There’s a difference between batshit crazy and eccentric. It’s a fine line but Badu manages to stay firmly on the right side of it. By every measure, 2008’s New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) should have been a total disaster.

There’s the unwieldy title, the status as a ‘concept album’, the big messy themes of urban violence, poverty and race relations. One couldn’t help but anticipate an incoherent throwback to a bygone era where hip hop actually took these issues on with honesty and passion.

The cover art certainly evokes that period, with its retro aesthetic. And it cleverly makes the most of Badu’s trademark afro to illustrate just how much the soul diva has on her mind. The Egyptian ankh, which represents life itself, sits at the centre. Around it we see a plethora of instantly recognisable symbols: pumped fists, satellite dishes, televisions, dollar signs and factories share space with malnourished babies, bees, flowers and peace signs.

The knuckle-dusters at the forefront spell out more than the album’s name – they represent her intentions. “To my folks on the picket line, don’t stop till you change they mind” is just an indicative sample of the fighting words found throughout.

It’s a really cool cover that manages to take on big issues in a striking and cohesive fashion. Much like the music itself, which defied perceptions to become a major critical and modest commercial success. New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) represents a career high for the talented musician and image maker.

At the same time the album hit stores, the video for debut single Honey was released. It sees her fittingly paying tribute to some of the greatest covers ever made. Check the full video out here

In a classic Saturday Night Live Sketch in 2000, the show satirised the game show Celebrity Jeopardy – skewering both Robin Williams and Catherine Zeta Jones. But the breakout star of the sketch was comedian Darrel Hammond’s Sean Connery, who introduced the term “anal bum cover” in this memorable exchange:

Alex Trebek: For the last time, that is not a category. Sean Connery, why don’t you pick?

Sean Connery: Well, the game is afoot. I’ll take anal bum cover for 7,000.

Alex Trebek: That’s “An album cover”, not anal bum cover.

Sean Connery: I can read, Trebek. That says Anal bum cover. I’ve spent five years of my life trying to invent an anal bum cover, failing to do so is my greatest regret.

So in tribute to this obscure but resilient meme, we celebrate 7 great covers with backsides on the brain. Bottoms up!

Bruce Springsteen: Born in the USA (1984)

The undisputed heavyweight of album covers with bottoms on their front belongs to The Boss.

Born in the USA was the best-selling album of 1985 and shares the record for the most top ten hits from a single release. Springsteen was already a big star but, as one commentator puts it, it wasn’t until he “hit the gym to get buffed up and showed off his rear end in Annie Leibovitz’s famous cover photo for Born in the USA that he became an American pop icon.”

Springsteen’s new image came at just the right moment, as Rambo was hitting cinemas and Reagan was ushering in a period of muscular nationalism.

The irony that underscores this cover is that the vast majority of Springsteen’s new fans radically misinterpreted his lyrics and ideology. The patriots that packed stadiums and cheered on his anthems were blissfully unaware that they may as well have been nuns at a Madonna concert, delighted to see so many crucifixes on stage.

The contradiction was certainly not lost on Springsteen, who had to be convinced to use Leibowitz’s photo for the cover. Ultimately he did and the image was also incorporated in the video for the title track.

Born in the USA is one of the most imitated covers of all time. (The following examples were all found on music site AMiRIGHT)

The 2 Live Crew – As Nasty As They Wanna Be (1989)

Rarely was an album so aptly named, or a band so enamored by the backside. This cover is not what you’d describe as a design masterpiece, nor is the photograph anything less than ridiculous. And funnily enough, the bling and bum combo on the cover is the chastest thing about As Nasty As They Wanna Be, which was declared by more than one local court to be “obscene and illegal to sell”.

While their LA contemporaries were terrifying the moral majority with gangster rap, the Miami-based 2 Live Crew achieved it with pure filth. The single “Me So Horny” features a raft of romantic lyrics sure to melt the heart of any young lady:

“I won’t tell your mama if you don’t tell your dad
I know he’ll be disgusted when he sees your pussy busted
Wont your mama be so mad if she knew I got that ass?
I’m a freak in heat, a dog without warning
My appetite is sex, cause me so horny”

In a later verse, Fresh kid ice adds:

“You said it yourself, you like it like I do
Put your lips on my dick, and suck my asshole too”

The band also released a PG-version, As Clean As They Wanna Be, which came with the cute disclaimer “This album does not contain explicit lyrics.”

While the controversy surrounding As Nasty As They Wanna Be contributed to sales of over 2 million units, As Clean As They Wanna Be stayed on the shelves.

With battles over both censorship and copyright issues, The 2 Live Crew is one of the few bands to have their case taken to the Supreme Court.

Echoing their enthusiasm for both pop-culture references and female buttocks, the next release was a cheeky tribute to Born in the USA.

Loverboy – Get Lucky (1981)

Loverboy spent the eighties creating anthems that make you feel like you’re flying down a freeway.  Even the titles of Get Lucky’s hit singles scream epic good times: Working for the Weekend, Lucky Ones, Gangs in the Street and Take Me to the Top.

Get Lucky’s cover, featuring a confusing image from photographer David Kennedy, is striking in its simplicity. There’s something genuinely charming about the crossed fingers, which perfectly bring to life the hopeful optimism of the album’s title.

According to Wikipedia, the famous derriere belongs to the photographer’s daughter Tymara Christen Kennedy, which is not at all creepy.

Various Artists – Ripper ‘76 (1976)

I know very little about this hits compilation, except for the fact that its cover is amazing. It also must have shifted a few copies, as the motif was repeated the following year.

Eagles of Death Metal: Death by Sexy (2006)

They got their name when frontman Jess Hughes heard bandmate Josh Homme describe death metal group Vadar as “The Eagles of death metal”. The striking turn of phrase inspired Hughes to consider what that mix would actually sound like.

This enthusiasm for pastiche continues on the cover of Death by Sexy, the band’s second album. Recognisable influences for this anal bum cover include the Stone’s Sticky Fingers, Too Fast for Love by Motley Crue, Get Lucky and Born in the USA.

In many ways, it’s a perfect companion piece to the cover by The Donnas.

