Well, this is a bummer.

With the impending demise of Is Greater Than, it seems that this will be my last column for this here web site, and the last installment ever of Records by Their Covers (assuming HuffPo doesn’t come calling). Keep your eye out for the coffee table book, though. It’s been fun dissecting album covers and displaying my musical ignorance for the world on a monthly basis, and being a part of the Is Greater Than family. I tip my hat to Paul Davis for his efforts, and I wish him all the best in future endeavors.

I didn’t really have a choice for the theme for this final piece. All I had to do was search [internet retailer]‘s music releases for “End,” sort by date, and voila! A delightful pile of crap, with a few sparkling diamonds embedded in it.

All Ends – All Ends

There’s a lot going on here. We have two delightfully begothed frontwomen, a couple guys in the back who seem to have a Black-Crowes-in-Hot-Topic sort of thing going on, and then there’s a guy wearing a bizarre hat standing behind the ladies who looks vaguely homeless, although he does have a nice shiny chain which seems to match the one the redhead on the right is wearing. There’s also some serious abuse of Photoshop going on here, what with the swoopy, blurry clouds taking the top of Red’s hair off, and the truly awful font choices. I’m going to give the band a little credit and assume this is another in-house job, but somehow I have no doubt that it accurately reflects the music inside. With an album cover like this, there is no way this band isn’t terrible.

I Am Many – To Every End There Is a Beginning

It’s a funny thing about album titles with the word “end” in them: you get a lot of cliches and tired tropes and rephrasings of the same general concept. So here we have the band I Am Many with their entry, To Every End There Is a Beginning. And while it’s easy to say “damn, that’s frickin’ profound, Einstein. What teabag did you read that on?” there’s a reason it’s a cliche: it’s true. Take our friend Paul here. He is, alas, ending Is Greater Than, but I’m sure as he closes up this shop he will be opening the door on another, exciting new chapter in his life — to torturously mix a metaphor or two and throw another cliche in the mix. So let’s not find fault with I Am Many (or any of these other bands) for their overly familiar album title. Instead, let’s praise them for their intriguing, minimalist album design. I’m going to guess based merely on the logo here that they are a band of the heavyish persuasion, but it’s clear they’re not by-the-number metal or anything like that. They’ve made it clear that they have arty, modernist inclinations. I’m certainly curious to hear what the band behind this cover sounds like.

The Living End – The Ending Is Just the Beginning Repeating

See, there we go again; another pseudo-philosphical rephrasing of this end = beginning concept, this time helpfully illustrated with an ouroboros, a spirally thing we’ve all seen a million times, and a classic optical illusion. This album cover isn’t terrible, but between the Ventures font, the clip-art graphics, and the tired title concept, I think I would go for I Am Many’s offering before checking this one out. If I were to hazard a guess as to what this band sounds like based purely on the art, I would say Tortoise playing surf-rock. Which now makes me want to listen to them more . . .

Peter Green – The End of the Game

This is either a reissue of some classic, forgotten (by me, at least) electronica from the ’70s or an absolutely brilliant new cover meant to evoke that era. Between the roaring cheetah (which, by the way, is exactly what I looked like when Paul told me he was folding the site) and the video game font it’s obvious this record totally rules, though. I’ll be checking it out as soon as I finish this piece.

Tasters – Reckless Till the End

I don’t even know what to say about this, but it’s so gag-inducingly awful I had to include it. First of all, for a second the band’s name reminded me of the classic third-wave ska band The Toasters, whom I saw many times in my high school rude boy days and totally loved. Tasters, I’ve never heard you, but I think it’s safe to say you’re no Toasters. Stop almost using their name. Next we have the album title, Reckless Till the End. With this spelling, and without an apostrophe, I am forced to read that second word as a verb – what farmers do to soil. The end result is somewhat abstract and poetic, and I’m sure not remotely what these geniuses meant. It was bad enough when The Who convinced everyone that ‘alright’ was a word, but this is just nonsense. I would talk about the art itself, but its terribleness sends my brain into a defensive shutdown as soon as I look at it. For a band called Tasters, they have displayed a remarkable lack of taste with this album cover. I can’t imagine what the music is like, but it has to be better than this cover, right?

All Shall Perish – This Is Where It Ends

Yes indeed, this is where it ends: kneeling in the town square in front of a church and a motel, blindfolded and bound, being whipped by a man in a tie while various religious leaders condemn you. I hope this isn’t what’s happening to our Dear Leader Mr. Davis right now. I’m pretty sure based on this art that this is a contemplative album of melancholy folk music. Isn’t that the vibe you’re getting? Also, note to the copy editors out there regarding title capitalization: Just because a word has two letters doesn’t mean it’s lower case.

There’s an old album cover with an image of a microphone wearing a tuxedo and bowler hat; there’s another with a blue-on-blue background and a lone piano under a yellow streetlight; another has a horseman riding across the neck of a violin. These covers, along with roughly 2,500 others, were designed by the same man; Alex Steinweiss.

