video has been on YouTube for several days and it isn’t generating the number of views it probably should be.

This installment of Variations on a Theme is all about a piece of furniture that seems to pop up on album covers more often than most would guess. I’m referring to the sofa. It doesn’t seem very a very exciting concept to show pop stars and rock icons sitting on the couch. But, I’ve got several examples of album covers that do just that.

Posted by: zeefritz		Posted by: macman4hire
Posted by: dingers		Posted by: Music Hog

     

     

British pop singer MPHO (pronounced Mm-poh) has a YouTube hit with her single Box ‘N’ Locks from the upcoming album Pop Art. However, I was blown away by her rendition of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill that was posted on YouTube last week.

Have you ever looked at an album cover and thought, “Hum, I think I’ve seen that before?” Well, so have I. That’s why I’ve created a new category for the AAX blog called Déjà Vu.

Posted by: Music Hog

Posted by: Scott

Pop Artist Howie Green has created over 300 colorful pop art paintings based on classic album covers. Here is a YouTube video slideshow of his work.

YouTube and British TV singing sensation Susan Boyle will soon grace the cover of her debut album. But, will she be wearing plaid?

Susan Boyle shoots album cover in Scotland

Susan Boyle has insisted that the cover photo for her debut album is taken in Scotland, claims a report.

15 July 2009 08:38 AM

Susan Boyle has insisted that the cover photo for her debut album is taken in Scotland, claims a report.

Insiders told The Sun that the “patriotic” 48-year-old from Blackburn, West Lothian, has flown back to Scotland to pose for the photoshoot.

They claimed that Susan is keen to show her “Scottishness” on the cover of her debut album for Simon Cowell.

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The cover for Whitney Houston’s upcoming album I Look To You was officially released today and added to the AAX gallery. I absolutely love the portrait that was selected. There isn’t any information on Houston’s website about the photographer.

Houston looks classy and dignified. This is exactly what was needed for an important comeback album. The only thing I don’t like about this cover are the diagonal lines running through the background. They make the edges of the font and the edge of Houston’s bare shoulder look jagged. That’s an opitical illusion that could have been avoided.

“I can’t remember the last time that people have cared about an album cover enough to hate it, so I think I’ve done something right.”

— Rob Thomas, addressing criticism of the cover of his album Cradlesong

Whitney Houston held a private listening event for media and fans at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London yesterday, during which a portrait that is assumed will on the cover of I Look To You was used as a backdrop.

A mock up for a new Lady Gaga album called The Fame Monster was leaked to the Internet yesterday. It is rumored to be a a version of her current album The Fame with extra tracks. With the upcoming release of Rob Zombie’s Captain Clegg and The Night Creatures, it looks like we could have an early Halloween.

German teen pop singer Kim Petras has two singles on iTunes and will soon be going on tour in the U.K. That’s a big accomplishment for any 16 year old young woman. It is even more amazing when you consider that Petras is also the world’s youngest person to have undergone gender reassignment surgery.

“I’m OK with my story. I didn’t do it just to become a pop star but I’m fine with my history. I just hope that one day people know me more for my singing than for my, you know, past,” said Petras in a recent interview.

Here is the cover for Petras’ most recent single, Last Forever. It has a very commercial sound that I’m sure will be popular here in the U.S. It will be interesting to see how the media here handles her life story. Let’s hope it is with sensitivity and understanding.

The single Last Forever was posted on YouTube in May.

A new video for Begin Again, a track from the third album by U.K./New Zealand Alternative Rock band The Veils was posted on YouTube yesterday. The video contains some pretty shocking images of a woman giving birth, a passionate lesbian kiss, and a few other things that I will keep as surprises.

I guess the video content should not be a surprise when we consider that the album cover for Sun Gangs features an anatomical illustration of a human heart.

On July 14, a new digital sales format called Digital 45 (D45) will bring the sleeve art of dozens of classic 45s back to the marketplace. A “D45s” section has been added to iTunes and stocked with an initial inventory of 60 45 singles that include the original single and the B-side. Many D45s include a PDF containing high resolution scans of the original sleeve.

