When we last checked in with friend of Life’s a Pitch Inon Barnatan, he was disproving evolution with his pianistic prowess. Now, he’s just finished recording a new CD, and he checked in with us about cover options. It seems the two directions he’s considering are (1) covered nipples and (2) feet . My (not humble) Professional Opinion is that the album’s destined for greatness with any of these covers as inspiration.
DIRECTION 1: Covered Nipples
DIRECTION 2: Feet
NIMBLE FINGERS.
All these and more can be found at http://www.westminstergold.com/. Thank you, Inon, for leading me down this rabbit (black) hole.
I love these sporty ones:
And these literal ones:
Barber —-> a barber.
Fox —-> a (totally stuffed and creepy) fox.
You know what I love most about these? THEY DON’T HAVE THE $*)!(#$!@_#!~-ING ARTISTS’ PHOTOS ON THEM. Many of these albums appear to be the work of designer Christopher Whorf. If anyone knows if he’s still with us, and if so, where he is, let me know. I will totally send him work.
As long as the artist is photogenic I like seeing their face on the album. That said, I would love to see more album covers like these.
I really like these covers because they catch the viewer’s eye which is what an album cover should do and they’re interesting/amusing. Heck, I’d like to see a classical label these days with the balls to put out a cover like that trouser-less guitarist. But I believe there is research and common sense that suggests a (good-looking) face on a cover is more likely to grab someone’s attention. Of course, when it comes to music albums whatever isn’t music is just artistic filler.
With b&m stores going away, a lot of people only see an album cover as a small .jpg on itunes/amazon so it may be that cover art is less relevant nowadays, as creative or stodgy it may be. I’m sure record companies would like us to buy CDs for the higher profit margin instead of digital downloads, so a nice looking album is still in their interest. Frankly the only reason I stil buy CDs is because none of the big vendors offer mp3 albums encoded in a non-proprietary lossless format. This may be intentional for the aforementioned reason.