Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for May, 2023

Album Cover Hall of Fame’s News Update and Link Summary for May, 2023

Posted May 1, 2023 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Mid-Spring greetings to you all. As a mostly-retired person, I spend a fair amount of time each month corresponding with people I know all over the world (yes, album art fans are EVERYWHERE!), and this past month I noticed an uptick in the people from outside the U.S. who’ve asked me “what the hell is going on over there?!”, a blanket statement that covers questions people have about our current political divide, courtroom dramas unlike we’ve ever seen before and the credibility of our national media organizations, to which I reply “which London dry gin will I be using in my G&T today?”. These days, I’m limiting my media exposure to my Financial Times Weekend Edition (which, in addition to its coverage of world news, comes on the cutest color newsprint), episodes of House Hunters International and whatever I find of interest on the BritBox, Apple TV and PBS Passport services. Yes, I know that I’m hiding, but having watched friends and relatives lose themselves to the 24 hour news cycle here, it’s the only way I seem to be able to stay focused on both what’s good in my life and what’s interesting in the world of album cover art and the people that make it so, if you don’t mind, let’s get on with this month’s news summary.

As it’s been the case for the past several months, this past month was a rather busy one prepping things for the ACHOF site, with work being finished on Part 2 of “The Art of Imitation” articles I collaborated with Richard Forrest on (it being posted early in April) and work nearly finished on two more interviews I’ve teased you on, those being with musician/artist/museum curator Martin Atkins and artist Dave Van Patten on his Grammy Award winning work on the Grateful Dead at Madison Square Garden box sets released late in 2022. Both should be ready within the next week or so, so thanks for your patience as I work to complete those ASAP.

Album Cover Hall of Fame’s News Update and Link Summary for March, 2023

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for March, 2023

Posted March 1, 2023 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

February might be a bit shorter than other months, but that doesn’t mean that we album art/artist fans were short-changed in the news department. Starting off with the Grammy Awards and continuing with new exhibitions, art and book releases and a lot of ancillary items, there’s plenty for us fans of album cover art/artistry to dig into, so let’s cut the chit-chat and take a look at what I’ve put together for you.

Preliminary judging has begun on the entries vying for another noted industry award – the Making Vinyl Packaging Awards – and, as one of the judges on the panel tasked to review the hundreds of submissions received, I’m curious and eager to see what always turns out to me a fascinating cross-section of examples of album covers/packages coming in from all over the world.

This month’s newsletter contains a human-curated (as opposed to an AI-generated – we’re old school here at the ACHOF) summary of the news in all of the main topic areas, with updates and info about several new museum and gallery exhibitions, new auctions and sales and a goodly number of art and artist-related articles. As always, I’d like to once again say “thanks” for your help and support, so  let’s get started with some updates on the award shows recently ended and currently in progress:

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for February, 2023

Album Cover Hall of Fame’s News Update and Link Summary for February, 2023

Posted February 1, 2023 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

January was a busy month in the world of album cover art and artists and, to be honest with you, it was all a bit overwhelming as I’ve begun to do the work to re-organize ACHOF-related content into the various silos that will ultimately make up the two sites I’ll be maintaining going forward. I’ve spoken with several people whose experience and gut instincts I appreciate and have a pretty good idea as to how to best proceed so, with your support and patience, I think we’ll all be happy with the new/revised formats that will come out of these efforts.

February looks to be chock-full of exciting news to come, first with the announcement of the winners of this year’s Grammy Awards in the Packaging categories (to be posted here on February 5^th as soon as they’re announced), which closely follow the Best Art Vinyl Awards results that were posted in early January (click here to see the results, if you missed my original article) and which included some really great examples of human-generated art and design. Voting will also begin soon for another noted industry award – the Making Vinyl Packaging Awards and, as one of the judges on the panel tasked to review the hundreds of submissions received, I’m curious and eager to see what always turns out to me a fascinating cross-section of examples of album covers/packages coming in from all over the world.

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for January, 2023

Album Cover Hall of Fame’s News Update and Link Summary for January, 2023

Posted New Year’s Day, January 1, 2023 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Greetings to you all, and a Happy New Year 2023 to you and yours!

Hope that you all enjoyed your Holidays and have much to look forward to this upcoming year. While we were all involved with our celebratory efforts, efforts continued on several fronts to help determine everyone’s favorite album cover/packaging work of the past 12 months, with voting taking place in several name-brand competitions. The results of those contests will be released in ceremonies taking place in January and February and you can be sure that they’ll be highlighted here on the ACHOF site.

