Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update – Independence Day Weekend, July, 2019
By Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com
Hope that all of you here in the U.S. are enjoying your 4th of July holiday break – BBQ-ing, fireworks, trips to the beach, sun burns, little kids spilling sand on your blanket while their parents are checking their Facebook feeds, etc. – oh such fun! We had great weather (i.e., no rain) here in Chicagoland and were lucky enough to enjoy two nice fireworks displays, so with my ears still ringing and bursts of color burned into my corneas, here is a quickie, much-streamlined run-down of all of the album cover artist/art-related news I think might be worth your time investigating:
ARE YOU AN ALBUM COVER ART CREATOR? If so, now’s the time to show the world just how innovative and talented you are. From now thru August 9th, the nice people who stage the ever-more-impressive “Making Vinyl” conferences are accepting entries into this year’s album art/packaging awards competition. Last year’s “Best In Show” winner – the team behind The Decemberists’ I’ll Be Your Girl, including art directors/designers/illustrators Carson Ellis, Glen Nakasako and Jeri Heiden – also won two top awards at the 2018 PPP (Paperboard Packaging Council) Awards show and received a nomination at last year’s Grammy Awards for “Best Recording Package, Boxed” and so, if past history is any indicator, the winners in this competition’s 15 categories do indeed represent “the best of the best”. Another Making Vinyl Award winner – the creative team Meghan Foley, Annie Stoll & Al Yankovic, art directors, who put together Weird Al Yankovic’s box-set-in-an-accordion called Squeeze Box, also would go on to win the aforementioned Grammy Award for “Best Recording Package, Boxed”, so it should give all of you working in this field some incentive to add your most-recent works to this year’s contest. I was asked again to be one of the judges for this year’s competition and look forward to seeing what you’ve been up to this past year.
The winner’s will be announced at this year’s Making Vinyl Music Packaging Awards ceremonies In Los Angeles, scheduled during the 2-day conference to be held October 14-15 at the W Hotel in West Hollywood.
Enter via the link – http://makingvinyl.org/music-packaging-awards/?
If you’d like to read my interview with Jeri heiden and Glen Nakasako that I did after their win last year, here’s the link – https://albumcoverhalloffame.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/2270-ill-be-your-girl-the-decemberists/
Exhibitions/gallery shows –
a) UPCOMING in July – The World Illustration Awards (U.K.) Exhibition 2019, presented by the Association of Illustrators (AOI) in partnership with the Directory of Illustration, has posted the full shortlist of 200 entries in the various categories they cover – with spotlight presentations of work by Category and Award Winners – on their website. If you’d like to see the Shortlist of nominees in the Design category (where designs for album covers, AKA “record sleeves”, are found), click on over to – https://theaoi.com/wia/?orderby=rand&award-year=2019&award-list=shortlist&award-category=design There, you’ll find several works showing off the latest in album cover design, including an impressive example from Illustrator Tim Easley that features a painstakingly-created circuit board made of plasticine to be used on the record sleeve for the band Modified Man. The exhibition features a range of materials and design/production processes that help us all better appreciate the imaginative approaches to record packaging you’ll see included in the show.
The Category and Overall winners will be announced at an awards ceremony held at Somerset House on July 10, alongside the winners of three new cross-category awards, including an AOI Members Award, a Directory of Illustration Award, and the Society of Artists Agents Award for New Talent. https://www.dexigner.com/news/32154
b) OPENING July 13th – A new show at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, MI looks to be a must-see for students of the art of the album cover. According to the advance press, “For the Record: Artists on Vinyl mines a unique vein of creative expression, the design of the record album cover and the use of phonographic recordings by artists as a vehicle for creative expression…This exhibition features more than 50 designs, many of which are paired with artworks, drawn from our permanent collection, by the same artist.” Most readers of this site know how often it is that now-famous artists either got their start in the album cover art business (Andy Warhol and Drew Struzan are prime examples of this) or, as musical and graphical artists are often on the same wavelength, how many successful collaborations there have been between music and art makers.
