A discussion on album covers and artwork.

yevveh

Agreed in that a lot of these album covers are totally cheesy!

Scanned the Ten Past Seven artwork:







The image on the right in the second one is reflective, the idea being you see your own face with the smile and shush-ing finger over it. Great idea. I had to edit it slightly due to reflectivity and my pathetic editing skills (or lack thereof) will probably show. I was really surprised with how high quality the artwork is, especially by a small Irish band on an independent release.

Wishbone Ash

yevveh wrote:

Agreed in that a lot of these album covers are totally cheesy!

Scanned the Ten Past Seven artwork:







The image on the right in the second one is reflective, the idea being you see your own face with the smile and shush-ing finger over it. Great idea. I had to edit it slightly due to reflectivity and my pathetic editing skills (or lack thereof) will probably show. I was really surprised with how high quality the artwork is, especially by a small Irish band on an independent release.

I'm afraid yevveh, that cover would do nothing for me!

yevveh

Wishbone Ash wrote:

I'm afraid yevveh, that cover would do nothing for me!

Fair enough - each to his own!

Also, I figure they're all alternate covers masked as artwork. They don't come in a booklet - each one is a slip of paper with a cover on either side. I didn't scan the reverse of the reflective one (it's plain reflective material) or one other, as I didn't like it. I assume you mean you didn't like the reflective one?

weemcd

yevveh

weemcd - saw that one before, love it!

Karl Hungus

L&#233 wrote: »

Death - Spiritual Healing
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Excellent.

I was wondering how long it would be untill someone posted that. Easily one of my favourites, it's quite a stand out compared to a lot of other Death Metal releases.

lezizi

Undergod wrote:

He actually designs covers for other bands and stuff, doesn't he? He has a website for his graphic design business I think.

I agree Tool often have wonderful artwork, the layered booklet off Lateralus is wonderful, or the stereoscopic goggles and 3D pictures in 10,000 days. Great stuff.

Ya the artwork in 10,000 days is brilliant

SirLemonhead

Scorpions had a few odd ones early on..

KilbarrackBlows

I always love tools album covers.
And i can brag now because i was asked by the head of mute records art department (louise downer) to do some album covers mwahahah *his head begins to grow*.

lezizi

KilbarrackBlows wrote:

I always love tools album covers.
And i can brag now because i was asked by the head of mute records art department (louise downer) to do some album covers mwahahah *his head begins to grow*.

no way thats class

Undergod

A favourite since I was a kid.

yevveh

Undergod - love that one. Zappa has some brilliant ones. "Ship Arriving Too Late To Save a Drowning Witch" is pretty clever:



Exactly what it says on the tin!

steveone

cant believe no one threw in ride the lightening...
nice to see mael mordha in there too:)

jellikit

Since this ambum came out its been my favourite , so much so I had it done on my last bike

Geranium

Can't say I agree that rock/metal bands have interesting covers. Rock bands often do, but ninety persent of metal covers seem to be done in the same style, with similar themes. Some busty lady, and epic mountainside or view, a gory scene or skull that looks cool to a fourteen year old boy. That said, at least Immortal bring some much needed sexiness into the whole area.

bringitdown

Always loved these ...

Matthewthebig

I've always liked the artwork.

More O'Malley work.

Numina

What? is nobody going to post Regurgitate's "Carnivorous Erection" artwork?

I can't think of any of my favorites right now, except maybe Nine Inch Nails "Closer To God" artwork. i just love it



Also, I'll have to agree with the call on Sepultura's "Arise", excellent cover, I spent a while just looking at the detail in it

Karl Hungus

There's too much pictures being posted, and not enough discussion going on here. Come on guys. If you're going to post something, at least give a reason why it's good.

Geranium wrote:

Can't say I agree that rock/metal bands have interesting covers. Rock bands often do, but ninety persent of metal covers seem to be done in the same style, with similar themes. Some busty lady, and epic mountainside or view, a gory scene or skull that looks cool to a fourteen year old boy. That said, at least Immortal bring some much needed sexiness into the whole area.