The Donnas – Bitchin’ (2007)

Read a previous Sleevage entry about this cover here

Sigur Rós – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (2008)

The latest album from everyone’s favourite Icelandic post-rock band features a photograph by contemporary artist Ryan McGinley. It’s taken from a 2008 series of his called I Know Where the Summer Goes (the title of which was taken from an early B-side by Belle & Sebastian).

McGinley’s primary artistic focus is youth and for this series he traveled America with a troupe of models. He photographed them sometimes clothed and sometimes naked, frolicking across vast, sunlit landscapes. The cover image evokes a feeling of freedom and joy, which is perhaps why the band chose it for an album titled (in English) “With A Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly”.

Strokes: Is This It (2001)

Yes, this is it. This is the sexiest Anal Bum cover in the history of mankind. The Stroke’s debut was that rare beast – an album that exceeded its considerable hype musically and then matched its sonic genius with an iconic cover.

The image was the result of an impromptu photo shoot by photographer Colin Lane. His girlfriend at the time possessed the fetching figure you see on the cover. As she tells it: “I walked out of the shower and I was completely naked,” she recalls. “I was walking around the house – he was like, put this glove on. I walked over, boom, that was the shot.”

Lane told NME that “a stylist left the glove in my apartment. I begged my girlfriend at the time to do it. We did about 10 shots. There was no real inspiration, I was just trying to take a sexy picture.”

He succeeded and, he says, his “ex-girlfriend was thrilled – she was a very rock ‘n’ roll girl so it’s a big feather in her cap to have her ass on The Strokes’ cover.”

She tells the story herself in this video, originally posted by Goldenfiddle.

Is This It from Goldenfiddle on Vimeo.

Call out: If you know of any Anal Bum Covers we’ve missed out on, please let us know. It’s important this list grows.

Not a fan of the rear? Check out the flipside here

A paranormally gifted woman stands in front of a barren, twisted and wintry landscape, her face expressionless and intentions unclear. The mysterious cover of Fever Ray’s self-titled debut album invokes a pitch-black, pagan sensibility.

For its designer Martin Ander, the job came at a perfect time. “I had just started to draw by hand again after years of computer dependence when Karin asked me to do the album art for her solo project Fever Ray” he explains. “That was just what I needed to get me started with ink and paper again.”

Fever Ray is the alter-ego of Swedish musician Karen Dreijer Andersson, who is better known as half of brother-sister duo The Knife. When she briefed designer Ander on the cover art, she “gave me a mind map containing old photographs of seanses, haunted houses and people covered with ectoplasm” he recalls, with the instruction that “this is the emotion I want to project”.

Drawing holds a special significance for Ander, the son of the famous Swedish illustrator and political cartoonist Jan-Erik Ander. “I kind of grew up with it”, he says.

But while his father carries on the tradition of political satire, Ander took his approach and inspiration from a more contemporary genre.

“I want people to try to understand and look for clues. That’s something I got from being a longtime fan of skateboard art, where the graphic on the board plays a big part in building the myth behind the rider or company, or in this case Fever Ray.”

It’s an interesting observation on the parallels between cover art and skateboard art. And while the ghost of Charles Burns’ work can be made out in the high-contrast and macabre aesthetic, Anders names influences closer to home. “I’m a big fan of Swedish horror artist Hans Arnold, who is mostly famous for an ABBA album cover and his book illustrations.”

His original brief for Fever Ray included an album cover, some merchandise and two 12” singles, however this body of work has already expanded. “I wanted the images to link together, like a story. The motifs are mostly a result of coincidence, but there is a cohesion. All the images refer to each other, the lyrics, videos and Fever Rays private self. I like the idea that the cover is more than just an image.”

The approach is at the same time vivid and ambiguous, a tension that’s consistent with Fever Ray’s music. She builds creepy soundscapes that are the perfect haunted house for her modulated, androgynised vocals and oblique lyrics.

“I prefer lyrics that are like that”, she said in one interview, “I like to keep it as minimal as possible… It’s very important to keep the magic and the feeling of something you can draw yourself. You don’t want to be too literal.”

As representatives of the almost-supernatural wave of creative talent coming out of Sweden at the moment, Ander and Fever Ray remind us what dark arts both music and design can be.

Note: This article appeared first in Monster Children Magazine

From now on, every issue we’ll be contributing a new article for the “Behind The Cover” section. It’s an excellent publication, so be sure to pick a copy.

Is that a boy or a girl? In order of release date, we present to you Sleevage’s Top Ten Gender Bending Covers of All Time.

David Bowie: Aladdin Sane (1973)

Aladdin Sane was the next persona Bowie created after Ziggy Stardust.

As Bowie imagined him, Ziggy Stardust was an alien that came to Earth with a message of hope. In his home planet Ziggy was the ultimate rock star – high on promiscuous sex and drugs; destroyed by his own success. Ziggy’s otherworldliness would give Bowie license to create an androgynous, theatrical persona that set the template for many of the gender benders of the eighties.

Aladdin Sane was both an extension of his Ziggy Stardust character and his “idea of rock-and-roll America”, Bowie later explained.

The music and persona were created while Bowie toured the States, where he wanted “to be up on the stage performing my songs but on the other hand not really wanting to be on those buses with all those strange people… So Aladdin Sane was split down the middle.”

This “schitzophrenia” was symbolized by the glittery thunderbolt, although the divide could easily be interpreted as a reference to his bisexuality. Bowie has said that being honest about his sexuality was a blow to his career and he still believes to this day that it badly affected his sales in the States.

As recognizable and cannonized as it is today, it’s important to remember just how dangerous this image was in the early seventies. Aladdin Sane was one record cover no parent wanted to find in their teenager’s bedroom.

Patti Smith: Horses (1975)

You can read a full Sleevage post on this inimitable cover here.

Prince: Dirty Mind (1980)

Way before Borat rocked the Mankini, Prince made a splash in 1980 by getting around in bikini briefs.

Some mistakenly believe Dirty Mind to be Prince’s debut album and while he had previously released two records, in many ways it did introduce the “Prince sound” that would come to dominate 80’s pop.

Its cover features a confronting image – Prince’s lithe little body and feminine attire contrasting with his abundance of pubic and facial hair. The camp intensity is matched by the sexualized lyrics of the album, which includes the classic single When You Were Mine.