When I read about the D45 format this evening, I immediately logged onto iTunes and browsed through the selection. I spotted several D45s that I would like to own — mostly for the rare B-sides.

However, I was disappointed that many of the D45s that I want to purchase do not include the PDF. Also, many do not include any sleeve art at all — quite a few 45s were released in plain sleeves.

Eventually, I selected two D45s to download, Talking Heads’ Take Me To The River and INXS’s What You Need. When I opened the Digital Booklet for Take Me To The River, I was very disappointed. The scans are sloppy and unrestored. These are the kind of scans with bad edges and dirt spots that make those of us at AlbumArtExchange cringe. 

I opened the PDF in Photoshop and restored the front cover for this 45. It took all of about 15 minutes. Sadly, the scans contained in the Digital Booklet for the INXS D45 were even worse, with banged up corners and bad cropping. It is too bad that Rhino and iTunes could not have released a better quality product. Sloppy work like this will not appeal to collectors.

I’m sure that many people will want to purchase the D45s for the music alone. Those who do will have to settle for ugly, poor quality cover art unless someone does a little Photoshop magic and uploads restored versions to the AAX gallery. You can see the restored covers for Take Me To The River and What You Need below.

The cover for Captain Clegg and The Night Creatures was revealed on Rob Zombie’s MySpace blog today.

Yo here is a look at David Hartman’s new CD cover art from CAPTAIN CLEGG And THE NIGHT CREATURES! Includes the songs “Dr. Demon and the Robot Girl”, “Creeps For Cushing”, “Day Of The Dead”, “Transylvania Terror Train”, “Honky Tonk Halloween”, “Macon County Morgue” and other smash hits!

The band is featured in Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 and take their name from a 1962 horror classic starring Peter Cushing. I’m not sure whether or not the the album cover was inspired by the poster for the film. The art is typical of the horror movie genre.

Both the band and the album seem to be pretty campy. I visited the MySpace page of the illustrator David Hartman. It is definitely worth a visit.

http://www.myspace.com/sideshowmonkey

Hartman’s MySpace bio indicates that he works for Disney Television.

“Some of my work can be seen in Roughnecks:Starship Troopers Chronicles, MTV’s Spiderman, Bubba Ho-Tep, Master’s of Horror for Showtime, the Devil’s Rejects comic book and in the upcoming “Living Dead Girl” comic and American Witch for Rob Zombie.”

Personally, I love creative designs like this. Rob Zombie has always produced interesting and unique album covers. This one appears to have everything going for it — a talented illustrator and a cool concept.

I’ll let you be the judge of the band and their music. Here’s a music video of Captain Clegg and The Night Creatures on YouTube.

Wired’s Epicenter blog has an interesting article about new innovations is music distribution that include packaging and format. We’ve already written about a couple of them here on the AAX blog, such as the Mos Def music t-shirt and recycled album art.

My brother’s band, Javelin, is considering an elaboration on this approach in their upcoming release for Thrill Jockey Records: hand-making every album cover using re-purposed vintage album covers, giving each fan a unique copy of the music and saving money on manufacturing.

I’m not sure whether or not the author of the article was joking about the recycled album covers. But, the rest of the article can definitely be taken seriously. The article features 10 recent innovations.

10 Weird Ways to Distribute Music

By Eliot Van Buskirk

Microsoft prepares a new streaming music service in the U.K., and a new report indicates a sharp decline in downloads among teenagers in favor of sites like Pandora, what’s an artist to do? Reinvent the distribution business, course.

Industry execs may fret about declining traditional sales, but some enterprising artists and labels have devised new ways to sell music that give fans something to collect, even in an age when the music itself can be infinitely duplicated for free. Or when the cloud makes the very idea of collecting and owning music seem quaint.