From the late-1930s through the early ‘70s, Steinweiss designed album covers for record labels including Columbia, Decca, Remington, RCA, London and more. His portfolio is packed with vibrant, playful illustrations that were designed to catch the eye of potential record buyers. His job was to package classical, jazz, pop, country, soundtrack, vocal, orchestral and blues records in such a way that people would want to buy them. In doing so, he solidified album art’s place in pop art, established a much closer relationship between music and its packaging and became one of the most celebrated and recognizable designers of the 20th century. Steinweiss, who passed away on July 17, 2011 was a key player in transforming record packaging into an art of its own.When Steinweiss began working for Columbia, the company was, like many other record companies, using generic packaging for its records; either flip-through albums or brown paper sleeves that had label designs on them. With the introduction of the long-play album (as opposed to 78s with a song per side), they enlisted Steinweiss to create a new package to house the records. He patented his design for the cardboard album jacket as we now know it and convinced Columbia to let him design the covers.

His massive contributions to popular and musical culture have made Steinweiss a legend of graphic design; a pioneer of album art. But here’s where the story gets a bit tricky. Steinweiss is credited with single-handedly inventing album art. The story that is passed around says that before him, all albums came in brown paper sleeves; that he alone had the idea that images could accompany music.

The problem with this claim is that before Steinweiss’s designs, album covers with images already existed. Decca alone had released somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 albums with photos and illustrations on them. Albums by Bessie Smith, Bing Crosby, WIllie the Lion, Benny Goodman and many more all had images on their covers years before Steinweiss. In 2010, Dr. Michael Biel, a professor at Morehead State University, gave a presentation at the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) conference detailing the many pre-Steinweiss albums that had graphics on them.

So what’s the deal? Here is my best, non-album-cover-expert unravelling of the story: Prior to Steinweiss, records were packaged in either book form or brown paper sleeves. This much is agreed upon. But, what gets lost is the fact that some of these albums featured pasted-on photos and/or illustrations on the packaging. So the idea of having graphics on albums pre-dates Steinweiss, and the idea that he invented album cover art is incorrect. What he did invent (and patent), is the modern album cover; the actual cardboard outer that graphics could be printed directly on. He pioneered a new way of stylistically marrying records to their packages.

The confusion seems to be in the phrasing. Is Steinweiss the inventor of the modern album cover? Yes. Is he the inventor of album cover art? No. While he revolutionized the field and provided the visuals for generations of record appreciators, it’s a bit of an over-swing to say that he was the first to transform brown paper packaging into art. He was one of the most influential artist to ever design an album cover, he was (and still is) the father of the modern album cover (in more ways than one), and he revolutionized the art and opened the doors to the golden age of album cover art, but the first to put an image on an album cover, he was not.

The thing about the way I troll for fodder for this column – going to [monolithic internet retailer]‘s web site, clicking on new music releases for a given week, seeing what catches my eye – is that I have no way of knowing whether the album covers that I write about are in fact new, or are just reissues of older albums. This is exacerbated by the fact that I’m looking for artists I’ve never heard of and don’t permit myself to do any research on them before I write about their album covers. So the odds that I will end up exposing my ignorance by writing about an established, classic artist that I’ve just never heard of are fairly high.

This month I crank those odds up a bit more by picking album covers with designs that are either inspired by classic designs of the past or, maybe actually are classic designs of the past. Once I finish writing this I’ll go and figure out what’s what, but for now we’ll just feast our eyes on some timeless (or perhaps just anachronistic) album covers.

Mànran – s/t

I’m pretty sure that this is in fact a contemporary album, but Mànran has fully embraced a classic aesthetic with this cover. It’s a simple, clean design that evokes a bygone era without seeming to be (at least to my ignorant eyes) ripping off any one specific album cover. The band’s all-black attire links up nicely to their floating band name, popping them off the washed out yet gorgeous yellows and blues of the background. I would guess based on this classic approach and the band’s look that they make pretty straightforward, sixties-influenced rock and roll, perhaps along the lines of the Who or the Stones. It looks like they might have a horn player or two in there helping round out that sound.

The Dangerous Summer – War Paint

Everything about this cover – the grainy, washed-out image, the simple, blocky font, the inclusion of the track list and label logo – screams of a bygone era. I wish I knew enough to say exactly what it is that this cover reminds me of and evokes so perfectly – maybe a late sixties jazz or soul album? I don’t know – but I do know that they got it (whatever it is) just right without seeming to try too hard. Like the best tributes, this cover works very well on its own as a tasteful piece of classic design. The Dangerous Summer could be a jazz group, or a soul group, or a contemporary rock band that weaves jazz and/or soul influences into their sound. They could also be something else entirely: Bedroom folk? Garage rock? Ska? Hard to say. But whatever they do, I’m sure it’s quite tasteful and well-conceived.

Down to the Bone – The Main Ingredients

As with the previous album, I had to double- and triple-check to make sure I didn’t have the band name and album title swapped. (There is a band called War Paint – or, I guess, Warpaint – but as far as I can tell they have nothing to do with our guys up above.) Maybe I’m old fashioned (OK, I’m definitely old fashioned), but I just think “The Main Ingredients” sounds more like a band name than “Down to the Bone.” Be that as it may, these guys are called Down to the Bone, and I feel pretty confident calling this one as a ’70s revival soul record. Everything from the font to the ‘fro to the purple and cream color palette pretty much screams groovy get-down good times, am I not right? This has got to be a new record, but I certainly wouldn’t do a double take if I were to flip past it sandwiched between Rufus and Mavis Staples in a musty stack of yard sale vinyl.