The confusion would run throughout Prince’s career, from songs like If I Was Your Girlfriend to the creation of his infamous Love Symbol, which combined the symbols for male (♂) and female (♀).

One thing that has always been clear, however, is Prince’s appetite for the ladies. While his explicit lyrics and outrageous get-ups during the Dirt Mind tour cost him one religious backup singer, he was busy getting off with another, named Jill Jones. Throughout the 80’s he would be linked with many of the hottest women on the planet, including Carmen Electra, Madonna, Susanna Hoffs, Kim Basinger, Stevie Nicks and Sheena Easton.

Pass the bikini briefs, would you?

Grace Jones: Nightclubbing (1981)

A previous Sleevage entry on Island Life can be found here.

At nearly six foot, with an athletic and exotic beauty, Jones’ was seemingly born to be a star. With the backing of Island Records and the assistance of her photographer, boyfriend and image-maker  Jean Paule Goude, the model carved out a successful career in music that began with a series of disco hits in the late seventies.

As her look became even more severe and daring, with a square-top hairdo and angular clothes, her music evolved and gained greater credibility. Nightclubbing is arguably her career high and was both a commercial and critical hit.

They say that when a man cross-dresses, it’s called drag; when a woman cross-dresses, it’s Armani. Fittingly, the cover of Nightclubbing sees the stone-faced Jones in an Armani jacket and pillbox hat, her skin a shiny metallic.

The gender lines were further blurred in her concept tour, A One Man Show, and throughout her music. Sting wrote the song Demolition Man for her, which featured lyrics that perfectly matched her fierce image:

I’m a walking nightmare, an arsenal of doom
I kill conversation as I walk into the room
I’m a three line whip, I’m the sort of thing they ban
I’m a walking disaster, I’m a demolition man

Eurythmics: Touch (1983)

In the early eighties, the Eurythmics’ run of hit pop songs was accompanied by Lennox’ one-woman war on gender conventions.

Touch was speedily recorded and released in 1983 to capitalize on the unexpected success of the single Sweet Dreams. Lennox, finally tasting success after an exhausting period that caused her nervous breakdowns, is both appealing and terrifying on the iconic cover. The dominatrix mask, the flexed muscles and the orange, boyish hair contrast with her red lipstick and nude flesh.

The music video for Who’s That Girl further showcased the image, as Lennox in a feminine blonde wig makes out with a male Lennox, complete with facial hair.

Culture Club: Waking Up with the House on Fire (1984)

Surely one of the leeriest album covers of all-time, this is also Boy George’s career-high in femininity.

George’s outlandish appearance was first noted by cultural operator Malcolm McLaren, who saw his star potential and invited him to join Bow Wow Wow. When that band only had room for one diva, George became the frontman for Culture Club. They went to the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic with hits like Do You Really Want to Hurt Me and Karma Chameleon.

The openly gay George was widely mocked for his outlandish appearance by the British press, who greeted his camp, feminine persona with headlines like “Wally of the week” and “Mr. (or is it Mrs.?) Weird”.

This lurid cover of Waking Up With the House on Fire sees George defiantly ramping things up. Nonetheless, the new tracks failed to resonate as strongly with buyers and the album was regarded a commercial disappointment.

Dead or Alive: Youthquake (1985)

Pete Burns, another gender-bending frontman, resented the attention afforded to George. The lead singer of Dead or Alive correctly claimed that he was the first to wear braids and camp costumes, to which George correctly retorted: “It’s not who did it first, it’s who did it better”.

The parallels between their careers are marked and, much like the Culture Club singer, Burns first gained attention from promoters based on his outlandish appearance. It was only after giving music a go that he learned he possessed a strong singing voice.

Burns spoke of the influence his mother had on him:

“…as far as parental skills go in the conventional, normal world, she certainly wasn’t a mother, but she’s the best human being that I’ve ever had the privilege of being in the company of. And I know that she had a special plan for me, she called me Star Baby and she knew that there was something special in me.”

While his name doesn’t resonate as strongly today outside of the UK, the band’s hit “You Spin me Around” is one of the most popular hits from the eighties. I think the cover of Youthquake is also really cool, with Burns channeling both a Kabuki and a teenage horror movie victim.

Burns has become something of a tacky fixture of British pop culture, known for his unfortunate plastic surgery and reality TV appearances.

Poison: Look What the Cat Dragged In (1986)

When David Bowie asked John Lennon what he thought of Glam Rock, he reportedly said: “It’s just rock with lipstick on”.

The same might be said for Glam Metal, or Hair Metal as it would also come to be known. We picked Look What the Cat Dragged in for the camp enthusiasm exhibited by the members of Poison, however it just as easily could have been the Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil reissue.

Both camp up a cover formula made famous by Van Halen and the Beatles.

Poison and many other members of the Glam Metal movement were known for their lustrous hair, pouting lips and heavy makeup. The confusion ended there however – this was, after all, just “metal with lipstick”.

Poison’s debut album featured anthems that included Talk Dirty to Me and I Want Action, both of which left little doubt that while these guys may have lipstick on their face, they’d soon have some on their dick too.

Marilyn Manson: Mechanical Animals (1998)

You can read a full Sleevage post on this cover here.

Antony and the Johnson: Antony and the Johnsons (1998)

It would be easy to look at the impact of Boy George and dismiss him as a camp curiosity. For a young singer Antony Hegarty, stranded in American suburbia, he was a lifeline.

“I saw my reflection in Boy George,” Hegarty told one journalist. “I realised that’s what we do when we’re like this. We become singers.”

Blessed with a voice described by music writer John Hodgman as “somewhere between male and female, between childish innocence and weary adulthood, at once ethereal and earthy,” it was a vital epiphany.

“We didn’t own a TV, so I lived on a lifeline of land-mail subscriptions to British magazines such as Smash Hits and Number One,” Antony recalls. “I was listening to OMD, Kate Bush, Culture Club, Alison Moyet and especially Marc and the Mambas, which was this incredibly dark and emotional side project for Marc Almond. I was probably the only child in America who had those records, special ordering them at the age of 13.”