For the Record: Artists on Vinyl is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum curator Ian Gabriel Wilson, the Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections Fellow, with the assistance of Frank M. Edwards, with many of the artworks on display drawn from the collection of Mr. Edwards. Previously, Mr. Edwards and his wife, Ann M. Williams, who serve on the museum’s board, were the principal sources for another Crankbrook exhibition – Warhol On Vinyl The Record Covers, 1949-1987+ that was on display there June 21, 2014 – March 21, 2015. Artists in the show include: Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Harry Bertoia, Salvador Dalí, Richard Diebenkorn, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg, Bridget Riley, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, among many others.
For the Record: Artists on Vinyl can be found in the museum’s deSalle & Lower Level Galleries July 13, 2019 – April 19, 2020 – https://cranbrookartmuseum.org/exhibition/for-the-record-artists-on-vinyl/
c) NEW, JUST OPENED TODAY – Let’s begin with a fun fact – although Linda McCartney had great talent with the camera and had the last name Eastman, she was NOT, as was widely thought, a scion of the Eastman family associated with the Eastman-Kodak company (her dad was, in fact, a copyright attorney). Nevertheless, after graduating from high school in Scarsdale and then becoming an Art History major at the University of Arizona, where her love for nature motivated her to purchase a Leica camera and stud the photography of horses under the tutelage of Hazel Larsen Archer (and then marrying/divorcing cultural anthropologist Melville See, with whom she had her first child, daughter Heather, in 1963), Linda and her daughter moved back to New York City, living off an inheritance her mother had left her and take a job as a receptionist/editorial assistant for Town & Country Magazine in 1965.
A romantic relationship with photographer David Dalton allowed Linda to study how a professional shooter works and, soon after, she began to manage her own photo sessions, using her knowledge, good looks and ability to communicate with even the most-difficult subjects to secure gigs featuring people in the music business. She became a house photographer at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East venue and, over time, she’d shoot music superstars including Eric Clapton, The Doors, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones, Neil Young (one of her photos of Young performing in 1968 at Canterbury House would later become the cover of a record called Sugar Mountain) and others – in fact, her photo for Rolling Stone Magazine’s May 11, 1968 issue was the first cover taken by a female photographer to appear in that magazine – and so when she met Beatle Paul McCartney while covering the release of the band’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP and married him a couple of years later, it marked the beginning of a long and productive creative relationship as well – one that ended, sadly, with her death in 1998.
So, while she might not be with us, her portfolio lives on and is the subject of a show which has toured the world for the past 5+ years, with stops in Vienna, Montpellier and Seoul and is launching today at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow, Scotland – it’s first display in the U.K. Simply titled “The Linda McCartney Retrospective,” the show was curated by the photographer’s husband, fellow musician Paul McCartney and their two daughters, Mary and Stella, and, according to the pre-show press, “It brings together dozens of Linda McCartney’s photos—from famous portraits of 1960s rock icons to more personal snapshots of her quiet home life with Paul—as well a trove of archival materials being shown in public for the first time, including cameras, her personal magazine collection, and even a diary from the ’60s.” More info is available at https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/linda-mccartney-retrospective
Linda was also credited with a number of well-known-and-loved album cover photos, including the shot of Paul and his newborn daughter Mary taken in Scotland that was used on the back cover of Paul M’s solo debut album in 1970 titled McCartney. Available in the museum’s shop – quite the nice souvenir – is a limited-edition (one of 12), 20” x 24” fine art print of that photo (signed by Mary, who is now old enough to sign her name), priced at only £4,200.00 https://shop.glasgowlife.org.uk/mccartney-album-cover-scotland-1970-limited-edition-print. Get one for someone you love.