[…]

1. Max Tundra’s Limited Edition Kosher Chicken Soup

Purchasers of Domino Records artist Max Tundra’s 2008 album, Parallax Error Beheads You, have four formats to choose from: compact disc, vinyl, digital, or as a $19 soup can that comes with a download code. Domino calls this “the new kosher format,” due to the nature of the chicken soup contained inside the customized label. In addition to a food item that can be consumed in the event of lapsed fandom (or nuclear winter), fans who choose the soup can format also get an exclusive digital compilation of Max Tundra’s friends covering his songs…

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The album cover for Hip Hop supergroup Slaughterhouse featuring Joell Ortiz, Crooked I, Royce Da 5’9 and Joe Budden was released today. The video for the single The One was also posted to YouTube. The album is scheduled to be released on August 11.

This music video should serve as a word of warning to companies that wrong singer/songwriter Dave Carroll. United Breaks Guitars is one of the best viral videos I’ve ever seen on YouTube — probably because United has managed to loose my luggage three times over the years.

Carroll sent out a tweet today that he’s being interviewed by Rolling Stone. I do not have the official cover art for this song. It has been released as an MP3 on the artist’s website (see link below). I hope that when this song gets a proper release it will have a more creative cover.

http://www.sonsofmaxwell.com/catalog/albums

You can download a free track from the upcoming Om Records compilation album Om 15 - Celebrating 15 Years of Om Records at Dance Floor Mayhem.

The Wills and the Wonts (Enzo Ponzio Remix) by James Curd is one of 26 tracks on a 2-CD set. Ohter artists include Samantha James, Greenskeepers and Mike Monday.

Download at Dance Floor Mayhem

The video for the fourth single from Lily Allen’s It’s Not Me, It’s You was released on YouTube today. 22 is one of my favorite tracks from the album. I have not seen the cover art for this release. Amazon.com lists a release date of August 25.

The Gregory Brothers are the group who are getting famous for their series of YouTube videos called Auto-Tune the News, in which they altered the voices of newscasters and politicians using an electronic special effect called Auto-Tune. If you’ve never heard of Auto-Tune the News, you have to check out their latest video that I’ve posted below. They just seem to get better each time. 

Last month, the group released an EP called Meet the Gregory Brothers. I downloaded a couple of tracks and was pleasantly surprised.

Paint My Album is a blog with a pretty simple concept. Two guys named Diarmuid and Anthony ask people to redo classic album covers using MS Paint. So far, they’ve received over 1,700 covers.

It is a pretty interesting concept. MS Paint is comes standard with Windows, so virtually everyone with a PC has the software needed to participate. It is amazing what some people can do with such a limited graphics program.

Here are a few examples:

 The guys promote their project using Facebook and YouTube. Their YouTube videos are more like a comedy sketch show than a show about sketches.

I love everything about the album cover for Major Lazer’s album Guns Don’t Kill People Lazers Do! If you’re like me, you took one look at this cover and thought that the album had better be teamed up with some great animated music videos. And it is!

The video for Hold The Line featuring Mr. Lexx and Santigold is a brilliant parody of old Saturday morning action cartoons and the commercials for action figures that always accompanied them.

In general, it is not a good idea to base an album cover on current political events. Most CDs tend to have a longer shelf life than the average political campaign or controversy. Rapper Eminem ignored all that and placed a parody of Sarah Palin on the cover of his single We Made You.

All of the recent media coverage of Sarah Palin’s resignation is certain to renew interest in We Made You. The single was released back in April, when media interest in Palin had started to die down. Following the dust up she had with David Letterman and her rambling resignation speech, she is once again the favorite of late night comedy. This could be a lucky turn of events for Eminem.

Check this out. I found a painting used for the cover of an album up for bids on eBay. The item description reads as follows:

this is the original cover painting for the 2005 CD/LP “the Great Destroyer” by the band Low. it was released via Sub Pop records. the image area measures about 24’ x 13” and is painted in watercolor on some rough gesso’d wood i found lying around somewheres. FULL DISCLOSURE: this was hanging on my son’s wall for a few years and some sun hit it (and besides we pumped the color a bit for the printed version in the first place…) so the color in this painting is considerably less saturated and dark as the printed version. i’ve never sold a damn thing on ebay, so questions are welcome.