Unlike any other artist featured on this list, he has described himself as verging on “pre-operative” in his desire to be female. On the Antony and the Johnsons official site, he expresses his belief that -

“patriarchal religions and heirarchies that would rather catalyze apocalypse than admit
that centuries of male domination have almost destroyed us,
a feminist revolution might save our world”

- and spells out his inner-conflict in layman’s terms in the song For Today I am a Boy:

“One day I’ll grow up, I’ll be a beautiful woman.
One day I’ll grow up, I’ll be a beautiful girl.

But for today I am a child, for today I am a boy.
For today I am a child, for today I am a boy.”

The gender bending on the cover of his debut album – and throughout his career – seems not just a product of creative expression or social provocation, but also an act of personal survival.

The title of Pearl Jam’s new album Backspacer refers to a typewriter key that went out of use in the 1950’s. Vedder, who still uses typewriters, explains why he picked the title: “”Backspacer [means] actually you kind of have to go back and look at your mistake.”

The cartoonist responsible for Backspacer’s cover art probably knows a thing or two about that. Despite his prolific output and distinctive talent, the career of Dan Perkins (who illustrates under the pen-name Tom Tomorrow) has been riddled with near-misses, disappointments and setbacks.

Perkins is known for his extremely left-leaning political cartoons that grew ever more potent, relevant and bilious as the Bush years marched on.

He got his first major break in 1998 when he was offered a gig doing a bi-weekly cartoon for the US News and World Report. Unfortunately he was fired after only 6 months.

In 1999 he scored an animation deal with Saturday Night Life, however the three spots he did create never aired (you can check out some of his animation on his YouTube channel).

After Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore started to work with Perkins on the script for an animated film. It was never produced.

Nonetheless, throughout the ups and downs Perkins has maintained his weekly comic strip This Modern World, which will be familiar to visitors of liberal outlets such as salon.com.

So it must have come as another blow in 2009 when the Village Voice Media suspended all syndicated cartoons, leaving Perkins without a steady source of income.

Perkins first met Eddie Vedder at a Nadar campaign rally in 2000 and the two remained friends from then on. When the Village Voice withdrew its syndication, Vedder posted an open letter in support of the artist on the Pearl Jam website.

And further support would come in a more practical way, when Vedder gave Perkins a shot at creating the cover art for the band’s upcoming release. “This is not a pity job,” Perkins stresses. “I really had to work at this thing.”

While Perkins was intent on closing the deal, Pearl Jam were at first concerned that he might not be interested. “I wasn’t sure if our politics were hardcore enough for him” recalls Vedder.

The exposure and attention will hopefully lead to further opportunities for Perkins. On his blog he charmingly reflects on the head-fuck that is seeing his artwork displayed in a Target outlet.

The cover art was also at the centre of an online teaser campaign, with the label staging an easter egg hunt prior to the album’s release. The nine individual artworks were scattered across sites like Rolling Stone and Wired. Fans that clicked on the images from around the web and assemble them on the Backspacer site were rewarded with a demo version of the song Speed of Sound.

Perkins’ next project is a children’s book, The Very Silly Mayor, which is released on October 1, 2009. The theme of the book is resisting peer pressure and standing up for your beliefs. If his commitment to outspoken political opinions has cost him opportunities in the past, this uncompromising cartoonist clearly regrets nothing.

But in the last few years I’ve been rediscovering the music of my teenage years and also how kickass the album covers were. It took me a while to whittle down my list to my favourite top 10. I’m sure I’ll come across a few later and wish I included them, but for now this is my definitive list in no particular order.

Warlock – Triumph & Agony
- Awesome painted cover: check.
- Chrome logo: check.
- Foxy blonde woman in leather being fondled by a demon: check.

Vinyl was king in the 80’s and hard core audiophile metal fans still prefer this format. The beauty of the large dimensions of vinyl covers is you can appreciate the detail and work put into painted artworks like this cover. This would look great on the side of a panel van.

Motorhead – The Bomber
This cover appeals to the plane spotter in me. Apparently there was a slight uproar that an English band would choose a German bomber, a Heinkel 111, over the English Lancaster bomber. Lead singer & bassists defended this decision: “Sure, it’s a filthy memory – but the fact is the bad guys make the best shit.” The scale of the band member to the aircraft is all wrong but I think it adds a comical air to the setting.

The Cult – Electric
The photo of the band is the only weak part of this cover and feels like a last minute add in. Sorry Ian Astbury, I’m sure that is your best raccoon hat.

But metal bands have the best logos, and creative use of typography and i think this cover is a great example of that. Metal band logo designs always seem to embody the nature of the group it is representing.

Def Leppard – Hysteria
This cover design is actually pretty cheesy and a good indicator of late 80’s graphix and that’s why i like it. The album is called ‘Hysteria’ so lets have a badly painted morphing of faces screaming. Overlay it on the plans to the Death Star from Star Wars IV and have a paint splattered album title, job done.

Judas Priest – British Steel
I’ve never understood the appeal of ‘The Priest’ but I’ve wanted to like them based on my fondness for some of their covers, which include Screaming for Vengeance & Turbo Lover. British Steel is my favourite.
This cover couldn’t be any more metal. A leather studded arm firmly gripping an oversized razor blade, all set on a “how more black could this be? and the answer is none – none more black” background. And their logo is just kick ass.

Kiss – Rock and Roll Over
I remember flicking through my friend’s extensive Kiss album collection for the first time and coming across this cover. It stood out in stark contrast to the direction of their other covers, and even other fellow metal groups cover designs at the time (1976). It feels like more of a designed cover then some artistic piece with it’s symmetry and very poppy japanese influence.

Poison – Open Up and Say.. ahh!
For me, this is the quintessential 80’s Hair Metal album cover. Day-glow colours, a Gene Simmons inspired tongue, big hair and a ridiculously unsubtle and misogynistic album title.

Aerosmith – Permanent Vacation

I love this for the great Sailor Jerry Tattoo inspired illustrations and the way they are placed in a repetitive wallpaper pattern. The red illustrations on black also balance really well with the yellow Aerosmith logo.

