Blind Man

It's about time I made a new blog entry. This one isn't anything of any real substance or insight I guess, but it's something that's been on my mind a lot.

I am a sucker for a good album cover. I love it when a band takes the time to truly think about how they want their new record to be seen by the public. I love it when they put a lot of thought into just what exactly the cover of their latest album will look like. I also really love the cover/booklet things when bands take the time to make them a piece of art, by having them done in really interesting, eye-catching ways. My favourite album cover would have to be The Sufferer and the Witness by Rise Against.

For some reason, this album art really hits me. I don’t know whether it’s because of its at-first seemingly-stripped-back–and-bare nature, or because I can never really make out exactly what’s on the cover. If you look carefully, you can almost see the vague profiles and outlines of faces where the two circles almost meet. Whatever the reason, it is truly a great piece of cover art. Here’s some other covers I really like (in no particular order);

 

 

 

 All (to me anyway) fairly good examples of good, creative, eye-catching album art. The best cover/booklet that I’ve seen would have to be the one included in The Offspring album, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. I can’t find a pic on the web sorry, but trust me, it’s good.

On the flipside though, are terrible album covers. I mean ones that are laughably, ludicrously bad. The ones that always pop into my head when this is brought up seem to be ones in the  heavy metal/hardcore/death metal genre bands. I mean some of them are notoriously bad. Don’t believe me?

 

Seriously... WTF

No. Just - just no.

Bet you do now. I honestly can’t see or imagine what their thought process was here for covers like this. Well I lie, I can imagine;

Dude 1: “Hey… how can we seem hardcore and like… dangerous?”

Dude 2: “Skeletons… and…FIRE.”

Dude 1: “No way man – that is so awesome.”

Dude 2: “Add more skeletons and fire.”

Dude 1: "Nice, nice... now help me open this pack of crayons and we'll get started."

These – ‘designs’ if you can go that far – are just shamefully bad. In no way do they seem to give off the vibe or impact that I think those bands were going for. To me, it just seems like the very definition of a try-hard effort. A child could have come up with these designs, seriously. These are to me in no way works of art or indeed anything of substance or worth. These bands just seemed to have gone a fair few steps too far in the attempt to make themselves and their album seem more dark and dangerous, but failed dismally in the attempt. They just make me laugh. Quite hard. Don't even get me started on the band and album names...

Anyway, just thought I'd share that. Enjoy your day.

Blind Man

Black Stone Cherry

Folklore and Superstition, 2008