Yuya Uchida and the Flowers – Challenge!

Here, Yuya Uchida and gang hearken back to the freakiest of psychedelic folk, again using both the content of their image (nudity! black and white magazine! natural splendor!) and its vintage processing (grainy! washed-out!) to boldly plant their flag in a classic era. (Assuming, once again, that this isn’t an actual old psych-folk record from the ’60s – I’m pretty sure their font choice outs this record as being a product of the 21st century, but folks in Japan have always been pretty forward-thinking; maybe they just had really advanced fonts back then.) The band name and art all point, as already mentioned, to this album being a contemporary nod to the weirder folk stylings of the ’60s and ’70s. Hopefully the LP is a gatefold in order to best enable the doobie-smoking that I’m sure is recommended to enhance listening.

Beau Williams! – Bodacious!

The cover of Beau Williams!’s Bodacious! is, granted, not exactly timeless. It’s very much of a specific actual time in the not-too-distant past, and I really want to know the story behind it. I would normally say that this was clearly a product of the ’80s that had been sadly overlooked by me these past 30 or so years, and leave it at that. And yet! This image has very clearly been manipulated in more recent years. The artist name (Beau Williams!) and album title (Bodacious! [note: not Beaudacious! Why not?]) were without question added in Photoshop (Arial Black, unless I’m much mistaken) in recent years. So does this mean the album cover – and the album itself – are recent creations? (Please, please, let it be so.) Or perhaps the original album didn’t have such information on the front, and those in charge of the reissue (and I’m sure the hordes have been clamoring desperately for this reissue) decided to add it while they had the chance? There’s no way – short of a quick Internet search, that is – to know, but either way I love this record.

No, wait, I’m sorry. That’s “The H-2 Big Band with Special Guest Bobby Shew,” and their album You’re It!

But this cover says so much, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it just fill you with wonder? Can you even begin to imagine the story behind this album? For starters, we have the two fellows on the cover. Contrasted with the name of the band/guest, we are led to one of two conclusions: Either these two men have been chosen from among many to stand in for the entire H-2 Big Band with Special Guest Bobby Shew (I mean a “big band,” that’s a lot of people, right?), or in fact they themselves comprise the entire H-2 Big Band with Special Guest Bobby Shew. (In the latter case, I have the guy with the keyboard pegged as the Band, with homeskillet on trumpet as the much-vaunted Special Guest. I assume Chuck Mangione was busy.)

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the latter is the case. These two gentlemen probably worked very hard putting together this album that I have never heard (and, let’s be honest, probably never will). H-2 over there probably spent weeks on his arrangements, layering keys and horns and woodwinds and percussion, getting everything just right before calling in old Bobby to rehearse the trumpet parts. I can picture them now, woodshedding in H’s den for hours every weekend before heading down to the studio to lay down the tracks. Then the big day comes. They hit the studio. Everything goes aces. The MIDI horns and strings and piano do exactly what H-2 has programmed them to do; the sweet, tender woodwinds and pulsing percussion provide the perfect bed for Bobby’s dulcet tones on the trumpet. The engineer is agog. He has never heard anything so smooth. Burt Bacharach, lounging in his hot tub with a glass of chardonnay many miles away, feels a chill.

As they’re winding up the session, the engineer bouncing the final mixes, Bobby and H-2 call their wives to let them know they’ll be finished soon. An hour or so later they step out of the studio into the sun, axes in hand, dizzy with achievement, blinking and wondering if it’s just them or if the rest of the world realizes that everything is different now. They hear a juddering, woofing, chopping sound from above. Their porkpie hats are blown from their heads. What can it be? They look up, and their wives are hovering above them in a helicopter! “Congratulations, H-2!” “Congratulations, Bobby!” The wives know something special has transpired on this day, and they realized the best way – the only way, really – to mark it was with a helicopter ride. Bobby and H-2 look up at the helicopter, each at his own wife, pointing in victory and grinning to beat the band. The helicopter pilot (who is also H-2′s graphic designer), sensing an important moment, pulls out his 2.5 megapixel digital camera with built-in flash and snaps a picture. “That right there is gold,” he says to himself, looking in the viewfinder at the preview image.

As H-2 and Bobby relax at their respective homes with their respective wives over dinner, listening to the CD master that will become You’re It!, their helicopter pilot/designer (let’s call him Huey) is hard at work. He imports his triumphant image into his Gateway PC and examines it – the pointing! the snazzy shirts! It’s so great. Sure they’re looking in different directions, but you hardly notice that, right? My god, look at those shirts! H-2′s gleaming teeth! He really feels like these men are looking at him through the photo – looking into him, even – and telling him something. Telling him that he’s it. That’s it! Without conferring with Bobby and H-2, Huey realizes that he has the perfect title for this album. He opens up MS Paint and just lets the spirit take him where it will. He knows the boys will be so very pleased.