Iron Maiden – Somewhere in Time
It would be sacrilegious to not have a Maiden cover in this list. They’ve had some great covers but I guess this one stands out for me due to the fact it reminds me of Blade Runner. It came out around the time I started getting interested in metal, making this the first Maiden cover I came across. It also features one of my favourite incarnations of Eddie.

Van Halen – Fair Warning
This cover

I’ve loved Van Halen from the day I first listened to Van Halen 1. They’ve had a few interesting album covers after their first two releases, with Fair Warning being the standout for me. This cover is a little disturbing, which is fitting for what was hailed as Van Halen’s darkest album. But it wasn’t until I researched this cover that I discovered the complete painting “The Maze” created by the Canadian artist William Kurelek. The painting is a depiction of the artist’s  tortured youth and makes for a very bold and interesting choice for a so-called “hair band”. Then again, as fans of the band already know know, they were always so much more than that.

Now updated.

This striking cover from hip-hop maestro Jay-Z immediately caught our eye and we featured it yesterday. However our readers were quick to point out that we’d only scratched the surface in our review. So thanks to our learned, intrepid and (let’s face it) sexy readers, here’s an updated feature.

This month sees the release of The Blueprint 3 by Jay-Z . The legendary rapper is in top form, with the usual emphasis on slick production and collaborations with big names that include Kanye West, Timbaland, The Neptunes and Rihanna. In many ways, it’s business as usual for this consummate businessman – with the exception of the cover art.

It’s not a new thing to bemoan the paucity of quality hip-hop sleeves, which is what makes The Blueprint 3 so refreshing. Check out the behind the scenes video to appreciate the craft that has gone into making it.

Many have noted a passing resemblance to the muted cover of U2’s No Line on the Horizon.

While others point to Now Here is Nowhere by The Secret Machines.

Or Kingdom of Comfort by Christian rockers Delirious?.

But the album’s aesthetic and concept owes its biggest debt to the previous work of photographer Dan Tobin Smith. The assorted of junk is also reminiscent of his work for Athlete’s Tourist album.

Tobin Smith worked with art director Greg Burke and set designer Nicola Yeoman to create the mod, minimalist cover art for Jay-Z. With its gathered assortments of white instruments and electronic equipment, it makes me feel like I’ve stepped back into some avant-garde gallery in the 70’s.

And in a way, it turns out that’s the decade where Jay-Z wanted to take us.

Referring to the gathered instruments he says: “These things are like the forgotten pieces in hip-hop. It’s still about music. It’s not about radio, making gimmicks — it’s still about making music. Those things are piled in the corner. These are the forgotten things about music. It’s still about music. It’s not about radio, it’s not about making gimmicks, it’s about music.”

The three red stripes are also a symbolic call for a return to simpler times.

“The three stripes that everybody is asking about is made from the original [number] three. The first three they made on the wall was someone carving. If you look at [the number] 3, all they did was connect lines. The whole thing about this album, how I approached it, is that I wanted to make a new classic to start that all over again — to go back to making classic albums like the ones we grew up listening to.”

At this stage of his career, it’s a worthy goal to set out to make a classic. It’s also admirable that he would put so much thought and effort into a concept cover. After all, the sentiment that hip-hop needs to return to the ethos and integrity of a bygone era is nothing new – it’s just surprising to see it expressed in such a lateral and subtle way.

Update: there is a great interview with Dan Tobin on Itsnicethat.com who goes into great details about the cover and the process.

Here’s a quick excerpt.

This is one of the most anticipated albums of the year, and the first album Jay Z hasn’t appeared on the cover, how did you get involved in the project and what was the reasoning behind a much more sculptural approach?

Greg Burke, the creative director on the project at Atlantic records had seen the Letter ‘E’ I had shot with the set designer Nicola Yeoman and I guess he had it in the back of his mind when he was thinking of ideas for Jay Z’s new artwork for Blueprint 3. I think Greg and Jay Z had lots of ideas about what the album meant and it seemed to be about taking it back to the source, in terms of the music itself and then subsequently the artwork. For the album and the idea was it was very much about the music and all the things that make music. The 3 is represented by 3 bars which is of course the old way of writing ‘3’ so that seemed to work really nicely with the idea behind the album and the set design that evolved. We all liked the idea that the installation was almost machine like, like all these things were interlinked. That’s why everything is packed and jumbled together. Like it had kind of grown out of this corner.

I think it was a brave approach for Jay Z as all his previous albums have had him on them. I love still life, and the way I shoot is quite old school. It took 3 days to shoot, was all shot on 10×8 inch film, so the quality in the whites is fantastic, so much subtle tone. We worked long and hard on the colour work on the post and even in a single page mag advert I can see that effort. You could blow the image up to the size of a building and it would still hold up. It seems the album is about that old school crafted production so its nice that that same method went into the shoot.

Here is the letter E piece Dan refers to

I’ll leave it to the designers to argue over the merits of including the artist name, website and album title on the cover. This could simply be a clear case of Jay-Z the artist making one compromise with his old friend Jay-Z the businessman.

Note: This is the first album cover to not feature Jay-Z. Lucky as it would have been hard to quick change into this one.

And for those interested Alex Goose has released for free “The Blueprint 3 Outtakes” album with tracks that didn’t make the initial cut.

Yes, it’s a jpeg successfully masquerading as a gif.

Merriweather Post Pavilion is the 8th studio album by Animal Collective and is already being acclaimed as one of the best albums of the year.

The much-anticipated and now celebrated album boast trippy cover art inspired by the work of Japanese psychologist Akiyoshi Kitaoka.

Kitaoke started working on rats and then monkeys to earn his PHD in animal psychology, before moving on in the nineties to study “visual perception and visual illusions of geometrical shape, brightness, color, in motion illusions and other visual phenomena like Gestalt completion and perceptual transparency, based on a modern conception of Gestalt Psychology.”

As a result, he’s created heaps of incredible visual illusions.

Writing in Pop Dose, Taylor Long observes that the “optical illusion cover for Animal Collective’s latest and eighth release, Merriweather Post Pavilion, is more than something fun to look at while under the influence of the sort of drugs you might like to be on while listening to it. Curves of bright green ovals on a purple background, they appear to be in motion when we know they’re stationary. It’s an apt representation of the album’s dueling thematic components: fantasy versus reality, whimsy vs obligation, restlessness versus tranquility.”