More details also at https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/linda-mccartney-paul-mccartney-retrospective-1586050?
d) NEW, JUST OPENED 6/21 – Having wowed the crowds in Los Angeles last year with a huge show in Chinatown that drew thousands of fans, street art/graffiti art fans in the NYC area can now traipse on over to a new show called Beyond The Streets that opens to the public this weekend in a large space (over 100,000 square feet!) of its own in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. According to the show’s advance PR, “BEYOND THE STREETS celebrates society’s most pervasive mark makers and rule breakers with unprecedented purpose and scale. The exhibition explores the collective urgency of using the street as a canvas for expression”…and features “enlightening panel discussions hosted by legendary street art icons and presentations by contemporary artists who are continuing to redefine and reshape the art form.” Album cover art fans will see examples of work from many of their favorites, including Cey Adams, J-M Basquiat, Martha Cooper, Shepard Fairey, Glen E. Friedman, Keith Haring, Takashi Murakami, Mister Cartoon and Kenny Scharf, among others.
The show runs thru August, 2019 and is located at 25 Kent Ave, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The entrance is on North 12th between Wythe and Kent Avenues, right next to the Wythe Hotel, William Vale Hotel, and Brooklyn Bowl. Open Wednesday to Sunday, 11am – 8pm. Closed Monday & Tuesday. Gen admission is $25, kids 6-11, $12. https://beyondthestreets.com/pages/visit
My friend Rocky Bucano from the Universal Hip-Hop Museum (www.uhhm.org) toured the show with some friends of his and was kind enough to share some of the photos. Thanks, Rocky – you definitely have some of the coolest friends…
LL Cool J by Rocky Bucano, UHHM.org
e) NEW, JUST OPENED 6/14 – Recently opened at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland is a show whose history began almost 20 years ago when the curators from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum put on a show called The Art of Selling Songs: Graphics for the Music Business 1690 – 1990 that dug deep into the museum’s impressive collection of music-related graphics to show how graphic design was used to promote and sell musical performances and products. The updated version of this show now on display in Belfast presents an “A side” – artwork from “the olden days” thru the introduction of pop music – and a “B side” of more recent work, featuring works from artists and designers including Julien Opie, Peter Saville, Andy Warhol, Albert Watson and many others. A bonus show called Overtones: Irish Music Art celebrates artwork created by Irish artists/designers and works for Irish acts including Ash, Snow Patrol, Them, U2 and others. Here are a couple of recent articles – one in the Irish Times- https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/great-irish-album-artwork-goes-on-display-at-ulster-museum-1.3924937 and one on the Irish News.com site – https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2019/06/14/news/sgt-pepper-and-alternative-ulster-star-in-striking-new-exhibition-of-album-artwork-1641599/ – that serve to provide overviews of the show, with the second one also including a short video interview with the exhibition’s curator, Anna Liesching, curator of art at National Museums NI.
The displays are available for your enjoyment from now through the 15th of September, with more info available on the museum’s site at https://www.nmni.com/whats-on/the-art-of-selling-songs
f) NEW AND ONGOING – not one, but two Jim Marshall exhibitions, curated by the team at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Last year from late July thru late September, the Summer of Love poster show was staged at the Andaz Gallery/Hotel in Hollywood, CA featuring 17 original posters from the 1960s by noted visual psychedelic artists including Wes Wilson, Bonnie MacLean (AKA Mrs. Bill Graham), Jim Blashfield, Greg Irons and Stanley Mouse.
The partnership proved to be a good one and, to our benefit, they’re joining forces again to provide a new show based on selections from the late, great photojournalist Jim Marshall’s portfolio. Just launched at the end of June and running through the end of the year, the GRAMMY Museum® has once again teamed with Andaz West Hollywood hotel to showcase a collection of 12 of Marshall’s original photographs documenting the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) peace symbol. Marshall, best known for documenting the lives of rock bands and artists (including the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and the Beatles), along with producing images for hundreds of album covers, also excelled as a photojournalist for several major publications (including Rolling Stone and Life magazines), documenting the emerging (and rapidly-expanding) cultural movements begun in San Francisco during the 1960s. The photographs will be located in the hotel’s public space and available for public viewing. The Andaz West Hollywood is located at 8401 West Sunset Blvd.,West Hollywood, CA, and the photographs – available for public viewing – are located in the hotel’s public space.