2023 will also be one of change here on the ACHOF site. As you know, for the past 10+ years, we’ve involved both our readers and our anonymous panel of experts in our own nominating/voting efforts in order to select people – i.e., the designers, photographers, art directors, etc. working in the music business and creating retail album packaging – for special honors, and while those efforts have produced lists of artists who’ve all built impressive portfolios of work in their respective areas, it has been an effort that – at least to me, this site’s principal – has distracted me from the main focus of the site, that being to give my readers in-depth interviews, information and ongoing coverage of the output of these talented individuals and design teams. With that said, I am announcing that, going forward, I’ll be working on creating a new site where the general, artist-specific info (bios, interviews and news) will go, with the “hall of fame”-related materials remaining on the albumcoverhalloffame.com site. More details on that effort will be announced soon, but I thought it important to share my intentions with you now with the hope that you’ll provide me with some feedback and suggestions as to how best to move forward.

Anyway, this month’s newsletter is a simple summary of the news in all of the main topic areas, with updates and info about several museum/gallery exhibitions, new auctions and sales results from previous ones and a large number of art and artist-related articles, so I’d like to once again say “thanks” for your help, your support and your patience while I work to get this site set on its new track in the long and short-term. Let’s get started with some updates on the award shows currently in progress:

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for December, 2022

Posted December 1, 2022 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Greeting to you all – nice to see you all again!

Once again, I have to apologize for leaving you without an update for the month of November, but my wife and I decided to brave the travel scene to complete a vacation trip we’d started in late 2019 that had to be truncated a) by a death in the family and b) that crazy COVID-19 thing that shut things down a bit for a year or two. This journey, which took us to NYC and then over to the U.K. and Ireland, was quite restorative and, I must admit, was timed so that we’d be out of the country on November 8^th so we’d be able to have some distance between us and the pre-and-post-election media madness for a while. Of course, there was no escaping the news, but at least it was offset by all of the excitement that took place in the UK’s government while we were there, and we enjoyed the scenery/people/food there so much that it kept us in the right frame of mind, allowing us to return after a month with some degree of sanity and appreciation of life’s better things in tact.

Of course, during our travels we came across a number of album/music art-related things that added to the overall enjoyment of the experience, including a visit to the site of the new (set to open in its entirety in 2024) Universal Hip-Hop Museum in the Bronx Marketplace (NYC), with a tour provided by the museum’s director, Rocky Bucano; a visit to Liverpool, England (our first) that included an escorted overview provided by designer/author/all around great guy Andrew Dinely (of the Soft Octopus design studio there) that also included a stop at the British Music Experience – an “immersive exhibition” that takes attendees through an illustrated (via memorabilia, videos, etc.) review of the immense and diverse pop music scene in the U.K., from its beginnings in the 1950s through the most-recent BRIT Award-winning artists, and several other finds along the way (such as a memorial sculpture dedicated to the late Irish rock guitarist Rory Gallagher). I’ll be including brief articles about that as I unpack the info gathers and photos taken over the course of the next month or so.

Of course, while I was away, the first ACHOF Reader’s Poll took place, and the results of the voting will be shared a bit later in this newsletter. At the same time, another major album art-related poll – Art Vinyl’s Best Art Vinyl Awards – began gathering votes on its site (see more on this a little later as well) and the Recording Academy here in the U.S. released the names of the nominees for their upcoming Grammy Awards voting, with results to be announced early next year. Lots of great art and artistry on display, so it’ll be interesting to see how the voters/voting public responds to the announcements of the top vote-getters in all of these competitions.

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for April, 2022

Posted April 1, 2022 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

It’s been a busy month of March here in the sprawling ACHOF editorial offices, with your editorial team (me, myself and Mike G.) working hard to deliver the best and most up-to-date info and research/writing available on the subject of album cover artists and their work. I’m happy to report that Part 2 of the 2-part series on box sets/limited-edition packages has been posted – https://albumcoverhalloffame.wordpress.com/2022/03/27/achof-resources-box-sets-and-special-limited-edition-packages-an-overview-contd/ – and so now you can spend even more time boning up on the latest information, presented along with the opinions and experiences expressed by some of the best-equipped people in the business to offer these priceless items.

