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It was shuttle on full throttle when I had asked friends over for a bite and chat to bring over their favorite cd, and they with an air of mien, declared they had no cds but opt out for easy weezy i-pod or 2000 track memeory stick, which they were happy to bring over (flashback to 8 tracks similar fate). Clearly music was the primary objective of my guests (put aside pizza and wine) and not the booklet containing the symbolical or at times esoteric graphics, photos, typography or color better left on living room walls.
Decoding Coldplay's X&Y is an article on the current demise of significant album covers, but how the nervy ones left still manage to reach some of us today. Tappin and Gofton's modernist cover depicts the future in the form of binary data and simultaneously reaches backwards to reveal how telegraphists used to communicate similarly through strings of code. Semiotics in X&Y are at play and describe the actual state of an industry and those effected. The result isn't static for album covers however, and those printing presses have rolled on to the computer screens. No doubt just how Chicago on 8 track jogs memories playing over and over the buzz of a fan on a hot Texas night lives on in our (or at least my) collective experience, digital or not.
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2 comments:
Intriguing post, thought provoking - well done. Has video killed the album art star? Or has it taken the art to a new plane? Artists used to devote a lot of time to their covers; now that time and thought is expended more on video? On the other hand I sense a rebound in the air: all things retro and analog have become uber-cool again (despite or perhaps because of our reliance on all our digital media outlets).-kate
I'd like to think we're all on a plane cruising at good altitude Kate. I think your right retro has made a come back (but really has always had an appeal, at least for me). Maybe it's the act of being intimately involved in the creative process and solutions that are making artists use traditional methods again. However, there is a serious constraint on most artists in terms of final output being digital. Having said that, I dream of a letterpress printer.
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