It may be well into the glorious, green, sunny season of spring – at least for those of you not stuck in the interminably cloudy, cold weather sinkhole that is Seattle these days – but that doesn’t mean everyone’s releasing bright, cheery indie-pop records about bunnies and dancing and dancing bunnies and dancing with bunnies. There are still many musicians out there crafting dark, disturbing works and putting them out whenever they damn well feel like it. If you do pick up any of these albums, you’ll probably want to wait until nightfall to put them on the old hi-fi.

Vampires Everywhere! - Kiss the Sun Goodbye

I had to scroll down far enough to make sure this album had a track list and song titles, and it wasn’t a misfiled audiobook or DVD or something. But no, apparently there is a vampire-themed band (I will just go out on a limb and make that assumption) called Vampires Everywhere! with an album called what else but Kiss the Sun Goodbye. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this album cover. It certainly is exactly what I would expect from such an album. But maybe that’s the problem; I mean, it almost seems as though the designer had some fancy, new-fangled computer program, and they just entered “Band Name: Vampires Everywhere! / Album Title: Kiss the Sun Goodbye” into it, and this is what it spat out. It’s just so perfectly high-school goth romance, you know? The only thing that really doesn’t quite fit in is the exclamation mark in the band name. That makes me wonder if the whole thing is a joke, but everything else is so deadpan and maudlin I tend to doubt that. If it is a joke, then well done, Vampires Everywhere! You got me.

A Storm of Light – As the Valley of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade

I wish this image weren’t so grainy, as there’s a lot going on here that requires parsing. First, of course, we have the oh-so evocative album title, almost a short story, really. So the valley of death is becoming us . . . does that mean death is turning into people? Or perhaps that the valley of death looks really good on us? (“Oh, dear, that valley just totally becomes you!”) Or is it a backwards way of saying that we are dying? And then when whatever that first part is about is happening, some of our memories – but just the silver ones – appear to be fading. Or is it that all of our memories are silver (silver is also quite becoming), and they’re all fading? I guess that makes sense; as I die I expect that my memories will fade, regardless of what metal they’re made of.

But wait! We haven’t even gotten to the actual album art yet. Again, there’s a lot going on here: A foregrounded, disturbingly collaged figure, with a grey dismal scene (the aforementioned valley of death?) behind it. The figure has some strange headgear (headscarf/crown/halo of spears) and appears to be holding a flame in its right hand. The right side of its body looks normal, but the right side is all exposed muscle and viscera with various things poking out of it. Now this is where it gets really weird: Looking at the stuff coming out of the viscera (and man, I wish I had a bigger version of this image), we see a bunch of bric-a-brac, but what most clearly stands out to me is a giant bird (maybe a stork or a heron or something), and an upside-down ice cream cone! What in the world can any of this mean? I don’t know, but it’s totally compelling, and also completely appropriate to the dark, overwrought quality of the band name and album title, but in a way that no computer program could ever have spit out. I have no idea if I would ever want to hear this record, but I almost want to guy buy it on vinyl just so I can fully absorb its visual wonders.

Andrea Centazzo – Midnight All Day

I love the creepy simplicity of this album cover: the blurred, high-contrast, ghoulish image; the simple color palette and stark font choices. If I didn’t know better I might think it were the soundtrack to a vintage Italian horror film. Oh, wait, I don’t know any better. So maybe it is the soundtrack to an Italian horror film, but if it’s not, it’s certainly doing a great job of evoking that aesthetic and luring in potential listeners with it. I assume that the music on this CD will appeal in some way to those who would be attracted to vintage Italian horror film soundtracks, so I look forward to hearing loads of dark, synth-heavy mayhem.

It’s actually a cajón, a lesser celebrated instrument in the contemporary world of percussion. When struck, this seemingly simple wooden box has all the pitches of a drum set’s snare, tom(s), and bass.

At first glance, it looks and sounds like something from Stomp, but it has a rich and interesting history. Rather than rip from Wikipedia, I’ll credit one of my dear friends D.G. who said the cajón was invented by African slaves who struck rhythms on fish crates during their time at sea. And so the cajón was born.

Close your eyes when you watch this video, don’t focus on this guy’s crotch. Focus on the sounds emitting from this plain box:

Like any instrument, a cajón can be hooked up to an amp, fancied up to the nines with a gloss, feet, and a coating of paint. A high-end one such as this may run a couple hundred dollars or more. For DIYers, the web offers numerous resources for constructing one of your own.

I like it because not only is it an instrument you can bust out at any time like an acoustic guitar, but it’s also a place to sit. So if you’re not interested in being a drummer because it comes with a crapload of equipment and the headache of maintaining a creepy white van, you can opt for this fantastically cool (and compact) cajón.

Happy drumming, or rather, cajón-ing!

Becca Stevens Band – Weightless

OK, I admit it: The main reason I wanted to feature this album is because I know what that instrument she’s holding is and I wanted to show off. It’s called a charango, and it’s an eight-stringed, South American relative of the guitar. Which presents a bit of a pickle, because if she were holding a mandolin, or even an ukulele, I think we could safely say this record is going to feature some pretty straight ahead, safely old-timey music, perhaps with a hint of vaudeville. She would have an adorably squeaky voice and sing about monocles and chamber pots and such. Maybe she tap-dances, I don’t know. But no, here she has this unabashedly ethnic instrument all mixed up in her vaguely 1900s font and clothing and color palette. So what the heck does Becca Stevens sound like? You know, I’m not even going to hazard a guess, but I bet whatever it is, she knows what she’s doing. It’s pretty rare to see a hack bust out a charango. Well played, Ms. Stevens.

