Week 3- 50s and 60s Album Covers

Research the emergence of album covers and how they differ from modern pieces, including my own. 

Music has always played a part in popular culture, and after the war musicians became more and more popular within the public eye as the war children grew up and started searching for something more. The popularity of discos and dances helped speed up this process, along with the performance of live bands and acts. 

Thus it made sense that as these musical talents began gaining popularity, they would combine their best songs and shepherd them onto one record in the form of an album. Early album art was non existent- the first records were packaged in plain brown or white paper bags with holes cut to show the record label. However due to the records being stored upright, many broke in storage and so empty 'record albums' were produced so that people could store and view their records safely. 

Fig. 1. Sonny Rollins- A Night at the Village Vanguard, 1959

The earliest artworks of album covers were often rather simple. Frequently the image would just be of the artist or band, with a coloured background and some bold text over the top, like the example above. Blues artists were huge at the time and so a lot of early music covers featured these really African American men singing or playing music on the front, which caused some controversy within the industry as a lot of critics thought an attractive young girl on the cover would sell more than an unknown man, as stated below:

"They were sure that with these new artists they were introducing, so many of them were leaders for the first time, so maybe the public in Harlem knew about them, but across the country they didn't... and they felt it was very important to put these mens' photos as prominently as possible on the covers and they got a lot of flak from distributors across the country who felt a pretty girl would have been better." [1]

As time went on, designers got more and more creative and abstract with their ideas and this helped push the album cover as a real form of art. Typography often played a large part in the designs, even with more illustrative elements coming into play; some covers were composed entirely of type.

Fig. 2- Kenny Dorham- Trompeta Toccata

The above album does feature the artist, but the photo is small and slim at the top of an image dominated by type. Blues had already spread its influence to artists everywhere, shaping and moulding popular music forever. At this point in the 1960s, the Beatles were gaining popularity and went on to produce some of the most iconic music and album art of all time.

Fig. 3- The Beatles- Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

This album cover used a mix of photography and what can only be described as a sculptural collage. The figures behind the band were all cut out cardboard figures, and the band are vibrant in comparison to them. The result was a very loud cover that screamed to be noticed, with lots of colour and detail, and it is now regarded as one of the best album covers of all time. This is in sharp contrast to the blues covers that were out less than a decade ago- the music industry was evolving rapidly and had the artwork to prove it.

Fig. 4- Blind Faith- Blind Faith

Just two years after Sgt. Pepper, Blind Faith released a self-titled album featuring a girl in a field holding a metallic aeroplane. Nothing controversial about that, right? Wrong. The girl in the image was topless, and the plane she posed with looked rather phallic in shape, pointing to the bottom of the image. In comparison to The Beatles albums, this was in your face in a way that most people at the time weren't used to. Even now, such blatant nudity would be hard-pressed to find its ways onto supermarket CD shelves, which is strange considering the other connotations within modern album art. In the US however, the record company wanted a different cover:

"In the US the record company were not happy with the cover, and at one point were even considering not releasing it. But Eric Clapton said, "No cover, no record." An alternative cover was made which featured a hand-bill from a concert that the group had played that summer in Hyde Park, but it wasn't used." [2]

In my own life, I don't think I've actually heard of an album with withheld artwork- perhaps you need to be more involved with music to know these things, or that it just doesn't happen now- maybe everything in popular culture is tailored to be non-offensive to the public. However there are definitely albums that challenge this and come as close as they can to total obscenity without crossing the line- an example of this is Nicki Minaj's Anaconda album.

Fig. 5- Nicki Minaj- Anaconda

The photo of Nicki is so obvious, I don't actually find it erotic or appealing. It's just there. I also don't find it offensive or vulgar, although that opinion is not shared by many and the cover art is considered controversial, but generally, nudity and sexualisation of pop icons is so common now that it doesn't really invoke the same outrage it would have 40 years ago. However this changes with certain demographics; this would be unlikely to appear on the shelves in Tesco due to the large amount of families that shop there. A 20 year old like me might not be bothered by it, but a mother with her 13 year son or daughter would most likely not approve because of the ways children can be affected by such imagery; a young female fan of hers might aspire to behave and dress in the same way, viewing her as a role model, whereas a young boy might begin to over sexualise women in an explicit way and thus alter the way he sees and treats them.

Fig. 6- Me, Miami Art Deco Buildings

This was an issue I tried to address in my own album artwork for our previous module, although it was a bit hit and miss- the sexual connotations went from subtle and cheeky to really blatantly obvious. The album I chose to illustrate was Iggy Azalea's The New Classic, released early in 2014, and I added the connotations because of the content of her lyrics and the way she portrays herself on stage, wearing revealing outfits and grinding suggestively while rapping songs such as 'New Bitch'.

Figure 6 is one of the side panels of the album cover I created, featuring an illustration of Miami Art Deco style buildings in 2 point perspective. At first glance you may not notice the phallic shape of the central building, coupled with a salmon pink roof and a curved bottom right wall. I did this on purpose to help put forward the content of her work in a more subliminal way- you might own the album for months before noticing the phallic symbol.

Fig. 7- Me, Iggy Azalea center panel 

Figure 7 was the central panel of the album, featuring Iggy straddling a car holding a microphone in a fairly triumphant expression. However when compared to the subtlety in the previous image, the open legs are a very obvious display of sexuality and anybody would be able to see the connotations behind the pose.






[1] G. Marsh, The Cover Art of Blue Note Recordings, London, Collins & Brown Ltd, 1991, p10
[2] S. Thorgerson & A. Powell, 100 Best Album Covers, London, Dorling Kindersly, 1999, p29

Figure 1- Reid Miles, Sonny Rollins- A Night at the Village Vanguard, 1959, G. Marsh, The Cover Art of Blue Note Recordings, London, Collins & Brown Ltd, 1991, p10
Figure 2- Reid Miles, Kenny Dorham- Trompeta Toccata, 1964, G. Marsh, The Cover Art of Blue Note Recordings, London, Collins & Brown Ltd, 1991, p101
Figure 3- MC Productions, The Beatles- Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967, S. Thorgerson & A. Powell, 100 Best Album Covers, London, Dorling Kindersly, 1999, p130-131
Figure 4- Bob Seiderman, Blind Faith- Blind Faith, 1969, S. Thorgerson & A. Powell, 100 Best Album Covers, London, Dorling Kindersly, 1999, p29
Figure 5- Unknown, Nicki Minaj- Anaconda, 2014, wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_(Nicki_Minaj_song) , accessed 8/12/2014
Figure 6- Sophie Babur Puplett, Miami Art Deco Buildings, 2014
Figure 7- Sophie Babur Puplett, Iggy Azalea Center Panel