 

The band is on Sup Pop records and hails from Duluth, Minnesota. I had never heard of them before and I’m not sure whether or not this painting will appeal to fans or album art collectors. The starting bid is $1,200 and there were zero bids when I saw the item on eBay.

Here is the album cover for Low’s The Great Detroyer.

I’ve already preordered mine! On July 20th, a 40th anniversary digital EP of David Bowie’s Space Oddity will be released. The release will also mark the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s historic walk on the moon.

This cover has not yet been added to the AAX gallery. I will post an update as soon as it has been uploaded.

The 2009 cover is an updated version of the cover of the original U.K. single shown below. I think I prefer the fonts used on the original to the faux retro font used in the new version. They are obviously more authentic.

The EP will contain four versions of the song: 

• Space Oddity (Original UK Mono Single Edit)
• Space Oddity (US Mono Single Edit)
• Space Oddity (US Stereo Single Edit)
• Space Oddity (1979 Re-record)

It will also feature the original eight stems/multi-tracks that will allow fans to remix and create their own versions of the song. The stems/multi-tracks that will be made available are:

• Space Oddity (Bass and Drums)
• Space Oddity (Strings)
• Space Oddity (Acoustic Guitar)
• Space Oddity (Mellotron)
• Space Oddity (Backing Vocal, Flute and Cellos)
• Space Oddity (Stylohone and Guitar)
• Space Oddity (Lead Vocal)
• Space Oddity (Main Backing Vocal Including Countdown)

For you kids you may not be familiar with Space Oddity, here is the original 1969 promotional film (this was a decade before music videos):

A new single by Whitney Houston was leaked to the Internet yesterday. I Didn’t Know My Own Strength is an inspirational ballad that is sure to strike a cord with Houston fans. I’m not sure if this cover is the final version or simply a promo cover. It looks like the same promo photo that was released a few weeks ago.

I’m not sure how long the single will remain on YouTube. Record labels are usually pretty fast to remove leaked material — unless it is a PR stunt. Time will tell.

Rapper Johnny Polygon just sent out a tweet about a casting call for an album cover. Hum, I don’t look like a gangster, I’m not a young mallrat/hipster or a bikini girl with realy great legs and a closet full of skimpy outfits. I guess that leaves me out. What about you?

It is said that photographer Iain Macmillan was given only ten minutes to take the photograph that would become one of the most famous and imitated album covers of all time, The Beatles Abbey Road.

Just over 40 years later, Nova Scotia, Canada premier, Darrell Dexter (second from right) and Halifax mayor Peter Kelly (second from left) have re-created the album cover in order to help promote this weekend’s Paul McCartney concert on the Halifax Common.

N.S. premier and Halifax mayor dress up as Ringo and Paul to hype concert

By Elizabeth Mcmillan , The Canadian Press

HALIFAX, N.S. - The premier of Nova Scotia busted out a ’70s-style wig and did his best Beatles saunter across a Halifax street on Wednesday to drum up enthusiasm for a concert on Saturday by pop icon Paul McCartney.

Premier Darrell Dexter and Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly re-created the iconic Abbey Road album cover in anticipation of the concert on the Halifax Common - McCartney’s only Canadian performance this year.

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So, how do you think it compares to the original?

Personally, my favorite Abbey Road re-creation is the one by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

This is the second time La Roux has been featured in New and Notable. The duo’s album was just released and the cover is one of the best of 2009. The portrait of singer/musician Elly Jackson is simply stunning (you simply must click the image for a larger view).  The color and composition are fantastic.

Here is La Roux’s latest music video for the single Quicksand.

The final Michael Jackson “Off The Wall” cover art as created by Mike Salisbury.

After seeing Jackson in the The Wiz, Salisbury contacted his agent. “I knew his agent and called him to say that Michael Jackson was going to be the biggest star ever and I would be anxious to work on something with him,” said Salisbury. “Michael’s agent called me in to his office and showed me an album cover mock up for his solo album and asked me what I thought. I told him that it looked like a cheap ad for the children’s department at Macy’s. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It sucks.’ I thought Michael Jackson had the potential to be huge—the biggest, so I suggested he let me develop some ideas.”

