Brian's New Album Cover

[phirnis]

I really liked the Roxy artwork; OCA is obviously even great; BW88 looks pretty good as a vinyl sleeve.

While the GIOMH artwork might not have worked that well, to me there's nothing worse in the BW catalogue than the Imagination cover art, which looks so downright soulless and cheap that it even blows M.I.U. out of the water.

[Smilin Ed H]

As cocaine is to LA.

[Wirestone]

Um ... ya'll have a ways to go as graphic designers. Just saying.

BW88 the best? Painfully bland. The more recent covers (since London came on board) have been at least decent -- the shiny stuff makes the XMas album, and that has seldom translated in an online version. The Smile cover rocks. The embossing, the fat white box -- it gives the impression of being something fun and special. And it is.

Those of you who say you can do better in two minutes in photoshop -- let's see it. No, really, let's see it.

[Fun Is In]

The TLOS cover isn't going to be in the pantheon of iconic covers, that's for sure.
But the image does draw the eye.

The cover doesn't do much for me really one way or the other, but I expect that if the contents shine the cover is striking enough that it will come to have strong positive transference reaction and will come to be seen in a more positive light. If the contents aren't up to expectations, it will seem like a cheesy cover for all time.

I think about Pet Sounds. Not a great cover really, but because of the classic, exceptional contents, I have a strong positive reaction any time I see it.

[XY]

Um ... ya'll have a ways to go as graphic designers. Just saying.

BW88 the best? Painfully bland. The more recent covers (since London came on board) have been at least decent -- the shiny stuff makes the XMas album, and that has seldom translated in an online version. The Smile cover rocks. The embossing, the fat white box -- it gives the impression of being something fun and special. And it is.

Those of you who say you can do better in two minutes in photoshop -- let's see it. No, really, let's see it.

Photoshop was meant for PS Live. But that's just one man's opinion and taste.
Like London's work very much. Even bought a couple of BW tour books and they look phenomenal.
The SMiLE washing powder thing was a joke, in fact, I like the SMiLE artwork very much.
I have the shiny Christmas album and think it's great.
Ok, I better shut up now or I insult people without wanting to.

[brianc]

They tried to get a good cover for GIOMH, unfortunately Blake wasn't able to create another Pepper.

I have to confess ignorance about what Blake has done since the Sgt. Pepper album cover.

I know that in the mid-'60s, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones introduced Blake to the assemblage art movement happening in L.A. at the time. The top artists working in that style were Ed Kienholz, George Herms and Wallace Berman. The latter of whom was one of the characters on Sgt. Pepper. I've always seen Blake's as another great assemblage tableaux. Though many of the assemblagists have continued doing sculpture using dolls, 7-Up bottles and other discarded items, as well as collages... and they do it quite well. Unfortunately, Peter Blake's attempt to do a collage for BW came off as completely uninspired. He was reaching for something, but perhaps the recorded material just wasn't there to guide and inspire.

[brianc]

The SMiLE washing powder thing was a joke, in fact, I like the SMiLE artwork very much.

I can't speak for Mark London, but he would probably appreciate the comparison to a washing detergent box. Warhol used Brillo as the centerpiece for one of his first pop-art exhibitions.

[John]

IJWMFTT, OCA and SMILE and I suppose Imagination are all right. Everything else looks terrible. TLOS is probably the next best.

[southbay]

GIOMH is without a doubt his worst album cover.

Agreed, it is hideous.  I am partial to 88

[brianc]

I don't have GIOMH, so I can't really see too well what is happening there. I've seen the cover, but it's been a while. What are those buildings in the background? It looks like New York City. And what's with all the grey space on the bottom half? It looks like he just gave up, but at least some cobblestone pavement or something... jeeez. Looks like a totally unfinished piece of art.

[shelter]

Um ... ya'll have a ways to go as graphic designers. Just saying.

I actually am a graphic designer. 

And I don't want to brag, but I could literally recreate the cover of "Pet Sounds Live" in Photoshop in two minutes.

