Record Covers of 2007:The Bad and the Ugly

December 27, 2007 by John Foster  Send to a Friend

Looking forward as our Judging A Cover By It’s Cover column continues to offer it’s weekly joy (keep those letters coming kids) it seemed like a good idea to properly assess 2007: The Year in Packaging.

This will run much like the usual best and worst listings but first we need a few ground rules. I will be judging covers based on expectations and possibilities as much as if not more than basic aesthetics. This means if you are a pop songstress and you produced a cover with your big ol’ airbrushed yap on the cover with scripty type and filigrees or you are a Top 40 rapper with a tough looking photo of you with your shirt off and bling to the gills draped all over you – of course you do – and Merry Christmas, as I have left a pass under the tree for you.

If you are Ted Nugent… well, you get a pass because you scare the beejeezus out of me.

If it universally sucks than I won’t waste my time mentioning it here either (see Ani DiFranco “Canon” or the cover you had your girlfriend do for the record you are having a release party for in a few months.)

If you are a dead serious indie rock band - you might not fare as well… This is for items worthy of discussion only and to shame those that should know better.

Worst

Radiohead “In Rainbows”
Let me say that being an incredibly creative person in one arena (music in this case) often does not translate into design. Music is art driven while design is visual problem solving. Radiohead are a very inventive band that has almost always produced shitty record packages. Despite the deserved hullabaloo in regards to the business end of this release the actual cover suffers heavily from amateurish typography over a vague photo and an annoying color palette. If you told me this was produced to specifically make professional designers insane I would be looking deeply into your eyes and touching the tip of my nose…

Go Team “Proof of Youth”
Usually I love a collage with a growling wolf, bmx biker and fighter jets but then I turned nine and it all seemed so “third grade.”

New Pornographers “Challengers”
You know when you think you had a good idea and you keep working it and working it until you finally realize all you have done is attempt to dress up what was a bad starting place to begin with? Well, some Canadians think it is a good idea to force us to view that little experiment. Mildly funny line art drawing – meet, numerous uncooperative background textures followed by random lines (and colors) and horrendous typography. You know what this is missing? Some gray background. Oh there – finished!

Label Award: I hate to do this as I enjoy a lot of the music this label puts out but Absolutely Kosher has released some of the ugliest album art of all time all in one year. Inverted photo right out of 1986? Right here with Bottom of the Hudson “Fantastic Hawk.” Junior High woeful painting (and faux psychedelic type treatment?) Frog Eyes “Tears of the Valedictorian” is your man. Overly serious, amateur sculpture in horrible lighting? Get Him Eat Him’s “Arms Down” takes the ribbon. Chris Garneau, The Affair, 60 Watt Kid, Ex-Boyfriends – the list goes on and on of quality music adorned in junior high school sleeves. Factory Records this is not. Tragic.

The Octopus Project “Hello Avalanche”
Simple clever and cute figures might have been the order of the day but this a far cry from a Jesse LeDoux “Chutes Too Narrow” cover. This is simple and awkward in all the wrong places and generally personifies what I felt was a year full of bad drawings covering clever tunes.

Caribou “Andorra”
I have covered this in detail in my column but no disc this year left me shaking my head at the disconnect between the joys within and the bland blahs on the outside than this one.

Oakley Hall “I’ll Follow You”
Whaaaa????? Is this the new Daft Punk single? All of this geometric color screams disco while the touching slice of countrified Americana contained within couldn’t be further from this imagery.

Rodrigo y Gabriela “s/t”
Nothing says death metal like an ominous photo of a crocodile’s eye with a giant crowd scene burned into it. The fact that this is actually latin-flavored, dueling acoustic guitars on Dave Matthew’s record label shouldn’t deter you headbangers.

Burial “Untrue”
Straight from the walls of your local county fair art show is this contemplative coffee drinking figure via graphite sketch courtesy of that goth kid with dandruff in the back of the class. Tacked on is a horrible use of a fine font (Agency Gothic) for branding condos but not dubstep demi-gods.

