Album Cover Hall of Fame’s News Update and Link Summary for September, 2022

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

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

A late-Summer greeting to you all.

For the past 10 years, the ACHOF has worked to recognize and promote the talents of the people who’ve brought music fans and art collectors (and hybrids of both activities) the best in retail and online music packaging, graphics and photography. Helped each year by asking a panel of curators, gallerists, music marketing execs and writers/researchers who cover the topic, I’ve been able to deliver these details to my readers and, once a year in November, present the top vote-getters in our annual poll as inductees into the hallowed (virtual) halls of the ACHOF. What I haven’t been able to do is ask this site’s visitors and fans about their favorite album art-makers, and so to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the launch of the ACHOF, I’m going to do just that.

Later next month, I will be posting a poll that will allow you to review the past winners in each of the active categories and then ask you to select your most-admired art directors, illustrators, designers and photographers, who’ll then be placed in special categories that will be called…well, what will we call them? We don’t want to call them “the best”, nor do we want to repurpose some of the popular names that the awards industry has used over time – “People’s Choice”, “Fan Favorites”, “Vox Populi”, “Diamond/Platinum/Gold Medal Winning”, etc. A quick trip to the thesaurus presents words and phrases like “title holder”, “prize winner” and “top dog”, among others, along with some that I think are a bit over the top, such as “conquering hero”, “vanquisher” and “numero uno”, so while I know that it must be something memorable and appropriate, I don’t think I’m quite ready to commit to anything. Now that I think about it, perhaps we should also rely on our readers to present their ideas for this project, keeping this year’s efforts all about YOUR notions for what’s good and right, so I’ll be adding a poll question for this task as well. Eager to see what you come up with – we have a LOT of creative types reading this newsletter, so I’m sure something great will show up.

Thanks in advance for your help. Now, back to the matters at hand.

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for November, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

Album Cover Hall of Fame’s News Update and Link Summary – November, 2020

Posted October 30th, 2020 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

I realize that, for most of you, this summary is coming at a time of great emotional disturbance, having to deal with both an ongoing pandemic (and what it’s done to our “regular” lives) and an election here in the U.S. that will provide us all with a window into what America might look like going forward and so, keeping that in mind, I’m going to keep things really simple this month (quite honestly, I don’t currently have the mental bandwidth to do much more).

The nominating and voting process for this year’s class of inductees into the ACHOF has begun in earnest and, with any luck, I’ll be able to announce the list of top vote-getters just prior to the Thanksgiving holiday here, or around the 20^th of November (the 23^rd the absolute latest). Two other album cover-related award competitions – the Best Art Vinyl awards in the U.K. and the Making Vinyl Awards here in the U.S. – are also in-process and so it’ll be interesting to see who’s determined to be providing the most visual excitement in the recorded music business when all the votes are tallied…

ACHOF Featured Album Cover Artist Portfolio and Interview with Art Director Larry Vigon

Album cover hall of fame’s Featured Album Cover Artist Portfolio and Interview with Art Director Larry Vigon

By Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Posted February, 2020

In my wife’s list of “all-time favorite albums”, Fleetwood Mac’s smash hit Rumours is certainly in the Top 5, up there with great records by Carole King, Linda Ronstadt, David Bowie and Queen (I did confirm this list with her, correcting it as needed but, after 40+ years of togetherness, I’m happy that I initially got most of the list right). Even a prog rocker like me found much to appreciate in the band’s music (how can you not like Lindsay Buckingham’s wailing guitar solo at the tail end of “The Chain”?) and, after sales of over 40 million copies world-wide (over 20 million in the U.S. alone) since its 1977 release, it must also be considered as having one of the most-seen album cover images of all time. Of course, most of us will recall the arresting Herbie Worthington photo of the very tall Mick Fleetwood, with foot raised on a small stool (and what exactly were those balls seen dangling between his legs?) standing next to the mysterious, black-veiled form of one of the group’s two new members, Stevie Nicks. Those of us, though, who appreciate fine design were just as taken by the beautifully scripted logo/title found on the cover, which I later found was done BY HAND by Larry Vigon, one of this year’s inductees into the Album Cover Hall of Fame in the Art Director category.