Also, in a show at the Grammy Museum in downtown LA that started last October and proved to be so popular that it was extended from its original February (then, late April) closing dates to a new one in August (5th), The Prison Concerts: Folsom And San Quentin (Jim Marshall’s Photographs Of Johnny Cash), an exhibit showcasing Marshall’s photos from Cash’s historic prison concerts in 1968 and 1969 that were featured in the art book Johnny Cash At Folsom & San Quentin. According to the museum, “Marshall was the only official photographer present at those concerts, and there he was granted unlimited access to Cash, June Carter, and their entire entourage. Cash, a staunch advocate for prisoner’s rights, wanted these concerts to be memorialized not only by the recordings, but also in pictures. Cash did these two concerts to shine a light on the terrible conditions and prisoner abuse that were rampant at the time.”
https://www.grammymuseum.org/exhibits/the-prison-concerts
g) ONGOING, ENDING JULY 18th – As record companies in the 1950s were looking for ways to make their LPs stand out on retailers’ shelves, a number of different approaches were taken to the album art and photography used to package these products. Many were pretty formulaic – artist portrait or performance photo, title, brief intro text and track list on back – while others, mostly in the Jazz and Classical genres, decided to look to what was going on in the fine art, graphic design and photography worlds to give their offerings a bit of pizzazz (is that plural for pizza?). A show put together by Scott Lindberg, a freelance graphic designer and design historian based in Edmonds, WA who, from 2011 to 2018, ran New Documents (a shop specializing in important 20th century graphic design objects) called The Shape of Sound: 20 Designers, 100 Record Covers, which launched in May at Non-Breaking Space (a not-for-profit exhibition space in Seattle, WA) presents attendees with a nice survey of album cover art created by artists from the various schools of Modern art.
According to Lindberg, “It is by no means a comprehensive study of abstract record sleeves, but simply provides a window of 100 examples through which we can view some of the solutions that 20 designers came up with to solve increasingly complex problems, resolving formal Modernist approaches with a need to connect with the consumer.” Based on the list of artists whose works are included – names such as Josef Albers, Saul Bass, the team of Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar, S. Neil Fujita, Gary Olin, Frank Parisi and many others – it looks to be a great introduction/overview of the close relationship and delivate balance between retail marketing and Pop Culture.
THE SHAPE OF SOUND – 20 Designers, 100 Record Covers – May 2 — July 18, 2019 – https://non-breaking.space/
h) ONGOING (from June 12th) – ART KANE. VISIONARY, THE GREAT MUSEUM EXHIBITION IN NAPLES FROM JUNE 12. Moves from its recent perch at the Grammy Museum – https://www.wallofsoundgallery.com/en/news.php
https://www.madeincloister.com/?lang=en
i) ONGOING (from May 27th) – Album cover fans will know his work on the covers of records such as Blonde on Blonde for Bob Dylan, We’re Only In It For The Money for Frank Zappa & The Mothers – We’re Only In It For The Money, Sonny & Cher’s The Wonderful World of Sonny & Cher and others; film fans will remember his string of award-winning movies in the 1970s including Panic in Needle Park (1971 – starring Al Pacino), Scarecrow (1973) and 1979’s Seduction of Joe Tynan. Whether you’re a fan of his for those works or for the many photos of his that have graced publications including Esquire, Glamour and Vogue, New York City’s very own Jerry Schatzberg’s images are always memorable, so when I heard about this new show that just launched in France – Off Grand Concourse: A Jerry Schatzberg Retrospective, presented by Château de Chamarande, I knew that fans of his work would be pleased and eager to see it in person.