Salisbury returned to the agent’s office with several variations of his concept, which only seemed to perplex the agent. “I explained that I was creating a metaphor. I told him that Michael was just a kid out from under his dad so I think the album cover should make a statement that his solo debut is as big as Sinatra coming on stage in Vegas. I explained the concept by pointing to the fashion type drawing and saying, I put him in a tuxedo. That says big deal!”

“The agent hemmed and hawed and was just about to dismiss the whole nutty idea when a little, high-pitched voice softly squeaked, ‘I like it,’ and Michael stepped out from behind the drape covering the large office window. ‘Let’s just do it,’ he said, and so we did,” explained Salisbury.

Jackson liked everything about Salisbury’s concept from the get-go and only requested one change. “‘I want to wear white socks,’ Michael whispered to me. They have to be über socks then…really glamorous,” remembered Salisbury.

The photo shoot was taken at the Griffith Observatory at the Hollywood Planetarium. Salisbury’s wife at the time found an Yves St. Laurent woman’s tux in Beverly Hills that fit Michael. “I also told him to get loafers like Gene Kelly wore in An American in Paris. When we went to shoot the photo, I instructed him, to roll up his pant legs, put his fingers in his pockets and pull his pants up like Gene Kelly—to show off the socks. The loafers really made the white socks work. By the way, the socks were custom-made for Michael by famous Hollywood costume designer Bob Mackie.

“Michael drove up the hill to where we were at in the front of the building, the same location where they shot the knife fight in the movie, Rebel Without a Cause,” Salisbury continued. “He was just 21 and had a new Rolls Royce. It was smashed up a bit and he was driving badly.”

There was no place for Jackson to change and Salisbury and his team were under a time constraint because they had no permit to shoot there. “Fortunately for us, the women’s restroom was open and like a real trouper he ran in there and put on the tux,” Salisbury noted.

After reviewing his first shot for the album cover, Salisbury didn’t think it showed the real Michael. “We were rushed and Michael was just not that into it,” he said. “I thought he was a little too serious. We needed to shoot this differently. I mean, this album cover was just for him, not him and four other brothers. I suggested we re-shoot it and when we did, I directed him to be more animated. I suggested he smile and exaggerate the pulling up of his pants and get into it like he was dancing. He was a great sport and agreed to do the re-shoot. We did the second photo shoot against a wall and voilá! There was our cover for ‘Off the Wall.’”

The white socks were so successful in drawing attention to Michael and his dance moves, there was a conversation about doing gloves, too. “I felt that would start looking literally Mickey Mouse (and of course Michael was a big Mickey Mouse fan). Between the agent and Michael and me, we got it down to one white glitzy glove. Another great move for attention,” Salisbury concluded.

Salisbury created Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall” debut album cover art in 1979. Today, Salisbury is recognized worldwide as one of the leading talents in American brand design. People see his artwork every day in some of the world’s most recognized corporate branding and product designs for companies such as Volkswagen, Suzuki, Honda, and Hasbro—the biggest toy company in the world.

His work can also be found everywhere in the motion picture industry. Salisbury helped create marketing campaigns for over 300 movies including Aliens, Jurassic Park, Romancing The Stone, Raiders of The Lost Ark and Moulin Rouge. The “exploding boxing gloves” that introduced Rocky IV to the world is an iconic Salisbury image that drew more recognition for the film than its title, ultimately becoming the visual symbol for the film and Salisbury’s most copied graphic metaphor. George Lucas is a collector of Salisbury’s work and recommended him to Francis Ford Coppola, who used Salisbury imagery creations in Apocalypse Now.

His music industry work includes creating album covers for George Harrison, James Taylor, Randy Newman, Rickie Lee Jones, Ry Cooder, Ike & Tina (for which he garnered an album design Grammy nomination), and many others. Mike additionally developed branding identities for top labels Blue Note Records, RCA, United Artists Records and PolyGram.

