The Royksopp album just snatches the top spot this week with its bizarre “scenesterific! camp collage. The Decemberists album below was a a very close second. I’m really feeling the way, although surely photoshopped, the album creates typography out of wood. Beautiful.
Decemberists, Mono etc
Great albums – Great Artwork out 23/03/09 (uk)
__________
Rich
Record labels that ooze style – Fool House
There is a treasure trove of small labels across the world who put out great music that isn’t considered financially viable enough for major labels. Great music that has a niche audience of a few thousand (and maybe more – majors generally aren’t interested if the band don’t have the potential to shift 10s of thousands of units). The labels often work closely with artists and designers to produce spectacular results. My friends and I refer to it as the “factory model”, as I’m sure many others do, based on the work on Factory Records. They started small and worked closely with designers such as Peter Saville (who defined the label visually from the very beginning). They were more than a record label, Factory Records produced concepts that helped define a generation, not only of Mancunians but of many Brits as well. A good record label can revolutionise.
See the artwork for 33Hz, Mondkopf...
__________
Rich
Great albums – Great Artwork out 16/03/09 (uk)
Having cut through some real rubbish again I bring you only 4 albums of note released this week. If you know of any more than should be getting my attention let me know!
The top image is for “Final Song” by various artists including Radiohead and Brian Eno. I really like the 3D paper imagery but I also really like the album’s concept. Asking the compilers the simple but poignant question “what song they would like to have played at your funeral?”. More said about it at Drowned In Sound.
More by Black lips, Bonnie Prince Billy and Wavves
__________
Rich
Iconic T-Shirt Designs
T-shirts have long been an important aspect for many bands. They are often the one piece of merchandise outside of the albums/singles that fans own. They serve several functions including: allowing a fan to show their support for the band, raise awareness of the band and raising money for the band as shirts are cheap to produce.
Below are a selection of iconic shirts featuring where possible the cast of Flickr. I do not feature in any of the images ha. I’m aware some shirts aren’t strictly original and are lame-ass re-issues. This also isn’t intended to be a complete list by any means. Just 18 t-shirts that I like a lot and are iconic for various reasons.
More T-shirts including Nivarna, Bruce Springsteen, Minor Threat...
__________
Rich
Great albums – Great Artwork out 09/03/09 (uk)
After last week’s complete lack of decent visuals we’ve got a deluge of stuff that’s actually pretty cool. My favourite, above, is the Dm Stith album. Overlays of watercolour and strawblowing finished in a thick black splodge and a heavy type face cutting through.
More albums below including Pure Reason Revolution, Annie Lennox etc...
__________
Rich
Blondie Vs Blur Vs Katy Perry
I was just flicking through the Sunday Times Magazine looking at “The Greatest Rock’n'Roll pictures ever” when I noticed an image I’ve seen many times before: Blur’s parody of Parallel Lines by Blondie but what I hadn’t noticed before was how much Damon Albarn’s Debbie Harry looks like Katy Perry. Scary huh?
Original Katy Perry and Blondie after the cut...
__________
RichDepeche Mode – Wrong Music Video
I could watch this video on repeat. It’s so dark. The song itself is also incredible.
The video was directed by Patrick Daughters who has directed a lot of great videos. He directed the Date With The Night video by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs which includes footage (the flashing gambling machine) from the venue I run my club night in. He’s also done the lion’s share of Feist videos and the video for the Futureheads’ Hounds Of Love. A lot of cool stuff basically.
The guy in the car is the drummer from The Liars, Julian Gross.
__________
Rich
Cool Gig Posters
Posters are so infinitely adaptable. They can be any size or shape containing any variance of textual and graphical elements. Posters are usually the first port of call for conveying any kind of message. With regards to music this message is usually a show, an event, a gig or a release of an album or single.
Event posts often become items worthy of collection. Many concerts /gigs have specially designed custom prints of their posters often producing far more than needed to promote the show or producing generic posters to advertise but creating custom prints so that fans of the bands can purchase them for display at home. This blurs the line between a poster whose design exists to educate the observer and a poster that is supposed to be displayed as a piece of art. Sometimes beautiful posters do a very bad job from a design point of view because the information they contain is sacrificed in order to create a more visually stunning piece of work.
I've made a selection from my saved collection of posters...
__________
RichFever Ray – When I Grow Up Music Video
The new Fever Ray (Karin Dreijer Andersson from the Knife) video is fantastically disturbing. Kinda like the exorcism of a zombie cheerleader in the most suburban setting imaginable short of kids on lowrider bikes.
From the director of "What Else Is There?" by Royksopp...
__________
Rich
So the new U2 album…
It’s all over the internets and I don’t like it. I love the image but I don’t like the album cover. I shall explain. The U2 artwork contains a stunning photograph by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. The actual design though is deliberately non-committal; as softly-focused as the image on the cover. The lack of name implies a lack of ownership. What would Freud say? Only a band as big as U2 could release an album on which the cover has no mention of the artist but that doesn’t mean they should. The music on the U2 album is...
__________
Rich