According to the show’s press – “The theme of Schatzberg’s retrospective at Château de Chamarande materialized organically from his formative years spent in the Bronx. His vision as an artist is a direct result of his first 14 years living literally off Grand Concourse, where he absorbed the culture created by the first, second and third generation immigrants in his neighborhood. An immense pool of talent emerged from the competitive spirit and ingenuity of these people, who had journeyed to The Bronx in search of affordable housing. Though it takes greater struggle, imagination, and innovation to thrive as an immigrant in America, the benefit of being in the margins is that when no one is paying attention, there is much greater freedom to take risks, make mistakes, and buck convention. Analogous to Off Broadway and how it functions in the theater world as a safe space for experimentation and exploration of varying perspectives, Off Grand Concourse represents those on the fringe willing to thumb their noses at the mainstream with audacity, quirkiness, grit, and fortitude. Everything Jerry Schatzberg produces is informed by these indelible Off Grand Concourse roots.”
Château de Chamarande is a 16th Century castle which sits upon 90 acres of land in the suburbs of Paris. “The grandeur and history of the space juxtaposed with the cutting-edge contemporary art exhibited within” will certainly provide fans with an exciting overall experience. The show runs from now thru August 31st at Château de Chamarande and will travel to New York City later this Fall (details to follow, as they’re available). More information is available on the venue’s web site (mostly in French, but with some pages in English) – http://chamarande.essonne.fr/exposition-off-grand-concourse-du-27-mai-au-1er-septembre-2019/
To see more examples of Jerry Schatzberg’s work, please visit his web site at: http://www.jerryschatzberg.com and, if you’d like to read the interview I did with him a while back about his work on the aforementioned Frank Zappa cover, click on over to https://rockpopgallery.typepad.com/rockpop_gallery_news/2007/10/cover-story-fra.html
j) ONGOING (from June 7th) – While now considered by many to be one of Britain’s greatest living portrait photographers, music remains an important part of both Brian’s personal and professional lives. His photographic and film-making skills remain in demand, with noted entertainment industry clients including Brian Eno, the late Sir George Martin, Simple Minds, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, King Sunny Ade and Sir Paul McCartney turning to him when they want a photo portrait like no other. In 1982, The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. named Griffin “The Photographer of the Decade” and his photo shot for the cover of Depeche Mode’s 1982 album, A Broken Frame, was featured on the cover of Life Magazine’s special issue, “The Greatest Photographs of the ‘80s”. All along the way, Brian has been the recipient of many other honors, winning numerous D&AD awards, and his 1988 book Work was awarded the “Best Photographic Book In The World” at the Primavera Fotográfica in Barcelona, Spain. In a show that opened June 7th, London’s MMX Gallery is delighted to be showing a selection of over 30 of Brian’s early work from the 1970s and 1980s – many rarely seen in public – and will include images from his books Moscow (1974); Copyright (1978); Power (1981) and the aforementioned Work.
Most of the works included in the show are Vintage Silver Gelatin or Vintage Silver Bromide prints and all are for sale. There will also be signed copies of Copyright 1978, the first self-published photo book in the UK, published by the man himself; Brian Griffin. Located on New Cross Road in London (nearest tube stop – New Cross), MMX Gallery – housed in a Victorian building – was founded in a former photography studio in London in 2014 by Mark and Magdalena Shackleton. Gallery press tells us that the curators “use photography as a catalyst to exhibit new and established photographers and photographic artists”.
https://mmxgallery.com/exhibitions/24/
I had the pleasure of selling Brian’s works in my old gallery and, in 2014, worked with him on a “Featured Artist Portfolio” article for the ACHOF site, which I’d invite you all to read by clicking on this link – https://albumcoverhalloffame.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/featured-album-cover-artist-portfolio-brian-griffin/
k) ONGOING – Opening of Contact High hip-hop photography show in LA – One of the first books I found when starting to source some of the content I’d need for the Hip-Hop Historical Timeline project I’m working on was Vikki Tobak’s beautifully-done photo book Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop which, per the book’s intro, “is an inside look at the work of hip-hop photographers told through their most intimate diaries – their contact sheets”. Beginning with Joe Conzo, Jr.’s 1979 photo of party-meister Kool Herc and Cold Crush Brothers founding member Tony Tone and taking us through the highlights of hip-hop history (ending with Phil Knott’s cover shots for A$AP Rocky’s 2012 record Long,Live.A$AP), the book now serves as the basis for a show that opened recently at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles (one that runs there through August 18th). The show includes nearly 140 photos from 60 different shooters and includes over 75 of the original contact sheets of the photo sessions that produced the shots we’ve come to know and love.
