John Foster takes music packaging very seriously. He has deconstructed the design of the recording industry through his personal work and his books, Maximum Page Design (HOW), New Masters of Poster Design (Rockport) and the upcoming For Sale: Innovative Solutions in Packaging Design (HOW) as well as a monograph of Sub Pop’s Art Director, Jeff Kleinsmith, slated for publication by the label in 2008.

He will be poking and prodding various albums on a weekly basis so please be sure to keep an eye out!

This week’s victims:

Swervedriver “Juggernaut Rides 89-98”

Is it worth listening to no matter what it looks like? Swervedriver holds such strange place in (indie) rock history. Seemingly always a step away from global fame yet also inches from disappearing from the history books all together. When they announced a reunion tour (coming to 930 this summer) I was giddy to say the least. I had the pleasure of catching one of their first shows in the U.S. at the old 930 Club and to say they blew everyone away packed into the low ceiling mecca that night would be an understatement. They brought with them a huge sound that the stage could barely contain. Seeing them again, even if it will be as a nostalgia act, had me ready to spread the gospel. It took all of one message to someone whose knowledge of music I respect to remind me the precarious place they occupy. John Cale or Eno – we could chat for hours. Swervedriver? Not familiar…. What do they sound like?

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. As the only British band trying to sound American at the time, they connected in a gut punching rock and roll fashion. Entrenched in the shoegazer scene due to the myriad of pedals and effects they really relied on sharp turns and monstorous dueling riffs and a thick and active rhythm section. Shit man – they had two guys with dreads and a lead guitarist that looked like the second coming of T.Rex with a white boy fro that weighed as much as his skinny frame, 20 years before it would be cool again. Ride and the other pasty art school bands fancied themselves Creation’s rock hopes but as much as I love those bands, it was only Swervedriver that could justify even throwing the term “rock” around the label’s offices. This proved to be slightly out of step with the British mindset of the time and Alan McGee had better luck convincing American record labels of their worth and famously it was the licensing fees for the band that allowed the label to sign and record some Mancunian munchkins that would be the phenomenon known as Oasis. Paying for others to become famous would soon seem all too apt. Tours saw band members disappear at the Canadian border. They would tour as support to Smashing Pumpkins on their first massive global trek to arrive back home finding that Britpop had made them generally unwelcome on the charts. They trudged on but the spark would flicker more than burn until they stopped the van in Australia (perfect for a band that wrote so often of wide open expanses of road) and decided to walk in different directions.

Creation along with Sanctuary has been slowly re-packaging some of their forgotten favorites in 2 disc sets and after the Slowdive version produced one of my favorite albums of all time (disc two which is dominated by Pygmalion) I had high hopes for this one. Could a new sequencing work magic for this crew as well? The truth was evident from the first few notes. The band truly is sonically awesome but the whole game plan is right there on the first single “Son of Mustang Ford.” You get 33 tracks (4 unreleased) but you could just as well have picked up their debut “Raise.” All of the band’s four discs have redeeming qualities and standout tracks but is only a handful that would be required listening outside of “Raise” and I find the sequencing more disorienting here than I expected. They perfectly end disc one with “Never Lose That Feeling” but 19 songs in you are exhausted when you finally reach it. Placing “Rave Down” in the middle only serves to negate the insane power it held at the time of its release as a rock response to the dance culture that was so prevalent at the time. An ode to the pot smoking metal heads not having anything to do, as all of the clubs are filled with e-heads sucking on pacifiers, struck a chord that should have resonated more heavily on both shores and here it misses it’s opportunity yet again. “There’s kids on the corner wanna beat-box my brains to bits,” laments Adam Franklin. He couldn’t have imagined that they finally would.

Credit: “Becky Stewart @Hi-Hat”

Any signs of creative interference in the design process by the artist? None as this screams label quickie and Stewart does tons of Sanctuary re-issues (most of them badly.)

Does the look fit the sound? Uh… Swervedriver were never a band that fully found the right visual. The closest they came was the early iconic American cars that they name-checked. Luckily the oddly outlined type seen on many of their releases is draped over a plain, but appropriate, vintage vehicle here. The back trey serves to slice up and treat more pieces of said vehicle only serving as background. Now to the part that makes me insane. I have worked on enough re-issues to know that they often have little budget, especially for new imagery. However, if you are trying to convince people to re-purchase music they already own, I strongly believe you should make the wrapping enticing and special. Collections like this are all too often tossed together as an after thought. Slapped together design and weak typography does little to increase the enjoyment level, which is a shame as Ian Watson’s liner notes are well thought out and there is a collection of band imagery for fans to embrace - but it is difficult to do so when it is arranged in such a half hazard manner. Band caricatures compete with 33 songs worth of credits on the inside booklet to the left of the generic “Creation Anthology” disc labels. Why? A great photo of the band when it was a power trio on the Pumpkins tour all pointing revolvers is nullified by being placed off center in the middle of the page and even more so when you realize you have to read the copy while jumping across the photo????? Last time I checked, they revoke your designer’s license for these types of atrocities.

The result is a disc of amazing and wonderful music that comes across far less powerful and invigorating than it actually is. Once again Swervedriver gets torpedoed. The only time they ever seemed to be able to break free and really soar was when they took the songs live and played like the rock stars the assembled knew they truly were. They deserve the chance to do it again and you deserve the opportunity to take in some of the finest guitar rattling, dirty drumming rock of the last 20 years. Buy the first two records as is and save the other cash for a concert ticket. See you there.

Final score (out of 10): 4.5 design (8.0 for the music – a better assembled collection could be a 10.0)

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