It didn’t take Motown very long to release a new Michael Jackson compilation on iTunes. The Stripped Mixes is a collection of “stripped down” versions of Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 hits. These are songs that haven’t been remixed to the level of a typical Motown release. My favorite from this album is the stripped mix of Ben. Jackson’s voice is pure and strong.

The cover art used for this album is a photograph from the same session as the cover for Got To Be There — probably from the Motown archives. Notice that Michael’s missing tooth hasn’t been touched up as was done in the older cover (they did a terrible job on it).

The tracks on The Stripped Mixes are as follows:

1. I’ll Be There (Minus Mix) - Jackson 5 
2. Ben (Stripped Mix) - Michael Jackson
3. Who’s Lovin’ You (Stripped Mix) - Jackson 5
4. Ain’t No Sunshine (Stripped Mix) - Michael Jackson 
5. I Want You Back (Stripped Mix) - Jackson 5
6. ABC (Stripped Mix) - Jackson 5 
7. We’ve Got a Good Thing Going (Stripped Mix) - Michael Jackson
8. With a Child’s Heart (Stripped Mix) - Michael Jackson 
9. Darling Dear (Stripped Mix) - Jackson 5
10. Got to Be There (Stripped Mix) - Michael Jackson 
11. Never Can Say Goodbye (Stripped Mix) - Jackson 5

You can download a free Michael Jackson tribute compilation performed by various New Zealand indie artists from the Cheese on Toast website. The album includes 12 tracks, most of which have that folksy, indie feel. It is a decent compilation for those of us who like this kind of thing.

Moonlight, Good Times & Boogie

I stumbled on this very cool Google Earth collection of famous album cover locations on GoogleEarthHacks.com. All you have to do is install Google Earth (a free download from Google) and open the file.

There are dozens of famous album cover locations in the file along with the album cover art (I wish the person who made this file had known about AAX, because the covers are pretty bad).

Here are a few of the albums and locations:

Abbey Road

How cool is this? Google Earth has a nice user interface that allows you to select the location from a folder. Then, the globe literally spins you to the right spot. Most of the locations are immediately recognizable from the album cover.

I think it is about time I featured an unsigned band like Music Is A Weapon. I just happened to stumble on their music video on YouTube today. It appears that the band allowed a video game company to use one of their songs and the music video was created for them in return.

The band has a pretty nice album cover on their website. You can also listen to sample tracks. Because this is an unsigned band, you won’t find the typical “buy now” button accompanying this cover.

If you’re an unsigned artist and you have a album cover and/or music video to share, you can submit it to the AlbumArtExchange blog by sending your album cover graphic and video link to blog@albumartexchange.com. Please make sure that the graphic is at least 600 pixels wide and 300 dpi.

Here is the music video for Music Is A Weapon’s 1968 The 2 Bit Hustler:

Our sixth installation of Album Cover Mash Up comes to us from AAX user Music Hog (who has submitted almost 2,600 covers to the gallery).

If you want to participate in the AAX Album Cover Mash Up, all you have to do is follow these rules:

1. The album covers must be part of the AAX gallery.
2. All of the elements in the mash up cover must be present in one of the two originals. However, you do not have to use the original images. For example, if there is a black car in one of the original covers, you can use a black car from a stock photo instead of the one on the cover. 
3. Submit your mash up along with the AAX links to the original cover images via e-mail to blog@albumartexchange.com. You must also include your name or AAX forum username.

I will publish mash ups as I receive them. I will not guarantee that your mash up will be published (but I’m not going to be too picky).

Tom Wilkes and his Grammy Award, taken a few weeks before his death in Pioneertown, CA. Photo by Fritz Drumm

Thomas E. Wilkes was born July 30, 1939 in Long Beach, California and was raised in Southern California. He attended Long Beach City College, UCLA and the Art Center College of Design in the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1967, Wilkes was the art director of the Monterey International Pop Festival. He created all graphics and printed materials for Monterey Pop, including the program book and the festival’s psychedelic and iconic foil poster.

