Album Cover Hall of Fame’s Quickie News Update and Link Summary for June, 2023
Posted June 1, 2023 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com
Happy post-Memorial Day/early Summer season to you all. I know that I’d told you last month that I’d be skipping the regular monthly newsletter for a month (i.e., June) in order to catch up on a ton of work that I keep having to put off, so much has happened – or is about to happen – that I thought I’d figure out some way to deliver some sort of update so important details and events are now available to you, but with much-truncated introductions. I hope that you still find the info useful.
Posted onMay 1, 2023|Comments Off on 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.
Posted onApril 5, 2023|Comments Off on The Art of Imitation — How Fine Artists Have Drawn Inspiration From Album Covers, Part 2
The Art of Imitation — How Fine Artists Have Drawn Inspiration From Album Covers, Part 2 of 2
By Richard Forrest and Mike Goldstein
Posted April 5, 2023 (and updated May 1, 2023)
In Part 1 of this 2-part series, we focused on Richard’s overview of the people who’ve been inspired by album imagery to create new forms of art in a wide range of different styles and media. To continue on in our exploration and discussion of reproductions and album art reimagined by those so inspired, Mike G reached out to his old chum, Boston-area artist Howie Green, to ask him some pointed (yet pointed with love and respect) questions about his work in the area.
Here’s a picture of an installation of some of Howie’s album art recreations in a venue in FloridaContinue reading →
Share your passion for album cover art by sharing this:
Pet Sounds from the New Grooves series by Peter Wilkins
By Mike Goldstein, Album Cover Hall of Fame.com
Posted March 23, 2023
In early 2023, I was reading a travel article in the FT about how some of the towns in Newfoundland were working hard to shift their economies from what they’ve relied on for ages – fishing the icy offshore waters – and learning to rely more on tourism as a source of income (if you’ve never been, you’ve got to go – it’s beautiful up there!). In the article, they introduced a local entrepreneur who was chasing two of his passions – fine art and distilling spirits – and as a fan of the products produced by both of those pursuits, it really caught my attention. What also caught my attention was that the person being featured – Peter Wilkins – had produced a series of art pieces that were based on his photographs of album covers spinning at high speed on turntables so that the resulting circular images showed only the relative positions of the graphics and their respective colors. For example, his image based on the Are You Experienced? LP cover for Jimi Hendrix shows circles of the psychedelic reds, yellows and blues (and all of the variations within) but, when you see it, you know immediately that it’s that record cover! I reached out to Peter and asked him whether he’d be up for an interview about his process and the inspiration behind this particular series (available for viewing and purchase on the website of his local gallery partner Christina Parker – https://christinaparkergallery.com/artist/peter-wilkins/). I also wanted to learn a lot more about the seaweed-flavored gin he manufactures (not yet available in the U.S., sadly, but all the more reason to venture on up there sometime soon, perhaps), but that’s for another article…
Posted onMarch 1, 2023|Comments Off on 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:
Posted onJanuary 6, 2023|Comments Off on ACHOF Breaking News for January 6, 2023 – Special Award Show Updates
Special Award Show updates posted January 6th, 2023 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com
a) With the voting for the 18th annual Best Art Vinyl awards having finished in mid-December, we’ve all had to sit and wait impatiently for the announcement of who were the top vote-getters. Well, the waiting is now over, with the winners announced at a ceremony held on the 5th of January 2023 at the Hari London Belgravia.
According to the press info on the Best Art Vinyl site, the top vote-getters in this year’s competition were as follows:
1st place was awarded for artwork done by Simon Monk for Black Country, New Road’s album ‘Ants From Up There’;
2nd place was awarded for the artwork produced by Bart Balboa for Birds In Row’s album ‘Gris Klein’
3rd place was awarded for the Illustration done by Jake Blanchard for Richard Dawson’s album ‘The Ruby Cord‘
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 8th 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.
Posted onOctober 1, 2022|Comments Off on Album Cover Hall of Fame’s News Update and Link Summary for October, 2022
Posted October 1, 2022 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com
Greetings to you all. I have to first warn you that this month’s edition of the ACHOF newsletter will be a truncated one as I’ve had to spend a lot of time and energy managing several things that have popped up and couldn’t be ignored. It will also force me to put off the publishing of the next summary until December 1st.
Sorry about that.
In any case, there should be enough basic info now to get you the basics, but it’ll be up to you to click through to get “the rest of the story” (apologies to Mr. Harvey).
I’m also working feverishly to set up the voting for this year’s fan-driven voting for “the best of the best of” in all of the main ACHOF categories, so be on the lookout in a week or so for the official announcement and a link to the polling site. Voting will be open from October 10th thru November 13th, with the final tallies announced right before Thanksgiving here in the U.S.. It’ll be exciting to see who the fan favorites are in each category – tough choices must be made, but let’s do our best to honor all of those whose names will be on the lists.
Thanks in advance for your help and your patience while I get my world back in order. Now, on with the newsletter.
Posted onJune 1, 2022|Comments Off on Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for June, 2022
Posted June 1, 2022 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com
Greetings to you all. Now that June is upon us and thoughts of summertime fun and frolic begin to fill the empty (or is it “not yet filled”?) spaces of our minds, I know that it is up to me to work even harder to bring you things on the ACHOF site that have enough intrigue to grab your eyeballs and whatever attention span you have left to take a look at and, if I’ve done my job right, enjoy and pass on to your friends and others you think might enjoy them as well. This month’s summary, I believe, has enough examples of “who is doing what” in the world of album cover art and packaging that it may be worth your while to put down the barbeque tongs for a minute, grab your favorite beverage and scroll down the page a bit to see what’s on offer.
In this month’s summary, you’ll find updated reports about new and ongoing exhibitions, news about the ongoing efforts and output of some of the top talents working in music packaging, new items available for sale (including several new books and some interesting new prints) or at auction and scores of other items on our favorite topics. One item I’m hoping you’ll look at is the link in the Exhibitions section to a virtual display of the recent show of photographer Richard Beland’s works at the Brian Liss Gallery in Toronto as its really well-done and shows off how today’s technology can be used to transport us to places we might not see otherwise.
Posted onMay 1, 2022|Comments Off on Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for May, 2022
Album Cover Hall of Fame’s News Update and Link Summary for May, 2022
Posted May 1, 2022 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com
Wow, what a month. Busy with so many things, and “the hits keep on coming”. You’d have thought that everyone’s attention would be focused on truly important things happening in and to our world – war, a refugee crisis, the world economy zig-zagging with every bit of news and several people who think that it is more important to legislate to remove vague references about some of the sad truths about U.S./World history than to address the ongoing issues head on – and yet those in the visual and musical arts continue to produce works that inspire us and make us think and smile. This month’s summary is my valiant attempt to share coverage of those efforts with all of you, so I do hope that you’ll spend a little time digging through the sections and sharing things you find interesting with others as well. We all need to learn how to share better, no?
Album Cover Hall of Fame.com 