ACHOF Breaking News Update – 2023 Grammy Awards Winners

ACHOF BREAKING NEWS UPDATE for February 5, 2023 – posted by Mike Goldstein

The 2023 Grammy show – the 65^th annual show, just 10 months after the COVID-delayed 2022 Award Show and taking into account music/packages that were released between the first of October, 2021 and the last day September, 2022 – took place at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA on Sunday, February 5th, 2023.The Grammy Award Winners in the Packaging Categories were announced earlier today during the web-cast Grammy Awards “Premiere Ceremony”, and I’m now pleased to share the info on who the winners were below:

2023 Screen Image for “Best Recording Package” category

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

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

Greetings to you all from Chicagoland and welcome to this month’s edition of the ACHOF News Update and Summary. Is everyone beginning to emerge from your self-imposed exiles (hopefully, fully-vaccinated and doing all you can to stay safe and healthy)? I am happy to announce that the hummingbirds have returned to my balcony, my herbs and flowers have been planted and, with any luck, Spring will stick around long enough for my wife and I to get out and enjoy it.

Another sign of Spring’s arrival is my yearly announcement that I’ve been able to speak with one of this year’s Grammy winners in the Packaging Category – designer Lawrence Azerrad, the winner (along with his collaborator, Chicago’s own Jeff Tweedy) of this year’s Grammy Award for “Best Box/Special Limited-Edition Package” for the work done on Wilco’s Ode To Joy set – and have just posted this interview on the site for your reading pleasure.

Interview with Lawrence Azerrad about his Grammy Award-winning vinyl package for Wilco’s Ode To Joy

Wilco’s Ode To Joy Special-Edition Vinyl Package

By Mike Goldstein, Album Cover Hall of Fame.com

Posted May 28, 2021 – It’s called “Album Cover Art”, so what I take from that name is that it is something created by artists (artisans?) who create the products we see by hand, using their innate talents and abilities to deliver something unique and appealing (and, in the case of product packaging, something that sells and makes the people that buy these products happy with their purchases). In the case of box sets and limited-edition “special” packages, it’s all the more important that the artists/artisans working on those products “get it right”, as the products are typically more expensive, as collectibles are expected to be, so the value proposition (OMG – I’m back in Marketing!) has to appeal to fans who are being asked to spend (often, many) hundreds of dollars on a product that there may only be a few hundred copies made. Additionally, the designers of these products have to be sure that their client(s) is/are ultimately happy, since the packages are typically the latest/best expressions of their music or, even more often lately, career retrospectives that are attempting to put the totality of the featured musical acts’ musical and lyrical (and, in most cases, visual) output out in a comprehensive package. To do that well, there must be an effective collaboration between the design teams and their clients, with the best examples of those successful collaborations garnering positive critical/fan reviews and, in special cases, special recognition from their industry peers, such as the Grammy Awards that were handed out earlier this year to musician Jeff Tweedy and designer/art director Lawrence Azerrad for Wilco’s Ode To Joy limited-edition set that they produced and released in late 2019 on the dBpm label.