From 1967 through 1969, Wilkes was the art director of A&M Records. He was partner with Barry Feinstein from 1970 through 1973 in Camouflage Productions, which became record label Blue Thumb’s house art department.

He was partner in Wilkes & Braun, Inc. from 1973 through 1974, and art director of ABC Records from 1975 through 1977. In 1978, he started Tom Wilkes Productions and became President of Project Interspeak, a not-for-profit environmental and human rights organization devoted to planetary enhancement programs.

Wilkes designed and directed such hit record covers as The Rolling Stones’ Flowers and Beggars Banquet, Neil Young’s Harvest, George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh and All Things Must Pass, and Janis Joplin’s Pearl.

     

     

Wilkes received a Grammy Award in 1974 for Best Recording Package for The Who’s rock opera Tommy, as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra & Choir.

Among his many album cover credits:

• Ike & Tina Turner - Outta Season
• Eric Clapton - Eric Clapton
• Dave Mason - Alone Together
• Joe Cocker - Mad Dogs & Englishmen
• Flying Burrito Brothers - Gilded Palace of Sin
• John Prine - John Prine
• Emmylou Harris - Blue Kentucky Girl and Elite Hotel
• Leon Russell - Stop All That Jazz
• REO Speedwagon - You Can Tune a Piano, But You Can’t Tuna Fish

In addition to creating hundreds of posters, logos, books, trade ads and illustrations, Wilkes produced and directed TV and radio spots, music videos, films, mixed media presentations and special events.

He recently completed a book of his artwork and memoirs, called “Tommy Geeked a Chicken,” and was negotiating publishing arrangements. At this time, plans are being made to proceed with publication of the book.

A memorial service will be held for Wilkes on Saturday, July 11, in Orange, California.

Here is the cover of the upcoming Beastie Boys album Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1. I have to say that I am a bit disappointed with this one. Beastie Boys have had a couple of fairly iconic album covers over the years, such as the amazing jet illustration on Licensed to Ill. This certainly isn’t of that calibur. They look as if they’re coming back from a picnic.

The album is set to be released on September 15. A couple of tracks that are supposed to have been leaked are posted on YouTube. Here is one called Lee Majors Come Again.

Norweigian metal band Theatre of Tragedy released the cover for their upcoming album Forver Is The World on their MySpace blog today:

We are proud to present the 7th Theatre of Tragedy album cover! This was one again made by the ingenious artwork wizard Thomas Ewerhard. Following up his excellent work on “Assembly” and “Storm”, Thomas has once again managed to amaze us with his skills. The album artwork is also an challenge to the die hard ToT fan. Somewhere inside this cover there is incorporated elements from all 6 studio album covers for the band. See if you can find it?

Often, everyday household items can become the inspriation for album cover art. In this installation of Variations on a Theme, we’ll be looking at a few album covers that feature a very common household item, the light bulb.

The light bulb was invented almost 130 years ago, so it shouldn’t be surprising that it has been featured in popular art and advertising images countless of times. Album covers are no exception. I browsed through the AAX gallery and found several examples. The one’s I’ve posted are intended to show a diverse range of genres. The most recent is the cover of The Black Eyed Peas single, I Gotta Feeling.

Here are a few more interesting light bulb album covers:

     

One of the most elaborate use of light bulbs as a theme has to be The Queens of the Stone Age’s Era Vulgaris. The band posted a number of promotional videos online featuring the light bulb cartoon characters that appeared on the album cover.

Check this out! An online retailer is selling an "Album Side Table" with a "faux-album surface." I'm sure that there are a few AAX users who will be interested in owning one of these.

This item comes from Bughouse Art + Design and sells for $450. There is a DJ turntable coffee table that looks like it would go along with it. I can read Led Zeppelin, Paul Simon, The Jackson 5 and several other artists on the "faux spines" in the photo.