While there certainly are a lot of clichéd album covers in Metal, no doubt about it, but 90% is a bit strong. Honestly, where did you get that figure?

I think there's plenty of great artwork out there, especially considering the work of Ed Repka, and many others like Travis Smith working in the genre. There's a lot of them who I just can't think of right now.

MoominPapa

Whatever about the accuracy of the statistics I'd agree with Geranium take in general, whats disappointing about metal covers like the Meal Mordha one cited is its so corney and samey, I instantly thought of Holy Diver which is all of 25 odd years old. This stuff is young teenage boy w*nk and it hasn't moved on in a long, long time. The other side of this is that the metal pioneers never stooped to this crap and while some of their 70's covers might seem cheesy, Deep Purple spring to mind, they at least were of their time, say Fireball, or they were having a laugh, In Rock.
Take the cover of Hemispheres by Rush. The album deals with the conflict between heart and mind, emotion vs experience, instinct vs rationality using ancient Greek mythology to illustrate this . Hugh Syme choose to illustrate this using a photo montage of lots of floating brains with a naked ballet dancer dude pointing in an accusingly foppish manner at a chartered accountant type in a pinstripe suite and bowler hat. Its a bit odd and I've never been sure if I like it or not. However if the guy who did the Meal Morda cover had his way we would have had an airbrushed cross between the Rape of the Sabine women and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Also I think the adoption of characters in the late 70s by emerging bands such as Motorhead and Iron Maiden was a unfortunate development as every single one of all their covers are hideous and totally lacking innovation or imagination in fact they're all down right ugly.

steveone

jethro tull's Aqualung is an excellent gatefold cover..
reminds me of a hobo that used to sleep rough across from the rotunda hospital in dublin when i was a kid...

damonjewel

MoominPapa wrote:

Also I think the adoption of characters in the late 70s by emerging bands such as Motorhead and Iron Maiden was a unfortunate development as every single one of all their covers are hideous and totally lacking innovation or imagination in fact they're all down right ugly.

Ah yes the Heavy Metal Motif. Give your band a cool looking logo in a gothic style typeface and identifiable image. I think heavy metal bands in the late 70's were pioneers of marketing and brand loyalty. This was a ply by the embroidery industry which got thousands of metal fans drop stitching their denim jackets.

The Iron Maiden/Motorhead album covers are weak and as the releases continue the idea gets tiresome. I would much rather the austere designs of factory records than an axe wielding zombie.

However I have to say looking at some of the covers posted there really is some super ones that I never knew about

Mr. CooL ICE

Gotta hand it to them for being ballsy

Lemming

I am amazed that nobody has posted this yet:



Hendrix ftw


But on another note, I like this album cover for two reasons; Simplicity. And in a genre where people seem to think that you need to have highly detailed and elaborate artwork, this goes against the trend:

MoominPapa

LordChessington wrote:

Gotta hand it to them for being ballsy

Don't know, the guy on the left seems to be a bit lackin in packin, and the rest are all conveniently covered up in one way or another
One is reminded of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T27oOfoZPg0

MagicMarker

Earthhorse

Dinosaur Jr. - Green Mind



Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine



Stone Temple Pilots - Purple

Purple

Pearl Jam - Ten



Lemonheads - Car, Button, Cloth

Car, Button, Cloth

Honestly, I think most of these covers are self explanatory, especially the first two. Just look at the face on that girl on the cover of Green Mind! Such attitude!

I love all the artwork in Purple including the cover (had to link to this image because I had to scan it myself and it's BIG).

The Ten cover is great too though I don't like the larger photo it actually folds out into. I think the hands reaching toward the sky is far more evocative.

The Lemonheads one is a bit silly I guess but something about it appeals to me. One thing I've noticed is that I tend to prefer photos to artwork, at least when it comes to covers.

Would have to agree with the criticism of a lot of metal covers. They do a fair trade in clichés and a lot of them are too busy for my liking. Like they can't decide what they want the focus of the image to be so they just chuck everything in.