Or as a fan succinctly puts it on the Something Awful forums: “I dunno, that album cover looks pretty much how Animal Collective sounds”.

For me it evokes other associations. Do you remember those awful magic eye pictures that ruled the world for a few months in the early 90’s? Basically they were just a messy, indistinguishable shape but if you looked at them in a certain way and concentrated, a 3D shape would pop out.

I was in primary school when they became popular and I had real trouble seeing the hidden image. Other people would take one glance and then be all like: “Oh yeah, it’s a plane.” Meanwhile I squinted, held them close to my eyes and then pulled them away slowly; tried crossing my eyes and uncrossing them. After a protracted period I might finally make out the hidden image but not before suffering derision for my evident lack of insight.

I imagine for many that it’s like this with indie music. A bunch of cool kids hear an unusual band and get busy loving them, while a clueless and somewhat frustrated majority try to make out what’s so special.

For die-hard fans of thrash, the release of Infidels is a major event. At War were an important part of the underground thrash scenes in the 80’s and were well known for the pro-military themes that run through their work.

The thrash trio hark from Virginia and many of their friends and family are in the military. This could explain why one of their songs includes a po-faced recitation of the Rifleman’s Creed, or why their last album (released over twenty years ago in 1987) was called Retaliatory Strike.

Back in the 80’s the enemies were the communists. Looking at the cover art for At War it doesn’t take long to figure out what the new menace is. Much has been made of the chorus of Want You Dead:

They want you dead
Kuffar die
They want you dead
Open your eyes

And the cover art is as uncompromising, paranoid and aggressive as the lyrics. The artist behind it is Claudio Bergamin, an industry legend that has been responsible for a prolific output of metal covers.

He explains that the album “stands for the band’s values, which are very much America against the Muslim world.” While stressing that this is not his worldview, he says that the cover was designed to be controversial: “I like controversy and I like to make people angry. I think that is one of art’s functions – to generate dialogue and debate. But this particular work does not necessarily represent my personal ideas and values.”

“The band wanted something very straight forward; a statement about how war on terrorism is perceived in America nowadays. They wanted to portray their pride on their way of life and how ready they are to defend it against fundamentalist intolerance.”

“I guess because of the nature of the concept, I wanted something very heroic in a classic way. The message is pure Americanism and let’s be honest, most of the material you get on this matter in movies or comic books is cheesy as hell. I didn’t want that; I didn’t want to go Rambo or GI-Joe. I wanted it to be very elegant. So I pointed my art compass towards classic school – artist like Goya, Caravaggio and Doré.”

It took him several weeks to develop the concept and he jokes that “I think Paul thought I’d escaped with the money at some point!”

The band were happy with the eventual idea “but the character was not right for them: they sent me an email saying: “we like it, but please give the character bigger muscles and long hair”.”

The cover was produced in London.

“I used life models as reference for pose and lighting. The main character was someone my girlfriend knew from the gym and the Muslim warriors are basically my nutcase flatmate Ubaldo Esteban in costume holding a katana for arm position. Next step was painting the illustrated versions of the characters on Corel Painter. I wanted thick brush strokes for it. I painted just four Muslim warriors and just one AK-47 template; I cloned them and slightly varied them on Adobe Photohop to achieve the battalion effect.”

On the anniversary of the day that initiated the “war on terror”, many will be reflecting on the shock and sadness the attacks caused. This cover is a reminder that for many Americans the tragedy also inspired a galvanising and furious anger.

The lead singer of The Strokes will release his debut album sometime shortly, however the cover art has already emerged. It pays tribute to the iconic dog and gramophone image, best known today as the logo for various music companies, including Casablancas’ label RCA.

I’d always just assumed that the image had originated as a logo, perhaps because the owner of the company loved dogs or some such. However, the dog in question actually existed. His name was Nipper.

Nipper earned his name because he always tried to bite visitors on the leg, which makes him sound like exactly the kind of horrid little pencil-sharperner I hate encountering in other’s homes. But there must have been something really special about this dog because after the death of his owner Mark Henry Barraud in 1887 his brothers Philip and Francis continued to care for him.

Francis was an artist and not only did he inherit the little dog, he also took ownership of a cylinder phonograph and recordings of his late brother’s voice. When he played the recordings, he was taken by the way Nipper would look around and wonder where his old owner’s voice was coming from.

It inspired the painting “His Late Master’s Voice”.

It would later be changed to “His Master’s Voice” so that consumers weren’t made to feel too maudlin upon viewing it.

The painting became a logo and icon largely because Barraud himself recognised its commercial potential. He originally pitched it to the Edison Bell company but they thought it was a ridiculous notion that a dog would listen to a phonograph. However the Gramaphone Company ultimately purchased it for 100 pounds sterling after some modification.

Soon their US Partner Victor Records were using a simplified drawing as their logo and reminding consumers to “Look for the dog”.

By that time Nipper had past away, having been buried in 1895 in a beautiful park surrounded by Magnolia trees. And when the park was eventually built upon, a plaque was placed on the resulting building to commemorate Nipper’s resting place.

This pales in comparison to his ongoing status as the mascot for the HMV Group, the most impressive evidence of which is the four-ton Nipper that sits on a building in Albany, New York.

And the Nipper stained glass window.

Not only has this diminutive dog garnered enough large-scale public tributes to satisfy a third world despot, he’s inspired generations of impersonators and posthumously fathered a puppy called Chipper.

And now on the cover of Phrazes for the Young he sits intently at the feet of Casablancas, who seems blissfully unaware that he’s the second most famous guy in the photo.

In 1997 designer Peter Saville received a call from Jarvis Cocker. “They needed to reposition Pulp” he recalls, “They wanted to present Pulp more as a rock band. The music was a lot deeper, darker and moodier and they called it This Is Hardcore.”

The result was one of the most controversial album covers of the nineties.

This was probably assured the moment they invited American painter John Currin to direct it. Currin is known for his technically skillful paintings, which typically depict the intensely sexualized female form with heavily pornographic overtones. This meeting of high and low art has found a ready audience and Currin’s work routinely sells in the high six-figures.