Lloyd Jones – Highway Bound

An even better way to communicate the style of music you play, of course, is to list it right there on the album cover. “Traditional Folk Blues,” says Mr. Jones, and I guess I’m inclined to believe him. I mean, only a real traditional folk blues guy would play his acoustic guitar in the rain, right? I will say this album cover isn’t particularly inspiring, and does have a hint of the in-house design job about it, but there’s nothing too awful about it. I think the framing is interesting, and it’s always refreshing to see people not including their faces on their album covers. The fonts are a problem, as they so often are, but I’ve just about given up on that particular dead horse.

Alexander Abreu and Havana D’Primera – Haciendo Historia

I’m sure Mr. Abreu here is a very kind, gentle man, who coaxes the most delightful sounds out of his trumpet – somewhere along the Latin-jazz spectrum, I would imagine. I’m almost 100% sure he’s kind and gentle, but he also kind of looks like he could beat the living piss out of me as easy as sneezing. Luckily this cover is pretty nice, so I don’t have to worry about crossing him. (I’m looking into those eyes as I type this, and I’m a little nervous even saying nice things. Maybe I should just quit while I’m ahead.)

Howard Bursen – Cider in the Kitchen

Now here we have a serious, no frills, folky dude. He’s got a banjo and a vest, he’s rockin’ a sweet mustache, and he’s just chilling among the rocks and the leaves with his banjo and his vest and his ‘stache. Howard Bursen has it figured out. This is listed as a “new release,” but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume this is a reissue of something from the, let’s say, sixties? Why don’t they make album covers like this any more? Unassuming, unironic, disarming. I love it.

So yeah, based on this album cover I would say Howard Bursen is probably quite the accomplished banjo picker, who rocks out original and traditional folk numbers like you wouldn’t believe. Cider in the kitchen? More like cider in the bitchin’, am I right?

Sticks and Stones

Sticks and Stones seem like they might be along the lines of what I would have assumed Becca Stevens was without the charango: Two acoustic guitars, a steel guitar, an upright bass, plus one poor axeless lady, doing her best to hold her own with a coy pose and a come-hither stare. All of this packed into a library and framed with some classy deco filigree, making for quite the rootsy indie steampunk nerd dog whistle.

The band here is putting a lot of weight on this photo to carry the album art, which can work very well (some of my favorite album covers are just photos, no other design elements or text at all), but you need a very strong photo. This photo is just a bit too posed, a bit awkward, to suspend my disbelief that this is a bunch of people crammed into a small room with hot lights and uncomfortable chairs, doing their best to look natural and sum up their own band in one frozen moment. Sometimes that’s just too much to ask of a band, or a photo.

We’ve already covered the fact that turning to your buddy who happens to own Photoshop is probably a bad idea, but at least your friend is free (at least I really hope Christian Scott didn’t spend anything on that cover). Many CD manufacturing companies (one of the many types of businesses that have thrived in the past decade or so on the backs of struggling, self-funded musicians who will never make a dime from their own music) offer their own in-house design services, which seems like a great deal: these are professional designers! And since it’s bundled with the CD manufacturing package, you can get their services for an incredible deal! Yes, they are ‘professional’ in the sense that they are receiving (your) money for their services, but that doesn’t necessarily mean those services are worth it. Let’s take a look at a few albums that a certain prominent manufacturer is touting as some of their finest in-house design work.

John Tracy – Breaking the Chain

You know what these in-house designers love? Rough, distressed backgrounds with translucent stock graphics overlaid on them. They also love taking a word from the album title and incorporating it into the album art. Brilliant! On their web site they actually pat themselves on the back for, “rather than literally breaking the chain, [using] a subtle graphic device to reinforce the message of the title.” Ohhhh, now I get it! It’s a picture of a chain, like how the title is Breaking the Chain, but at first I was like “Hey, that chain’s not broken!” But it’s interrupted by the line of text, which is sort of like being broken! Genius!

Sydney Sprague – You Gotta Start Somewhere

Ah yes, more stock overlays. This cover actually would have been all right with just the ‘funky’ background, artist-supplied Polaroid, and hand-cut/written-looking text. But the in-house expert thought, “This needs something . . . some kind of stock visual non sequitur overlay. Ah, I have just the thing!” And so he grabbed the nearest generically floral filigree, slapped it in the top left corner, and pronounced his work complete. Here’s a design tip, courtesy of a very smart friend of mine. When you’re trying to think of a little something to spice up a job and you’re about to reach for the filigree, remember the Four F’s: “Foregrounded Filigree is Flawed Fundamentally.”

The title of this album seems almost a self-aware comment on the artwork itself: You’re not a designer, and you can’t afford a real one . . . you gotta start somewhere! (On further thought, maybe that should be this company’s motto.)
Joshua Harrell – Brighter Day

We can’t entirely blame the design staff for this one. The artist did, after all, have this photo taken of himself and then decided that it was just the perfect thing for his album cover. He’s even wearing a jacket that looks like its made of stock floral filigree! But still, the designer just took a bad thing and made it so much worse. The color palette and choice of fonts are just offensive to decent sensibilities, and the little pink sparkle effects on the text blocks are almost as cheesy as the amorphous blob of stock graphic elements floating next to this poor guy’s shoulder, looking for all the world like MS Paint just puked all over him.

Next to this lovely sample, the company helpfully reminds you: “Don’t forget, you can help us understand what makes you tick by filling out a Design Information form.” Perhaps this is a subtle threat, showing the horrors that await if you don’t clearly delineate your desires by filling out said form? Consider yourself warned.

Adam Rafferty – Gratitude

Ah, there’s our old friend, the translucent stock filigree, once again! Where would these guys be without it? This could have been a perfectly fine, if somewhat subdued and nondescript, album cover. The photo isn’t super eye-catching, but nor does it catch your eyes and then make you want to gouge them out (I’m looking at you, Harrell!) It says “Hey, I’m this pretty cool guy, and I just like to hang out in my leather jacket and sunglasses, finger-pickin’ my guitar (which, by the way, has a pretty decent built-in pickup and pre-amp).” The color palette is nice and warm and mellow, and while the text is more translucent than it needs to be (did they just discover that they could adjust the transparency, or what?), it’s totally fine.

But then, yet again, the designer feels he hasn’t done enough – it’s just not quite “designy” enough to merit the work of a professional – so he rummages around in his stock grab bag and throws on this (translucent!) garbage that adds nothing. I hope Mr. Rafferty didn’t offer too much unneeded gratitude to the hack responsible for this.

The project analyzes the lyrics of over 40,000 songs for metaphors, similes, cultural references, phrases, memes and socio-political ideas. For each, it registers a date and a geographical location. Hemphill has raised more than $8,000 in funding for the project on Kickstarter, from 349 people. The idea is so that important questions can be answered, like who was the first to mention “haters,” or which is the most popular champagne/sneakers/porn star to rap about? The database can also be used to determine the answers to more complex questions, such as which rapper has the smartest songs, or which city spawns the most monosyllabic rap?

Hemphill has put together a video to illustrate more about the project:

It’s a great set of originals (and yes, we’re biased) given a unique sound thanks to his unconventional backing band arrangement: drums courtesy of Eric Redpath, fiddle by Andy Lentz, and Cooper on guitar, bass, banjo, and vocals. A pay-what-you-want preview of what will hopefully end up being a full album, it’s worth checking it out and throwing him a few shekels at Bandcamp.

Hawk Nelson – Crazy Love

I will admit right off the bat that there’s a certain rough-hewn quality – Anthropologie chic, you might call it – to most of the art I’ll be talking about today. But darn it, why should I pretend to be anything other than what I am: a vegan art-school grad/indie musician in Seattle. I am absolutely the target market for these guys, and they’ve sold me. (Well, maybe not sold – It’s not like I’m actually going to run out and buy any of these records, but my interest is piqued, which is about as good as it gets here.)

Anyway, back to the task at hand, which is Hawk Nelson’s album cover for Crazy Love. Calculated though it might be, I really enjoy the rustic valentine and paper airplane, as well as the way they’re rendered. The color palette is fantastic, too; subtle and muted, but still with a nice, rich red at its center. I don’t love the script font at the top (or the fact that it’s the only black thing on the cover, and messes up the balance a bit), but it still doesn’t ruin this very nice piece of art.

I usually try and take some guess at genre or sound of the albums in question, but this one is tough – I can’t even really tell if Hawk Nelson is a band or a dude, or a dude masquerading as a band. If pressed I guess I would say this is probably Urban Outfitters-friendly indie rock with a bit of acoustic rootsiness blended in.

Danny Schmidt – Man of Many Moons

This is a terrific bit of collage work that makes me want to go out to the record store and find an LP so I can really see what’s going on here. The blue background has some lighter patterns on it that look like some sort of schematics, which I bet are much more rewarding in person. The clock hands on the center moon also look surprisingly three-dimensional, as if they’re actual hands glued onto the cover. I’m guessing that’s not the case, but I will have to wait until I meet this guy in person to find out. I really enjoy the silhouette, which I assume is of Mr. Schmidt, as well. There are so many ill-advised ways to work your portrait into your album art, and so few good ones; the artist has hit on an elegant solution here.

I’m guessing Danny Schmidt is a good bit quirkier than your typical singer-songwriter; he probably enjoys dabbling with various non-traditional instruments and noisemakers. His lyrics tend toward the opaque and mysterious I imagine, and he probably avoids the blues for the most part, but might bust out the occasional noisy, stompy barn-burner.

Wailin’ Jennys – Bright Morning Stars

When I first saw this image I thought it was letterpress, which I am a total sucker for. Upon closer examination, the design actually consists of embroidery thread stitched onto denim. I hope that this was done expressly for this album, and not just found in a thrift store somewhere and scanned, but either way it is a fine piece of work, and – I would guess – perhaps a bit more evocative of the band’s sound than some of the previous entries. Between their name and this rootsy, homespun cover, I’m guessing these Jennys are a folky/country group with big, jaw-busting harmonies and plenty of mandolin and fiddle.