[Wirestone]

Do it, then.

Edit: And apparently it was done. Cool!

[Shady]

Do it, then.

Ohhh a challenge

[shelter]

Do it, then.

All you have to do is take that picture of Brian, crop it, set the mode to grayscale and then a yellow monotone... Maybe give it a 'paint daubs' filter or adjust the brightness/contrast for a clearer effect... Type 'Brian Wilson', 'presents' and 'Pet Sounds Live' in the Cooper Black font... Copy the text layers a few times, enlarge them and set them to about 10-15% capacity... And you're done. That's less than 2 minutes work for anyone who's a bit handy with Photoshop...

[Rocker]

I like the album cover a good deal-whoops all over GIOMH, which was a horrible album cover from Peter Blake of all people!

I agree: that was the worst BW cover of all time, in my opinion.

Oh wait, the xmas album cover sucked, too. My eyes still hurt from that.

Ain't there at least two versions of that cover? I have a shiny one, but wasn't there the non-shiny one as well? At least it appears that way on some websites.

Europe got the non-shiny one. It was a mistake and Brian (well,...) said he wasn't very happy about that on his message board. He wanted it to be shiny.

[the captain]

I love the BWPS cover, btw. Looks like a cartoon. The music is a cartoon. It works.

[MBE]

I have the vinyl editions of 88, GIOMH, Smile, and What I really want for Xmas. 88 was pretty cool with a nice texture and embossed layers. GIOMH was just OK, though I think fairly happy looking. Smile was the best, it was embossed, had a nice gatefold sleeve and even bonus cuts. Xmas wasn't shiny ans was kind of bland. The new one looks happy and bright. Not brilliant, but I am surprised that no one mentioned OCA in conjunction with it.

[brianc]

I suppose the '88 minimalism works for a lot of people better than I ever imagined. Ten years ago, I can't imagine anyone would have found it's ephemeral nature to be valeuable in the least. But I have to admit, stock '80s motifs don't offend me nearly as much as they used to.

[the captain]

Being the age I am, when I think of 80s album covers I'm thinking about men in makeup, lots of bare (or stockinged) female legs and cleavage shots, motorcycles, cars, hell-flames and the occasional, laughable "satanic" image. God, my 80s sucked. But they were amusing for a young teenager, I suppose -- a necessary evil.

[brianc]

Well, besides hair metal, what else did you listen to back then?

[the captain]

Well, besides hair metal, what else did you listen to back then?

Hip hop. I was aged 4-14 in the 80s, and so that was the bulk of my listening. Anything lighter or poppier was frowned upon! (Never mind how light and poppy most of that hair metal was; I didn't notice at the time--possibly dizzied by all the fancy designs on the Gibson Flying Vs and B.C. Rich Warlocks.)

[brianc]

Wow! I was the same ages in the '80s. I didn't really realize that there even WAS an alternative type of music in '80s until probably 1989. That was like the wake-up year for me, discovering Lush, Jane's Addiction, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, Primus, the Pixies, etc. I suppose before that, I knew a little bit of R.E.M., and my babysitter, who was also the best skateboarder in our town, liked the Cramps and '50s music, so my group got turned out to that. KROQ in the late '80s, and before Nirvana hit... that was an amazing station.

[the captain]

I knew of some of it, but it took a while to take. If there weren't whammy bar dives, finger-tapping and lightning-fast arpeggio guitar solos, it wasn't cutting it for these then-tender ears. Well, except the hip-hop of the day, which I also loved. Typical stuff, mostly: Kool Moe Dee, Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, etc. (Thread successfully hijacked.) My tastes were pretty vanilla for my time and place. In the early 90s I began more aggressively mining the past--mostly the late 60s or 70s guitar heroes--and only got a lot more interestingly diverse in the mid-90s.

[brianc]

Back to the cover sleeve for the new album.

Thanks for the indulgent moment, folks...

[the captain]

For those of you interested in what I was listening to in the 80s and why, well, I'd be glad to let you know. I'm bringing that conversation elsewhere.