The artist flew to the UK and worked closely with Saville to develop a concept for the shoot. In briefing the pair, Cocker explained that the title didn’t refer to pornography, but rather the “new, hard, resolute spirit of the band” says Saville, “Jarvis talked to us about fame and how it changes the world around you.” He was admirably blunt is admitting that the band “wanted to be taken more seriously.”

The eventual plan was to take photos of the band next to models. These models were carefully chosen for their “super-real characteristics”.

The final choice for the cover was shot on the last day in Saville’s apartment, after the original photos were deemed to be “not hardcore enough”. The woman is a Russian glamour model known only as Ksenia, who later told FHM: “The shoot was fun. Jarvis is very nice, very shy.”

While its an image that disturbed many, to dismiss the cover as empty provocation would be unfair. As Hugh Aldersey-Williams writes in New Statesman Magazine, pornography “is simply the most familiar visual language through which we appreciate the disparity between the intensity of imagined experienced and the disappointment or disgust of its realisation.”

The impact of the cover is heightened by it’s striking aesthetic, which manages to be at once grainy and high-gloss. Currin chose fashion photographer Horst Diekgerdes to take the images, before Saville used a Photoshop feature called Smart Blur to create a more painterly finish.

The final touch is the typography, with the album’s title stamped over the model in Helvetica Bold to resemble a message from the censorship board.

This is Hardcore might have flown under the radar as cover art but when the label released posters all over London they caused a scandal. Was the woman a sex doll? Had she just been raped? Was she dead? The strong opinion of many women was that she was certainly offensive.

Vandals took to the images, defacing them with statements that included “This Offends Women”, “This is Sexist” and “This is Demeaning”. Saville was unrepentant. “For the whole thing just to have passed without a murmur would have been a great disappointment.”

But is it even more disappointing if Pulp lost a potential audience that judged the book by its cover? This is Hardcore is in reality an at-times tender album with a mature detachment from misogynism. In the standout track ‘A Little Soul’, dedicated to Cocker’s absent father, a man begs his son not to repeat his mistakes:

“But everybody’s telling me
you look like me
But please don’t turn out like me.”

“Yeah, I wish I could be an example.
Wish I could say I stood up for you
and fought for what was right.
But I never did.
I just wore my trenchcoat and stayed out every single night.”

It’s an intensely sad portrait of a man that has made all the wrong, seedy choices and thrown away his opportunities for happiness. I imagine this now sentimental old geezer checking out at the cover of This is Hardcore, simultaneously fighting back both tears and an erection.

For more information on this cover, visit the excellent Pulp fan site Acrylic Afternoon.

I was at a play the other week about an alcoholic 28-year old creative director who has it all but throws it away because of his addiction. The sick thing is that instead of feeling for his plight as his life spiraled further out of control, I found myself resenting how much he had to lose. “I’m 28” I thought, “How come I don’t own an apartment with harbour views?”

You know you’re getting older when you find yourself comparing your age with those that have achieved more.

So it is with Jay Reatard (born Jimmy Lee Lindsey), the precocious and prolific punk rocker that started making music when he was barely 15. He has since played with The Reatards, The Lost Sounds, The Bad Times, The Final Solutions, Shattered Records and the Angry Angles before releasing his first solo album in 2006.

Imagine my horror when I discovered that he was born in 1980. While that still makes him slightly older than me I’m unlikely to bridge the gap in a matter of months. Particularly as I can’t play an instrument.

And yet I can find it in my heart to muster goodwill for Reatard, largely because his one-man garage punk revival gave 2008 the soundtrack it so badly needed.

Remember back in ’08? After the bankers had sucked our coffers dry and we woke up to find that in our drunken state we hadn’t only started dressing like it was the eighties, we even managed to out-do that decade’s horrific penchant for unsustainable excess. But at least as we threw our harem pants and ray-bans in the bin and joined the unemployment queue, we had Reatard’s raw, essential music to remind us that it doesn’t take much to make things of beauty.

Reatard and his label Matador also found an incomparably terrific way to release his rough and ready pieces of punk-pop goodness. Throughout the year they released six limited edition 7”, all of which sold out upon release. Interestingly, aside from the circular mnemonic and consistent typography, the sleeves are all unique and distinctive.

While Reatard made this feverish creative output look and feel effortless, on the cover of the resulting compilation we see the exhausted reality. Weighed down by his singles, with vinyl crawling up the wall, the sweaty and uncomfortable musician looks much more than his 28 years. Serves him fucking right.

I was thinking today about how it’s better to be #2. The #2 person tries harder and has a goal beat the #1 person, where as #1 can get complacent. And I think the same thing happens with independents musicians. They just have to try harder. That’s what I thought when I saw this post on Moldover’s debut album which contains a working Theremin. It also thought “WTF is a Theremin” that I realised when I checked Wikipedia that I should pretend like I already knew as those things are pretty damn cool and I want a real one too. (More info on my Theremin binge below)

I’ve ordered my Awesome Edition but rather than wait I’ll let the man himself explain the “Awesome Edition cover”

His official press release sums it up in a more sales type way.

A champion of do‐it‐yourself music making, Moldover would never hog all the fun for himself. That’s why he designed his album’s intricately beautiful, circuit board CD artwork to be a first‐of‐its kind light theremin. Moldover fans can not only enjoy his tunes passively, but actually create their own warped‐out swoops and
blorps, just by tapping the CD case.

The album comes in 3 editions with the one featured above $50 delivered or $60 for international people like me. Good to think the majority of that will go right to the artist.

I normally comment on the bands website on how it relates to the album artwork but the less said about Moldovers’s site the better. It’s functional at least.

I do like that he has put some real effort into putting videos on Youtube.

Here’s an album preview from over a year ago.

Here’s Moldover explaining his technique. Check out his Youtube channel for even more.

I love the DIY feel of this and just like my Night Vision Googles I ordered for CODMW2 I’m a sucker for unique and cool gadgets. This is much better than a well designed, yet unoriginal, booklet. Engagent commented saying “Sure it sounds a bit like you’re squeezing air through a pinched balloon and it costs $50 ($10 for CD-only or $25 for a Pocket Edition), but hey, give this guy some credit for innovation.” And I agree. Moldover, without the aid of a record label has created a news worthy album innovation and will hopefully get attention for an album that would have otherwise gone unnoticed to those not already fans.