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for January, 2022

Posted January 1, 2022 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Happy New Year to you all. Hope that you (safely) enjoyed the gift-giving season (did you get anything you’re particularly happy about? Hope so!) and have already made positive progress on your New Year’s Resolutions lists. I know that one of the gifts I’m looking to deliver ASAP is that long-promised series of articles built around Jules Seamer’s album art exhibition and collection. Good progress has been made, and Jules was kind enough to share a video of an interview he was featured in about his show (see link below), so watch that and maybe, with any luck, by the time you’re done digesting that content, my first article will be up.

This month’s summary about the work and the people responsible for packaging your favorite music products continues include examples of some very-impressive work. In addition to updates about some of the soon-to-be-announced winners in the album art categories at the Grammy Awards, the Making Vinyl Packaging Awards and the Best Art Vinyl Awards, you’ll read about new and ongoing exhibitions, news about the exploits of some of your favorite image-makers, new items available for sale or at auction and a number of other tidbits of album cover art miscellany. Of course, since this summary was our year-end review, you’ll also find links to the articles written by the brave souls who’ve dared to decide what made for good/bad album art this past year. Whether you agree with their assessments or not, you will find a number of interesting examples of what’s being done in the area by creative types all over the world.

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for October, 2021

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for October, 2021

Posted October 1, 2021 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Now that Summer has ended and we’ve “officially” entered the Fall (or is it Autumn?) season, we can all celebrate the harvest, the changing colors of Fall foliage and the fact that the nominations and voting for this year’s class of inductees will begin in earnest during the month. More bios have been added to the site in preparation for this effort, so this prep works serves two good purposes (voting prep and more content on the site) at the same time.

While my work continues unabated, so do the efforts of the people responsible for packaging your favorite music products and so, to that end, this month’s edition of the ACHOF News Update and Summary is packed with more of the high-quality bits of album cover artist/art news and updates you’ve come to expect in these monthly summaries.  Read on to see this month’s summary of these articles, posts and announcements I’ve gathered recently regarding all things regarding album cover artists and the art they produce. Their work – and our interest in and excitement about their work – endures and so, without further delay, let’s dive into this month’s summary.

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for July 2021

Posted July 1, 2021 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Early Summer greetings to you all from Chicagoland – where it’s not 115 degrees in the shade, thank goodness – and welcome to this month’s edition of the ACHOF News Update and Summary. As we approach the Independence Day weekend break, where many of us will be experiencing our first in-person get-togethers in over a year (us with a pre-cleared group, just to be safe), I thought that I’d cobble together a quick-and-to-the-point monthly news summary for you all to read in case you get a moment or two to yourselves and want to escape a bit into the fantasy world that surrounds the lives and work of our favorite album cover artists.

I know that I’ve been promising the imminent publication of my article on box sets and limited-edition packages and my interview with Dave and Frank from Sony Music, so while I’m late with those, I can report that I’ve finished the transcription and should have the interview up for your review very soon. In prepping that interview, I also found an interview that I’d never published with the talented team (also from Sony) who had put together the Grammy-winning package for Weird Al Yankovic a couple of years back, so I’ll be able to reward you for your patience with some nice bonus content as well.

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Summary – End of July – August, 2019

 

 

 

By Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Summer marches on. After driving by the area in downtown Chicago where the annual Lollapalooza music event is being held (making motoring down Lake Shore Drive extra fun) and seeing the happy crowds enjoying the performances/shenanigans taking place there (although, with ticket prices starting at $130 for a one-day general admission pass and going up to $4200 for a 4-day “platinum pass”, which gets you “access to the luxurious, climate-controlled North & South Platinum Lounges featuring signature cocktails, craft beer, champagne, wine and curated culinary offerings; premium viewing areas in front of five stages; access to on-stage viewing at the North & South main stages; complete access to the VIP Lolla Lounges, including the new stage featuring performances by Lolla artists” and, my favorite perk, “golf cart transportation between the Platinum Festival entrance, Lounges, and front-of-stage viewing areas” – I mean, who can walk after all of that champagne and “curated culinary offerings”? – this is one fest I’ll have to live without), it reminds me that there are simpler and no-less-enjoyable ways to spend a few minutes of your time, such as reviewing this month’s easy-to-digest run-down of all of the album cover artist/art-related news I think might be worth your time investigating: