Beck’s Music Inspired Art 2009

Beck’s asked 10 Illustrators including McBess, Hellovon, Kid Acne, Si Scott, and Laura Jackaman to re-think the best albums of the last 40 years (gleaned from Pitchfork lists).

"What really drew me to re-imagining Let It Be was the backstory and turmoil which surrounded it creators at the time of recording. It's an atmosphere that clings to the cover. Gone is the swirling freedom of Revolver, the colour of Sgt Pepper or playfulness of Abbey Road. Each Beatle has divided themselves from the group and occupied a solo corner. In my reinterpretation I wanted to extend the time period these snapshots were taken in, drawing influences from their solo careers, and suggesting that, with time, those self-created barriers would fade - even if they would never play together as a group again.

And purely from an artistic angle, it's always an interesting exercise to work from recognizable models. Unlike drawing fantastical creatures the audience have a yardstick to measure imagery to. So I enjoyed the challenge of depicting John, Paul, George & Ringo but in a new form, and striving for a balance between a believable likeness and personal expression.

Plus I like drawing big noses, and they all have a great collection."
-Rexbox

Apple and Labels Hope to Reinvent Digital Album as Something People Buy

Some hope...from Wired Magazine:

The view that technology is an unstoppable juggernaut moving at lightning pace isn’t always accurate. Sometimes the simplest ideas take years to realize — even when Apple is involved and the future of the recorded music business could be at stake.

Take today’s widely-echoed Financial Times report about “Project Cocktail” — an attempt by Apple and the four major labels to re-imagine the digital album with soft (as in onscreen) album art. They hope album art that embraces digital technology, rather than merely providing a miniaturized version of the original album cover, will entice music fans to start buying digital albums again. Apple and the labels envision fans gathering ’round the glow of their laptops — or tablet PCs — to listen to music together, the way they used to before they retreated into their own digital pods. [read the rest of the article here]

Banned Album Covers

Was there ever really a time when you couldn't show a toilet on a product without it being banned from the public's eyes? Seems so quaint now in this day and age, sad to say. Gibson has an interesting list of banned album covers from over the years. Remember the Beatles' butcher cover? The Mamas and the Papas toilet fiasco? Be forewarned, some of these images are not safe for work.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Art Director: Robert Fraser
Designer: Peter Blake/Jann Haworth
Photographer: Michael Cooper

According to Blake, the original concept was to create a scene that showed the Sgt. Pepper band performing in a park; this gradually evolved into its final form, which shows the Beatles, as the Sgt. Pepper band, surrounded by a large group of their heroes, rendered as life sized cut-out figures. Also included were wax-work figures of the Beatles as they appeared in the early '60s, borrowed from Madame Tussauds. The wax figures appear to be looking down on the word "Beatles" spelled out in flowers as if it were a grave, and it has been speculated that this symbolizes that the innocent mop-tops of yesteryear were now dead and gone. At their feet were several affectations from the Beatles' homes including small statues belonging to Lennon and Harrison, a small portable TV set and a trophy. A young delivery boy who provided the flowers for the photo session was allowed to contribute a guitar made of yellow hyacinths. Although it has long been rumored that some of the plants in the arrangement were cannabis plants, this is untrue. Also included is a Shirley Temple doll wearing a sweater in homage to the Rolling Stones (who would return the tribute by having the Beatles hidden in the cover of their own Their Satanic Majesties Request LP later that year).

The collage depicted more than 70 famous people, including writers, musicians, film stars and (at Harrison's request) a number of Indian gurus. Starr reportedly made no contribution to the design. The final grouping included Marlene Dietrich, W.C. Fields, Diana Dors, Bob Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sigmund Freud, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Allan Poe, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, William S. Burroughs, Marlon Brando, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and controversial comedian Lenny Bruce. Also included was the image of the original Beatles bass player, the late Stuart Sutcliffe. Pete Best said in a later NPR interview that Lennon borrowed family medals from his mother Mona for the shoot, on condition he not lose them. Adolf Hitler was requested by Lennon, but ultimately he was left out. It can, however, be seen in place as well as leaning against the wall in several photographs taken on the set.

Source: Wikipedia

John Van Hamersveld

John Van Hamersveld was born in 1941 in Baltimore, MD. He both attended and taught at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and California Institute of the Arts. From earliest positions of art director of Surfer Magazine and Capitol Records. John's experience has spanned album cover, poster, packaging, industrial, magazine and book design.

John has designed over 300 album covers for groups like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Blondie, Kiss, Public Image and many others, including… Exile on Main Street and Magical Mystery Tour.

His 360° mural at the Los Angeles Coliseum, executed for the 1984 Olympic Games won him national recognition by the American Institute of Architects. He is also well known for his poster design for the movie, The Endless Summer, which is one of the most popular and recognizable poster images of all time. His work as part of the concert promotion company Pinnacle resulted in one of John’s most enduring body of posters, including what is widely considered one of the greatest rock posters ever made, for Jimi Hendrix at LA’s Shrine Auditorium.

More recently, John designed the posters for the Cream 2005 Reunion Concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall and Madison Square Gardens and the packaging for the Warner Brothers CD and DVD releases.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

I thought it would be appropriate to feature the Sgt. Pepper album cover on the 40th anniversary of its release by The Beatles. The cover was art directed by Robert Fraser in collaboration with Paul McCartney. Peter Blake was the designer and the photographer was Michael Cooper.

The Beatles, Fraser and Blake chose the personalities -- dead and alive -- from philosophy, music, literature, sport, science, movies. Blake had prints blown up into life-sized cut-outs. Mae West initially refused, stating: "What would I be doing in a lonely hearts club?" Marlene Dietrich wanted to see the cover first.

From Wikipedia's entry about Robert Fraser,
Art director Robert Fraser was a prominent London art dealer who ran the Indica Gallery. He had become a close friend of McCartney's and it was only at his strong urging that the group abandoned their original cover design, a psychedelic painting by The Fool. Their design for the inner sleeve was, however, used for the first few pressings. Fraser was one of the leading champions of modern art in Britain in the 1960s and after. He argued strongly that the Fool artwork was not well-executed and that the design would soon be dated. He convinced McCartney to abandon it, and offered to art-direct the cover; it was Fraser's suggestion to use an established fine artist and he introduced the band to a client, noted British 'pop' artist Peter Blake, who, in collaboration with his wife, created the famous cover collage, known as "People We Like".