The one small issue I would take with this art – and the thing that leads me to believe the embroidery element was found, rather than purpose-sewn – is that the band and album names in the center are printed in fonts – and quite crisp, non-degraded fonts at that – rather than also embroidered. A full-on embroidered piece of album art would have elevated this cover from “really really good” to “holy crap, awesome!” but it’s still really really good, and worth a look (and, yeah, probably a listen too).

Chase and Status – No More Idols

This guy’s design is just so simple–so straightforward and almost ugly–that I have to love it. It’s also the only one that couldn’t also double as a silkscreened or letterpressed greeting card; it’s got a little (or a lot of) grit to it, which I like. There’s something to be said for getting an uncomfortably close photo of a slobbering bulldog and throwing your band name and album title over it in the biggest, in-your-facest font you can find, front and center. There’s something to be said, and that something is “YES!”

Maybe you don’t know Nudie suits by name, but you almost certainly have seen them. Lots of them. They’re those classic—and totally over-the-top—Western-style dress suits that are adorned with such images as wagon wheels, cacti, crosses, naked women, guitars, horses and marijuana leaves; made from colorful cloth and a generous helping of rhinestones. They’ve been worn by some of the biggest rock and country stars of the last century, from Hank the first, Roy Rogers and Porter Wagoner to the Burrito Brothers, Elvis Presley and the guys from Wilco. To rock a Nudie suit is to give a humongous nod to the golden age of country music, the glam-fabulousness of TV-era Hollywood and a tailor whose creative vision launched an entertainment revolution.

Born 1902 in Kiev, Russia, Nudie Cohn (born Nuta Kotlyarenko) spent his boyhood years learning the garment business as a tailor’s apprentice. At age 11, to escape the Antisemitic violence of Czarist Russia, he was sent with his brother to live in America. The story goes that he traveled around the country working odd jobs including shoeshine boy, and later, a stint as professional boxer. In 1934 he married Helen “Bobbie” Kruger and the couple moved to New York City and opened Nudie’s for the Ladies; a shop specializing in custom undergarments for showgirls. The move proved to be the first step on a path that would lead the Cohns to fashion and trend-setting greatness.

The Nudie showgirl garments—think blinged-out g-strings and brassieres—provided plenty of sparkle and pizazz for the girls’ stage show, and when the Nudies moved to Los Angeles several years later, Nudie took his reputation for flash and his knack for bedazzling along with him. Credited as being the first to adorn a Western suit with rhinestones, Nudie combined his fascination with Americana with his deft skills as a tailor and set out to clothe the cowboy stars of Southern California.

The Cohns originally approached—and landed—country notables Spade Cooley, Lefty Frizzell and Tex Williams as clients of their business and models for their new, eye-catching ensembles. Encouraged by their success and rolling with momentum, they established a shop—originally called Nudie’s of Hollywood, and later changed to Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors—in North Hollywood, and set out to catch two of the biggest fish in the pond; the singing cowboy Roy Rogers and his wife and co-star Dale Evans. They eventually met and developed a life-long friendship with the two and secured the position of custom tailor to the cowboy power-couple of stage and screen, outfitting them for just about every major appearance that they made.

Photo by romana klee on Flickr

From there, the floodgates opened and Nudie’s started designing and making suits for a star-studded roster of clients that included John Wayne, Gene Autry, Hank Williams, John Lennon, Cher, Elton John, Webb Pierce, Elvis Presley, Steve McQueen, Hank Snow, ZZ Top, America and Gram Parsons, among countless others. Cohn’s flamboyant, one-of-a-kind outfits were soon on the lips and backs of stars of all make, and he became one of the most sought-after clothiers in Los Angeles; the King of Western Wear. He had successfully blurred the lines of the entertainment style world and his suits were seen on stages, red carpets, televisions and big screens everywhere. Buck Owens and Roy Rogers, long-time appreciators of the Cohns and their creations, are said to have worn Nudie suits to their final resting places.

With the wild success of Nudie suits, Cohn became a high-profile fellow regularly seen rocking his own lively suits. He made a point however, of wearing colorful, yet mismatched boots with his outfits to remind himself of his humble beginnings; that there was a time that he could not even afford matching shoes.

In 1984, when Nudie Cohn passed away, Dale Evans gave the eulogy to a packed house of just about everyone the Nudies had ever clothed. For ten years after Nudie’s death, Bobbie kept the shop going, but in 1994 they closed the doors, laying to rest the incredible tale of a visionary man who was able to clothe an era, and leave behind a legacy of inimitable brilliance.

Kidz Bop 19

There aren’t enough albums out there that tell you exactly what they are and what to expect right on the cover (of course if that were the norm, this column would get pretty boring pretty quickly). What we have here seems to be the 19th in a series of compilations of hit songs covered by children. What sounds like a complete aural nightmare to you and me is, no doubt, audio crack for the kindergarten set, and this cover is well designed to catch the eyes of children (even a preliterate toddler probably knows that KIDZ means “Hey, that’s for me!!!”). My sympathies to those parents with ears who have been forced to shell out for this or any of its 18 predecessors.

