This is the new design I made for the latest Audio Dregs release. This something I’ve wanted to do for a while, as far as taking this sort of simplicity to this extreme. I like the idea of looking around in a record store and you see the bright colors and simple shapes no text on the front or back cover, this little plastic box shrink wrapped, kind of forces you to use your imagination. It would grab my eye and make me curious.
Of course, people don’t really buy music out of curiosity based on covers anymore, and you can’t browse through covers on iTunes, and people don’t really buy CDs if you put it that way, so this is based on my own personal relationship with music. Most of these changes seem to be about making music more and more commodity based. If it were up to me I would release things on vinyl only and then put the digital version out there as well. The Punks did this with their latest record, which is pretty cool.
Melodium’s new album is currently available at darla, and in stores soon as well.
that art looks great, and we are still looking at covers! viva LP!
You can browse movies on the iTunes store by their cover art, maybe some day they will implement that for music as well.
I bought lots of albums based on the cover art back in the day, but you’re right, the “mp3 revolution” has changed all that.
i listened to this album and beatles white # 2 on my bike all day today. very killer music.
very nice cover art… it reminds me a little of Kim H’s Rune Grammophon work.
i am a total sucker for nice cover art and good packaging. I often find myself buying stuff on aesthetics alone.
Even if you could browse by covers on iTunes, the art doesn’t seem as connected to the music as much and you don’t have very diverse print jobs or nice objects. The mp3 is the most portable format for listening these days, but also the most disposable.
I actually sent this one to Kim Hiorthøy before it went to press to get some feedback. He’s one of my favorite designers for sure, and gave some good words when most people are like “is that all there is?” I like the he designs more like a painter than a designer, which kind of how I try and approach album covers, as much as that is possible.
This is a lovely, lovely album.
this is a recurring conversation in my household…better music tends to have better artwork associated with it. it’s just a fact of life. like death. it’s true though that, even if you could browse covers on iTunes, you lose the physical connection with what is essentially a piece of art. you wouldn’t fully appreciate a rauschenberg ‘painting’ by looking at it online, and you can’t fully appreciate good music packaging unless you’re holding it in your hand.
oh man…a good record store is like the greatest art gallery EVER! i should start hanging around ozone and asking the customers things like “sooo…do you think the choice of all black for this death metal cover belies a hidden desire for conformity, or is it just a metaphysical exploration of the self?”
I have so many records that are shit, that I bought just to have the cover. And when the music is also amazing, that’s golden. I am drawn to covers either really emotional, with geometric or simple design and/or with really foxy ladies– like Terry Callier’s What Color is Love comes into my head as taking at least two of these to the limit.
Vinyl and mp3 are two totally different moods for me, equally important, and I don’t usually mind having an album on one format and not the other– except if I am in love with the artwork. I think cutting out mr. cd would be a pretty perfect step! That middle man’s time has passed.
Anyway– you know I love this one!
Better musicians tend to have better taste (or tastes more closely aligned to your own) so I always felt this was a safe way to get into music.
Even if all LPs came with mp3 version I would have a hard time getting rid of my CD collection. Partly because I don’t have time to rip it, and also I still like those little trashy guys better than mp3s. You get more bass, more treble. They’ve lasted a lot longer than cassettes and 8tracks did, but I’m thinking a new format will replace them in a couple years. Its very easy to lose your entire collection if all you have is a hard drive, something muss less stable than we like to think.
also you can’t draw on an mp3 the way you can on a cd or casette tape
Just like vinyl, and cassettes (!!), I think cds will always be part of the collection–esp. the drawn-on ones! Esp. as back up. I mean, how many people REALLY completely ‘upgrade’ their entire collections of records, tapes, vhs, to the new fancy way, whatever it may be? You’re right about the sound tho– I definitely prefer a cd in my car over the pod… something gets lost there.
i really prefer wax cylanders, to be honest.
and laser discs.
Nice cover.
Very tasty solid-color vs washy-ink.
Almost ‘hard’ in that edginess.
I love vinyl and mp3, but never really got into cd’s. I’ve bought maybe 50-60 commercial cds in my life vs 6500 vinyl…
It is actually a matter of timing of the cd format: when I was a teenager (88) and cd’s came out, I was getting really into old funk, reggae, and avant garde classical, jazz, etc –stuff that wasn’t coming out on cd just yet. So kept buying records.
Then I got into techno, house, underground dance music (90) which was mostly vinyl and not sold in stores. I started dj’ing records.
Eventually dance music was in local record shops –Ooze/Ozone where i met mr e*rock! (96)
I got into mp3’s pretty early (98)and would borrow and rip friends’ cds. Sometimes I’d buy a vinyl copy of something I found I liked. Now, once again, everything I’m looking for seems to come out on vinyl, even metal and country! whoa!
So it is like I missed the whole CD era. The weird thing is that I go record shopping every other week, 3 or 4 stores, but I only browse a cd section of a store maybe only 4 or 5 times a year, it is still all vinyl browsing. E*rock, have you EVER seen me browse the cds at ozone?
I also rip about 20-30 cds a week from the library — mp3s are then shared via secret ftp land. That’s where the fun of digital begins. It wants to be so free….