NEW, UPDATED COVERAGE in LA Times – https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-hip-hop-photos-annenberg-20190529-story.html
More info on this show is available on the museum’s site at https://www.annenbergphotospace.org/exhibits/contact-high/
l) ONGOING – Commercial banker/punk art/ephemera collector Andrew Krivine’s incredible collection has been tapped over the years for shows on the topic (items from his collection have also served as the basis of a 2011 exhibition at the Steven Kasher Gallery in NYC – Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, 1976-82 – a survey of “the extraordinary diversity of Punk and Post-Punk graphic design” – and the 2014 show staged at the Galleries at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, PA that opened in January, 2014 called Pretty Vacant: The Graphic Language of Punk). Now, at Museum of Art and Design in NYC (also running through August 18th), a comprehensive new show pulls out all of the stops to give fans a sense of what things looked like after everything punk invaded our collective sensibilities forty years ago.
Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986 was organized by Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and curated by Andrew Blauvelt, Director, with the assistance of Steffi Duarte. The presentation at the Museum of Arts and Design was managed by Curatorial Assistant Alida Jekabson, with more information available at https://madmuseum.org/exhibition/too-fast-live-too-young-die The show’s opening night featured an appearance by none other than Mr. Johnny Rotten himself – – https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/johnny-rotten-museum-art-design-1526224?
m) ONGOING – The exhibition in Malmo, Sweden at the Moderna Museet that features the works of Pop Art master Andy Warhol continues on display now through September 8th. What makes this show all the more impressive is that it is one in which a fellow album cover lover/blogger – Dr. Richard Forrest – had given his entire collection of Warhol-crafted album covers (some 81 covers in all, spanning from the 1950s through the 1980s and including Warhol’s work for clients in the jazz, rock and pop genres) in support of.
Since that time, the show has attracted fans from all over the world, and Dr. Forrest was kind enough to send along several photos of his collection as it’s on display, and all I can say is WOW and suggest quite strongly that anyone travelling to that part of the world be sure to take the time to see these covers – and the entire Warhol collection – in this setting.
More details on the show (and its previous staging in Stockholm) can be found on the museum’s web site at https://www.modernamuseet.se/malmo/en/exhibitions/warhol-1968/
n) ONGOING – Continuing on now through October 1st at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC is the Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll exhibition co-organized with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I’ve written about this show previously and, while it’s not a show with a focus on album cover imagery, the fact that approximately 130 of rock music’s most-recognized instruments (and costumes, posters, etc.) – many of which have appeared in photos that have been used on album packages – are on display and, at several points during the show, will be played by their owners – is a unique opportunity for us mere mortals to see the instruments that made the music that made us so happy over the years.
More at https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2019/play-it-loud
Artist News and Interviews
a) Famed fantasy artist Roger Dean’s daughter Freyja is quite the artist herself, with some album art credits on her resume as well. Here’s a recent interview with the artist as shown on the Japan Times web site – https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2019/06/08/people/freyja-dean-art-mythology-prog-rock/
b) Early on in his career as a British photojournalist, Terry O’Neil had access to the music business elite at the time, with his portfolio including shots of The Beatles, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Elton John, the Rolling Stones, The Who, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra and many others. His photographs of Bridget Bardot, Audrey Hepburn , Sir Laurence Olivier and super-model Jean Shrimpton beautifully captured each in their prime. O’Neill was also invited to shoot portraits of civic and world leaders, as well as the British Royal Family, and his reputation as a result of these sessions grew accordingly.
