ACHOF Interview with 2024 Grammy Award winners Jeri & John Heiden of SMOG Design

ACHOF’s Mike Goldstein’s interview with SMOG Design’s Jeri and John Heiden on their 2024 Grammy Award-winning (for “Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package”) work for For The Birds: The Birdsong Project.

Posted March 28, 2024 by Mike Goldstein

This past year, as the result of the labor unrest and strikes that took place in various parts of the entertainment industry, award shows of all stripes have been eager to stress the importance of those who work behind the scenes in various roles in production and promotion. A recent example was during the 2024 Academy Awards show here in the U.S., during which the host brought out to the stage a large entourage of people from that event’s production crew so that they could take a bow in front of the luminaries who the show usually focuses its attention on. It was heartwarming to see the show of solidarity by most of the audience who seemed to understand the importance and significance of those who are credited but typically unseen, and it reminded me that, each year around this time, I venture to bring you an interview or two with some of those who are honored by industry organizations for their superlative productions in the area of packaging and promotion. While the award presentations for these honorees will probably not ever be included in a televised event (as they’re usually given out in pre-show ceremonies), I’ve been covering this business long enough to know that some people’s work over the years deserves special attention, and I’m proud to be able to do this in some (very) small way.

The subjects of this ACHOF interview are two people – partners Jeri and John Heiden of SMOG Design – who, for the first time in the many years since Jeri’s first Grammy Award nomination in 1986 (earning five more through 2024), were finally given the top award in their category – and their first as a duo – at the latest ceremonies this past February.

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

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

Hello and Happy Holidays to all of you – this is the time of year that we’re all supposed to look back and reflect on all that’s happened over the past 12 months and use those thoughts to consider how the next 12 months might be better lived (and, perhaps, how we might all make the world a little better place for ourselves and our fellow citizens of the world). It has certainly been an interesting year for me, having had the opportunity to visit several places, meet up with old friends and correspondents and learn more about life and all its mysteries. It’s also been an interesting year in that it represented the 50^th anniversary of the release of many noteworthy albums – debut records from Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, Queen and Lynyrd Skynyrd, concept albums such as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Alan Parsons’ Tubular Bells and Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and dozens of other memorable titles including several of my own faves such as Selling England By The Pound from Genesis, Bowie’s Pinups and Alladin Sane (a very busy boy that year), Frank Zappa and The Mothers’ Over-nite Sensation, Brothers & Sisters from the Allman Brothers band, The Who’s Quadrophenia, the creepy-yet-beautiful, HR Giger-illustrated Brain Salad Surgery for Emerson Lake & Palmer and Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, which features some amazing Drew Struzan-penned illustrations in the artwork gracing it’s package. For folks of a certain age group, these are mementos of truly a banner year in both music and music packaging.

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

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

Since I know that most of you are eager to get outside to enjoy the waning days of Summer (unless you’re suffering through heat troughs, the floods/flying debris of a hurricane or the smoke and ashes of a local forest fire), I’ll keep this month’s intro short and sweet.

If you haven’t seen it already, I invite you all to read my latest interview, this one with Professor Kenneth FitzGerald, with a focus on what serves as the basis of his new book Progress Music – https://albumcoverhalloffame.wordpress.com/2023/08/22/achofs-wide-ranging-interview-with-prof-kenneth-fitzgerald-author-of-the-book-process-music-songs-stories-and-studies-of-graphic-culture/ In addition, you’ll find new info on several interesting new shows, some fine books on a variety of album art-related topics, some nice new prints from some very talented people and, as always, a bunch of other fascinating things to look into but, for now, let’s get on with this month’s newsletter…

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.

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 Florida

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

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

Posted April 1 (yes, really), 2023 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Is it March or April that goes in like a lion…? In any case, I am beginning to see daffodils outside my window, so I’m in a pretty decent mood. How about you?

Before we dive into this month’s newsletter’s details, let me pontificate for a minute or two…

Every other morning, I ride an exercise bike for 48 minutes (45 minute program plus a 3-minute “cool down”) and, as a habit, listen to either podcasts or music (or both, time permitting) to distract me from the general pain/shortness of breath that I experience being an old man trying to stay ahead of my genetics. One of the shows I listen to fairly regularly is Alec Baldwin’s “Here’s The Thing”, as he often has  guests talking about subjects related to art and journalism and, in late March, he hosted two investigative journalists and writers – Chris Jones and Michael Mooney – who were there to talk about a book they’d written about the team of Siegfried and Roy, whose careers as magicians/entertainers came to a dramatic end after Roy was mauled by one of the white tigers featured in their act.

The Art of Imitation – How Fine Artists Have Drawn Inspiration From Album Covers

The Art of Imitation — How Fine Artists Have Drawn Inspiration From Album Covers, Part 1 of 2

By Mike Goldstein and Richard Forrest

INTRODUCTION (By Mike Goldstein)

With all of the discussions taking place regarding the advent and rapid rise of AI-generated words, music and art, it reminded me that, over the past 20-25 years, there have been similar discussions about the tools that have been created during that time to enable artists of varying degrees of capability to both express themselves in ways that they might not have been able to (or, perhaps, thought of) and explore their ideas in a more highly-productive fashion. For example, several artists I know who were originally trained to draw with pen and ink (and who, at first, were hesitant to use these new tools for fear of having their artistry questioned) have told me that computer-based hardware (pens, tablets, 3-D printers, etc.) and software (Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya, Blender and many others) have added many degrees of capability and efficiency to their day-to-day work. Draw an outline, stretch it, color it in, review, erase, substitute another color, etc., all without putting a pen to paper! Even those who consider themselves “purists” have, over time and given access to some of these newfangled tools, admitted that even when they’re committed to producing finished products using traditional methods, they find themselves doing some/all of their “ideation” prior to actually doing the work.

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 1^st.

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 10^th thru November 13^th, 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.

Mike G

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’s News Update and Link Summary for August, 2022

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

Mid-Summer greetings to you all. Since we last spoke, many of you have experienced extremes in several aspects of our lives – temperature, drought, economic uncertainty, politics, etc. – and so I hope that you’ve all managed to keep your heads above water (assuming that you have water) and your focus on what’s going well in your lives. I’ve been trying hard to keep a positive mindset, but I have to admit it’s been an effort aided by my discovery of some delicious new gins and other mixers (drop me a note if you’d like some recommendations). In any case, let’s get back to the matters at hand.

This past month’s research into all things album cover-related has uncovered a lot to read about and look into – some items being continuations of ongoing serials and other stories providing us with some new and exciting things: exhibitions, items for sale or auction, deeper dives into artists’ portfolios and several articles that uncover new and never-before-divulged details about some of our favorite covers. Overall, the frequency and quality of these news bites continues unabated. The fact that this news comes from sources all over the world certainly adds to the notion that the interest in great album cover art (and in the people that make it) knows no boundaries.