Cat Power “The Greatest”
Attempting some “deep” meaning with the boxing glove charm necklace, it in turn nullifies the power of such an amazing record with its glossy pic and pinkish backdrop. This is the first album all year where I longed for a moody photo of the artist in it’s place.

TV on the Radio “Return to Cookie Mountain”
I pulled this in from 06 because I can. This may be the only thing ever touched by the esteemed v23 studio that I openly dislike. A complex disc of daring music is wrapped up in what seems like pieces left over from a discarded His Name is Alive comp. Awkwardly outlined type made of images and an in descript photo of an empty nest do little to inspire putting down some moolah which is a shame as everyone should give this a listen.

Klaxons “Myths of the Near Future”
Booty shaking tunes hide behind this Sebadoh junkpile collage. If I wasn’t so addicted to “Golden Skans” this album would be so ugly it would burn my fingers at the touch.

Deerhoof “Friend Opportunity”
This one didn’t bother me at first blush but has slowly grated on me over the course of the year (Deerhoof can do that to me as well at times.) Sloppy type with occasional drips of painted/sprayed forms in dayglo colors line up to do… what? It isn’t attractive or ugly or really anything other than annoying and purposeless.

Dinosaur Jr. “Beyond”
J. Mascis and crew have produced as many bad covers as they have ripped off blazing guitar solos in concert. This one does not have J.’s rough doodles but does have a jokey photo best left behind.

Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew “Backed Out on the…”
I can only imagine this is bad on purpose. The toy carousel horses clipped out loosely and slapped to the bottom of the composition with dated looking layout and type arranged in a half-hazard manner certainly doesn’t match the carefully crafted and overly produced music it houses.

HEALTH “s/t”
Public Image Ltd. And Spiritualized famously took the generic labeling to great heights in music packaging. HEALTH seems to take inspiration from the generic design capabilities available in Microsoft Word. Horribly plain…

Aesop Rock “None Shall Pass”
Perfect for the back of that weird kid’s jean jacket, this illustration (too clunky to be scary and too filled with organs and skulls to be cute) this cover seems years removed from the beats behind it.

Led Zepplin “Mothership”
Sullying the past sleeves of this pioneering rock monster, this updated greatest hits collection uses one of Shepherd Fairey’s weakest illustrations to little effect. (He even appears to have assembled it from past artwork done for SXSW and personal art – shame shame and lazy lazy.)

The Twilight Sad “Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters”
Like an awful manual on bad parenting, this clip art cover fails to connect in the way that the true tragedy of such circumstances should. Instead this feels like a brochure your middle school counselor might hand you on the way out and all you can wish for is that it was softer so as to mop up your tears.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists “Living with the Living”
Another repeat offender for ugly covers, Leo wraps his new man’s Billy Bragg in horrific typography and simple yet ugly illustration. I am hard pressed to recall such a minimal cover that manages to be so bad and amateurish this year.

Electrelane “No Shouts No Calls”
Is this how a band of droning ladies should go out? Certainly not, I dare say. A big ugly ship shaped graphic with the type awkwardly looped around it. This could be the logo for the Finnish Coast Guard but does little to warrant what awaits the listener.

Bat for Lashes “Fur and Gold”
I know Natasha Khan considers herself an artist and somehow that should justify these crappy hacked together pieces. Well… that makes one of us.

Los Campesinos! “YOU! Me! Dancing!”
The only thing worse than a horrible drawing is a horrible drawing made on the computer, ugh!

Kate Nash “Made of Bricks”
Didn’t Squeeze and Crowded House wear out the welcome for these goofy photo sets in the 80s? Even more annoying than Nash’s accent is the girly doodles that accompany the singles for this disc.

Ugliest hip-hop look goes to MIA. As much as it pains me, as they have crafted a definable look for her packaging and stuck to it - skewing away from easy tricks of the trade and glossy headshots. The only problem is that they have adhered to an ugly mishmash of patterns and type that makes my retinas ache upon each viewing.

and just when you think there is no hope left

….stay tuned for THE BEST COVERS OF 07 tomorrow

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