I did enjoy listening to Moldover’s music although I should try and sample it at time other than midnight though as my brain enjoys more Boards of Canada during these late hours.

Side Note:It’s probably just me but Moldover looks to me like the love child of Trent Reznor, Screech from Saved by the Bell and Criss Angel.

Theremin’s Suck?
So still not sold on how cool Theremins are? Maybe these videos will convince you. I’m breaking one out at the next Xmas party.

How about the Mario Bros Theme

Seriously though what person would not smile if you broke out the Mario Bros theme. It’d have to be at a funeral not to get a smile and a WTF! out of everyone in the place.

Too geeky? How about Gnarles Barkey’s Crazy on a Theremin? You’d be crazy not to love this one!

Just how cool do you have to be to play the Theremin? This cool…

You could also just make your own but that looks like more work than doing the dishes so I’d rather just buy one

Now I just need to scrape the $500+ to buy an official Moog Theremin. and start pissing the neighbours off.

Are there any other albums with a working instrument as part of the packaging? The White Stripe’s Triple Inchphones don’t count.

“One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting.”
Gerhard Richter 1973

The same could probably be said of music.

When Sonic Youth went into a modest New York basement studio in 1988 they baulked at the $1,000 a day fee. Although they’d previously recorded four other albums, they had yet to achieve a national profile and only had limited means. To keep the budget under $30,000 the band worked through the night and rushed some of their takes.

Despite these limitations, it seems they had some inkling that down in their basement they were building a monument. Everything about the finished result announced a bold intent, from the double album format through to its suggestive title. And the cover became central to its iconic status. As Jutta Koether, a German artist and critic, wrote in the liner notes to the 1993 Reissue, “With the inclusion of “high-art” cover-art, it became visually and musically a description of loss and self-doubt.”

After 8 years of Reagan, the candle represents a lone spark of hope and optimism, one that is albeit vulnerable and lonely. Depending on whether you are a “half glass full” or “half glass empty” kind of person, it could either represent the undying hope that Obama evoked or the dwindling remainder of once-great aspirations.

The featured artwork is “Kerze” (candle), a painting by German artist Gerhard Richter.

Facing the complicated question of what to paint at the beginning of his career, Richter instead decided to amass thousands of images taken from photos and clippings. He would pick one, project it onto the canvas and then recreate it in a photo-realistic manner. The distinctive touch that brought him a worldwide following is the “Blur” – the smudging he applies that disrupts the image.

He also went on to create a body of abstract work.

He’s an amazing artist. But by the late 80’s he was also an artist of the establishment, so the band’s decision to use his image was as unexpected as it was inspired. The inside-fold of the sleeve features a portrait of Sonic Youth circa 1988 and they don’t exactly look like they’re on the best galleries’ opening night invite lists yet.

The gap between the value of the Richter’s painting and the income of the “Daydream Nation” was only underscored when “Kerze” went under the hammer at 2008 Sotheby’s auction. Sonic Youth fans watched on gob-smacked as members of Europe’s high society rapidly drove the price up with every bid. It eventually went for over 7 million pounds.

But who needs the painting anyway? For less than $50 you can score a Daydream Nation poster for your wall and the soundtrack to go with it. You’ll find it still sounds pretty relevant.

In WWII, when American soldiers were asked by journalist why they were going to war the standard response was “for Mom and apple pie”.

For some reason the dish of apple pie worked its way into the American consciousness as a representative of all that was wholesome and good about the nation; a reminder of comfort and innocence. Which eventually made it great fodder for those subversives keen to test another American ideal: freedom of speech.

Enter Mom’s Apple Pie, a ten-member band from Ohio that boasted a sound similar to bands like Chicago. They released two albums in the early seventies and, while they achieved a degree of national success, are best known today for their controversial cover art.

At first glance, Mom’s Apple Pie’s self-titled release features cover art that might be at worst ironic. We see an American Gothic style painting, reminiscent of the work of Grant Wood.

While the “Mom” in Wood’s painting looks thoroughly miserable, the Mom on this album cover is instead licking her lips – perhaps in anticipatory delight. Further subverting the image are the large, modern speakers in the background that suggest that this mom likes to rock out while she’s baking. It’s a strong image but not one that lives up to its legendary status until, as the tagline to American Beauty suggest, you “look closer”.

Meet the oozing, bright-red vagina that resulted in this classic cover being banned. However to imagine that the band was outraged or shocked by the ban would be a little naïve.

Roger Force, saxophonist for Mom’s Apple Pie, gives some background: “I remember (Terry) Knight (the head of Brown Bag records) at one of our recording sessions, showing us the cover. He said it was one of his publicity stunts… He had it all planned, the record would get recalled and it would be a big deal. It was 30,000 albums covers that were recalled.”

“I was 19 at the time. My older brother was a two-term Vietnam veteran; I was the one with the long hair. I took that album home to show my parents and – I’m embarrassed. My father looks at it and he says, “well – it’s not that bad.”

While reflecting on what a cool dad Force obviously had, I also can’t help but wonder what it is about penetrating pieces of pie that seems to capture the imagination?

I suppose don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Knight was a true master of publicity and one of the coolest things about his label was that the records really came in a brown paper bag. He said of the Mom’s Apple Pie campaign: “that was some slice of pie, eh? We sent out piping hot apple pies in brown paper bags to all the DJs throughout New York to promote that record. That was a good campaign.”

He had also anticipated the band’s response to the album recall. When the authorities banned the original cover, a second version was promptly released, with the slice space filled by a prison wall and barbed wire. An American flag sat on top, as a tongue-in-cheek critique of censorship in the “land of the free”. Unfortunately I can’t find an image of this alternate cover anywhere but both versions have become eagerly sought-after collector items.

It’s a striking case of cover art that outlives the music. As Force sardonically observed: “I also remember Knight saying “I can take a piece of shit and turn it into gold.” Meanwhile, I’m famous – for an album cover.”