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:

The Teenagers “Reality Check”

Is it worth listening to no matter what it looks like? When I first hear the band on the radio (satellite of course) I had to do a double take. Did that kid sing the song “Homecoming” just say what I think he said? I am not shocked by more or less anything these days, but it was an admitted jolt to hear a pulsing new wave click track pulsing around a modern update on “Summer Loving” from the musical “Grease.” The reason being the use of the “c” word in describing an encounter between two characters in the song as the male vocalist extols the virtues of his American conquest as the female counterpart waxes over her “foreign romance.” It is there solely for shock value and the jolt was that it certainly is nullified by the cutesy setting it comes wrapped in. The rest of the disc carries on in this trying too hard vein. “Feeling Better” with shout outs to the band themselves and asking fans to “just buy our t-shirts” and when you see the disc contains a song titled “Starlett Johanson” as well as a remix of said track you know you are in trouble.

Things don’t really pick up and when you get to the middle of the disc you find their initial single, “Fuck Nicole” made up of comments to their myspace profile when the friends had decided to start a band by posting a page – even though there was no actual group at the time to speak of. This lack of musical training is evident in every amateurish aspect, from the melodies (or lack there of) to the rudimentary drum tracks and the abysmal guitar playing. Part of the problem is technology has conspired to cover up any charm that might have been inherent in this process as we are denied a version of Beat Happening or the Pastels for a new generation. Instead we get something akin to Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (if you don’t remember them, their may be a reason for that) without the sense of humor. When that band (Carter) covered the Pet Shop Boys long ago it only served to show how this type of thing is really done.

Now you might think that myspace is the perfect place for a band of French youngsters to share their little musical inside jokes with friends and family and the grumpy old man specking at his keyboard should lighten up. You know what? You are partially right. I should lighten up, but I can’t when I see a label (XL) that truly should know better than to put this stuff out. If it stayed on myspace than I could care less but here it is invading my radio and itunes and I have no choice but to tell the truth. The Teenagers are basically a joke band – and the jokes not all that funny.

Credit: “Artwork by The Teenagers, Creative Consultant Matt De Jong, Cut Out Pictures by The Teenagers, Front, Back and Inside Pictures by Matt Irwin”

Any signs of creative interference in the design process by the artist? The very epitome of artist interference.

Does the look fit the sound? Going two for two, the group show that they no little about playing music and even less about packaging it. Adorned by a flash heavy snapshot of a nondescript, young couple against busy fauna; the cover adds weak typography, with competing light and dark hard edged drop shadows, but isn’t offensive just yet. At least the age of the boy/girl coupling makes a reference to the band’s name and the title but I am left thinking this is practically by accident given the rest of the work assembled here both visually and musically. The scene is repeated and captured in another location showing the boring nature of the figures in an even closer fashion. The back holds more crap type and oddly placed rectangles behind them. Some start closer to the track name and number than others but just off enough to notice. This is a cardinal sin in design – if it is intentional be upfront about it – don’t let the viewer think you have a made a mistake which is actually likely the case here.

The interior is where it really falls apart. Clunky type justified into blocks with no care given to the tracking/kerning and some awkward breaks (I am an admitted type maniac where it comes to these things) is surrounded by bad cutouts of horrendous photographs: The capper is that it all lays on top of a grid of far too dark lines. This effect serves to make anything a major pain in the ass to read and you want to skip the whole thing all together. Ugh! That you have to interact with it immediately (the thank you page awkwardly presented as the first thing on the left when you open the case) does little to help their cause. My head hurts.

Damn kids…

Final score (out of 10): 2.0 design 4.0 for the music

Go out and see the amazing Will Eastman as he opens for The Teenagers tonight at the Black Cat (Team Robespierre plays between them) and let me know if it makes sense live.

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