Now 80 years old, Mr. O’Neil received a Royal honor, being awarded the CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his career’s contributions to photography, so here’s a pictoral run-down of his celeb and music-industry shots in The Mirror – https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/gallery/terry-oneills-legends-stories-behind-16522861
c) I very much enjoyed Andrew Dinely’s interview with Peter Barrett, who designed sleeves for Bananarama, George Michael, Suede, Simply Red and many other top acts beginning in the 1980s, can be found on his “Art On Your Sleeve” podcast – https://soundcloud.com/oftctopus/art-on-your-sleeve-episode-9-pete-barrett?fbclid=IwAR3rFIj89sWteQ_3j30Ge7plx7ewSuTdbTLxry5Vy3EzB2PGMASq56CKe4M
d) Interview with Keith Rankin, who created one of – IMHO – the most-disturbing album covers of the last year – that being the “screaming vaginal forehead” artwork for Rico Nasty and Kenny Beats’ Anger Management – gives us some of the story behind this memorable work – http://www.thefader.com/2019/04/26/keith-rankin-orange-milk-giant-claw-rico-nasty-cover-art-inerview
e) We’ve all done it (or, at least, wanted to), whether it be on our own album covers (or, if truly brave, billboards advertising them). What am I talking about? Taking a pen or a marker of some scissors and “re-configuring” the album artwork into something we just like better. In a new book by author/art collector Greg Wooten titled Marred For Life!, we learn about one man’s fascination with this form of art and, in this Pitchfork interview, how it grew into a collection of over 1,500 records – https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/the-beatles-jimi-hendrix-and-more-of-the-best-defaced-vinyl-records-from-the-new-book-marred-for-life/
Miscellaneous Items
a) Facebook taketh it away, then Facebook giveth it back – story on how Facebook looked to block images of Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album cover – a Hipgnosis album cover design classic – to protect the sensitive eyes of those people with sensitive eyes, only to take it all back after the world told them to stop being so sensitive – https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/led-zeppelin-album-banned-facebook/; https://www.buzz.ie/news/facebook-reverses-ban-on-led-zeppelin-album-cover-due-to-its-cultural-signifigance-330180
Tear down the wall!
b) Document Magazine gives us the stories behind iconic punk album covers – https://www.documentjournal.com/2019/05/the-stories-behind-the-most-copied-album-covers-in-punk-history/
c) Why so many babies on the covers of well-know rap artists? Perhaps the folks on the DJ Booth site can tell us – https://djbooth.net/features/2019-05-22-baby-photos-rap-album-covers
d) More entries in the Juxtapoz Magazine “Sound & Vision” album art series:
– Yeah Yeah Yeahs Fever To Tell – with artwork by Cody Critcheloe – https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/music/sound-and-vision-yeah-yeah-yeahs-fever-to-tell/
– DJ Shadow – Entroducing….. – with cover photography by Brian Cross (B+), sleeve design by Ben Drury – https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/music/sound-and-vision-dj-shadow-s-endtroducing/
– Bob Marley & The Wailers – Uprising – with art Direction by Neville Garrick, who was responsible for many reggae album covers – https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/music/sound-and-vision-bob-marley-and-the-wailers-uprising/
e) Combining the love of album art with the craftsmanship of fine timepieces, luxury watchmaker Raymond Weil has been releasing a series of limited-edition watches featuring The Beatles, AC/DC, Bob Marley, David Bowie and more – https://www.raymond-weil.com/en/stories/#beatles3; https://www.watchpro.com/raymond-weil-completes-the-beatles-tribute-trilogy-with-sergeant-peppers-limited-edition/
Not sure how I missed this, but other watchmakers have been doing this a while, too – https://quillandpad.com/2019/05/12/the-not-so-complete-story-of-rock-and-roll-and-watches-ramp-the-volume-up-to-11-reprise/
That’s all for now – stay tuned and be on the lookout for timely news alerts on our news feed –https://www.facebook.com/AlbumCoverHallOfFame – we’ll be back when we can with another monthly summary for you.
Unless otherwise noted, all text and images included in this article are Copyright 2019 Mike Goldstein and AlbumCoverHallofFame.com – All Rights Reserved. All of trade names mentioned in these summaries are the properties of their respective owners and are used for reference only.
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