“Close your eyes and imagine, if you will, the bastard son of the Misfits and Daft Punk.” That’s the first line of the biography found on the MySpace page of Italian electronic duo The Bloody Beetroots. When I did close my eyes and put my imagination to work, I did not picture a pair of men in wrestling masks — one sitting on a toilet and the other painting anarchist graffiti on a wall. WTF is up with this?!

I suppose that this cover would have been controversial 30 years ago. Today, we see covers that are more shocking on Mad magazine. In fact, this cover does seem to be more of a parody than anything else. The Bloody Beetroots have a recent video posted on YouTube. Here it is for your consideration.

Apparently, recycling old album art has become a trend. A few weeks ago, I ran across an album cover that featured a collage that was basically a Madonna album cover with first aid tape applied to it. This second example is a bit more sophisicated.

The cover of the upcoming album from Indie rock band Smith Westerns features a collage by artist Jason Matthew Lee. The collage uses a very popular album as the background. I am not sure if the other images are album covers. They could very well be.

This album will be released on July 7 and has not yet been added to the AAX gallery. I listened to a few sample tracks on the band’s MySpace page. They sound okay, but I don’t think I’ll buy even a single track to add the 600 x 600 art to the gallery. Check them out if you get a chance. If you get the album art, please upload it. It is notable for the reuse of a an iconic cover.

Tanya Tucker - 1975

My Turn - 2009

Shakira released the cover for her new single for She Wolf today. I was stunned that Perez Hilton had only good things to say about it!

Words can do this no justice!!!!

Shakira just unveiled the cover for her new single, She Wolf.

Exquisite!

It isn’t that I don’t agree with Hilton. The cover is pretty darn sexy. I just can’t believe Hilton doesn’t have something mean and catty to say about Shakira.

Shakira looks great in this shot. However, it appears that her record label is using this same photo for the Spanish version of the single. It is dissappointing that the Spanish version of the song, Loba, has the same art as She Wolf. I think that they qualify as being worthy of at least slightly different cover art. The AAX gallery has both versions thanks to user leothegreat.

Can’t Stop by Quentin Harris featuring Jason Walker has been kicking around since late last year. I’ve decided to feature it in New and Notable because Francis Legge posted an updated HD version of the video on YouTube yesterday. Also, the record label has taken the effort to create some decent cover art for this song. (Hint, hint, record labels.)

This song reminds me of something that I just can’t put my finger on yet. And it has nothing to do with the fact that Jason Walker is one of those singers with a voice that just doesn’t seem to fit his looks.

My old friend Jasper sent me this album cover mash up with the following note:

I know that you hate the new Jordin Sparks album cover. I also know that you love Grace Jones. So my mash up is the Jordin Sparks Battlefield cover and Grace Jones’ Slave to the Rhythm. I think Jordin ends up looking pretty cool on my cover. Too bad she’s not as daring as Jones or she would do something like this for real.

If you want to participate in the AAX Album Cover Mash Up, all you have to do is follow these rules:

1. The album covers must be part of the AAX gallery.
2. All of the elements in the mash up cover must be present in one of the two originals. However, you do not have to use the original images. For example, if there is a black car in one of the original covers, you can use a black car from a stock photo instead of the one on the cover. 
3. Submit your mash up along with the AAX links to the original cover images via e-mail to blog@albumartexchange.com. You must also include your name or AAX forum username.

I will publish mash ups as I receive them. I will not guarantee that your mash up will be published (but I’m not going to be too picky).

I heard about the cover for Wilco (The Album) a couple of months ago. At that time, no one seemed to have a digital image. It was described as featuring a camel at a birthday party. I couldn’t wait to see it.

Now that I have, all I can say is “WTF?!” That camel is wearing a party hat!

Image by Fritz Liess via Flickr

I took pictures of the camels the last time I went to the zoo. I didn’t know that what I was shooting could be used for an album cover. I guess I should have taken along a party hat and put it on top of this guy’s head.

Actually, I’m pretty sure that would have been a very bad idea. Camels are pretty nasty animals. I should probably note that the camel on the Wilco cover is a Bactrian Camel and the one in my photo is a Dromedary or Arabian Camel.