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25.10.2007
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If there’s one thing in this world that I just can’t get my head around, no matter how hard I try, it’s ugly album covers. Football hooliganism, it’s as mindless as drinking beer out of plastic pints, but nevertheless, yes I do understand it. Underpants (non boxer-shorts), although never in my life would I wear them, still in a kinky way, yes I do understand them. But ugly album art, it just escapes me. Think about it: what would you do if you could choose between good vs. bad looking album covers? The only thing that is worse than a poor album cover is when the booklet is full of juxtaposed photos of band members and their friends. If the world was full of awful, pointless and dull album covers before, now with the ever increasing digitalisation of the music industry, the whole notion of album art has become an even bigger issue of discussion and concern. The boys from Hard-Fi were so alarmed about the looming extinction of album art that as demonstration they featured no art on the cover of their new record, Once Upon a Time in the West. Instead, there’s a text saying "No Cover Art". A revolutionary and ingenious battle cry for aesthetics? Well no, not really. Rather, this time it’s blushes all around for the Stains collective. Nice try though, but what would have actually worked, would have been simply to feature a good looking cover. This is exactly what they did on their first album (Stars of CCTV) which worked fantastically on many levels. In all its simplicity, and because of it, the CCTV sign (black surveillance camera on a yellow background) looked absolutely smashing. It was also a memorable debut album cover and succeeded as contemporary political criticism against right-wing wet dreams of implementing a supervision state in the Orwellian mould. Because, seriously, if you throw a stone in any big city in Britain, the stone won’t land in someone’s pint, it hits the lens of a CCTV camera and you’ll end up arrested. Where Hard-Fi failed, UNKLE continues to impress. Not only have all three UNKLE albums have had astonishing and stylistically analogous album covers (www.myspace.com/unkle) but the art has also actually achieved in creating a unique backdrop for UNKLE’s music, which in itself is a fantastic achievement. What’s more, Never, Never, Land and War Stories (out earlier this year) have been released as limited CD-box editions that include the amazing covers, have abundant extra material and a thick booklet with excellent make-up and spectacular art pieces. War Stories’ limited edition CD has a fifty page booklet featuring imposing photographs and Robert Del Naja’s (from Massive Attack) disturbing and aggressive but hauntingly beautiful paintings. The political style of 3D in War Stories is different from the more straightforwardly aesthetic artwork of Futura 2000 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/77726568@N00/; www.futura2000.com ), the artist responsible for previous covers. Nevertheless, the style is analogous with the political connotations that album carries. War Stories has also been released as a vinyl-box edition which is, apparently, as thick as the CD-box and features the same album art but only vinyl sized! And that doesn’t come cheap for the record label. What record labels/ recording artists should do to enhance the appeal of record buying and boost their sales accordingly, is not solely to include extra music material but to put a genuine effort in album art that is too often uninspiring and downright poor. Seriously, who wants to see band members on the cover? Proper album art is something you obviously do not get with mp3s. There is no better way to fight both the crisis of traditional record industry and poor quality of album art than how UNKLE does it. UNKLE’s releases (especially the limited editions) are not just records you fill a bookshelf with; they should be given the proper attention they deserve as being something you can fix your eyes on, interpret, disagree with or simply just enjoy like you would by watching any proper piece of art.
Teksti: Markus Kitunen |
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