Best Children’s Classics 100

The creators of Best Children’s Classics 100 – which I presume to be either the 100th in a series of collections of “classic” children’s songs that we all know and love (presumably performed by adults) or a collection of 100 of said songs – have taken the opposite approach from the marketing geniuses behind the Kidz Bop series: get the adults on board. I can’t imagine a tyke who would be pulled in by the subdued, tasteful graphic style in evidence here (not to mention the phrase “children’s classics”), but I can already hear the parents going “ooh, that looks nice – kind of like the silkscreened show posters I have hanging down in the basement (Remember that Sebadoh show? That was great) – and hey, I used to love these songs when I was a kid!”

This seems like a brilliant marketing tactic – the parents are the ones with the money, after all – but I believe it is destined for failure. A CD like this, while it might sneak its way into a few parents’ collections, just will not garner the infinite replays and create the kidbuzz that Kidz Bop undoubtedly will. This is stuffy, boring, old-timey kids’ music, and after a few obligatory spins in the car in an effort to get the kids to stop singing the Kidz Bop version of Cee-Lo Green’s “Fuck You,” this CD will end up a sippy-cup coaster.

Sing Along Clap Along with Johnny Richardson

Well, this title sounds like that of a children’s record, and perhaps in 1900 or whenever it was originally released it qualified as one, but this artwork is more reminiscent of a Tzadik or Winter & Winter release – improvisations by John Zorn, Mike Patton, and Marc Ribot, maybe? – than anything anyone born this century would want to hear. I’m sure this will be a great trip down memory lane for those centenarians who grew up with it, but sorry, Smithsonian Folkways, this record is not for the kids of today.

Jon Appleton: Two Melodramas for Synclavier (The Tale of William Mariner, The Snow Queen)

OK, Smithsonian Folkways, now you’re just fucking with me. You have this album categorized under Children’s Music for some reason, but you know what kids don’t want to hear? Melodramas. Or synclavier. “The Snow Queen” sounds like it might be a Disney hit – get Randy Newman or Phil Collins to write a theme and we’re talking – but otherwise, there is nothing about this record that will make a kid want to listen to it. You’re going to have to try a lot harder if you really want to go for that youth demographic.

Fun Kids Kinder Party Box

Well, at least Fun Kids is trying to attract kids – but so is Pedobear. Unfortunately, I think they went a bit overboard and ended up in Creepyland. Kids may be stupid and not quite human, but they do have rudimentary design sensibilities. They like things simple and loud and in your face (see Kidz Bop). They don’t necessarily have any taste or sophistication, but they can tell a thrown-together smorgasbord of clip art and false cheer when they see one.

Here we have two cartoonish aquatic animals, rendered in slightly different computerized drawing styles, flanking a photograph of a stoned-looking young child with a stuffed bunny, enjoying a hallucination of hearts floating in the air. This is just going to give little kids nightmares, not make them want to party with you and your box set of Spaß. Add in the fact that the entire cover is in German (everyone who watches the Simpsons knows that German kids are hopelessly clueless, fat, and nerdy), and stores might as well just skip the shelves and put this one right in the cut-out bin so some poor clueless grandmother can pick it up for an unsuspecting grandchild’s next birthday.

Unless, that is, you happen to be releasing an album in the “Holiday” vein.  Not only is this prime time to be getting your seasonal, jolly musical goods out there, but every year about this time, your record will have its time in the sun once more.  (Of course the tradeoff is being ignored/irrelevant for 11 months out of the year, but that’s actually quite better odds than most non-seasonal independent releases get.)

Here are some new releases clamoring for your seasonal music dollar this holiday season.  I can’t tell you what they sound like, but I can certainly judge them by their covers, as I always do.

Aled Jones – Aled’s Christmas Gift

I was surprised, in these times of the alleged “War on Christmas,” to find that most of the new holiday-themed albums I was able to find were completely shameless in their Christmas-centrism.  Are the pro-Christmas forces just being more vigilant in getting their message, their “reason for the season,” out there?  Or could it be that this so-called “War” is overblown, or perhaps even nonexistent, and there are plenty of people, both Christly and non, who have no problem whatsoever with Christmas?  Nah, couldn’t be!

Perhaps this question is best pondered while listening to Aled Jones’s Christmas Gift to us all, a CD that definitely seems (based on its cover) intent on keeping the “Christ” in Christmas.  Our friend Aled is bathed in light, standing front and center in a giant church/cathedral-type building, flanked by a twinkling Christmas tree and some very Christian-looking candles.  If you weren’t looking carefully, you might think he was a casually-dressed priest, with his loosely-buttoned black shirt that might have held a starched white collar only moments before.  But no, Aled is (I assume) merely a nattily-dressed layperson, probably a classically trained tenor or baritone, who wants to share his love of the season (and, of course, its Reason) with us all, by way of a carefully selected mix of traditional Christmas favorites (think “O Holy Night,” not “Jingle Bells”) and maybe an inspirational original or two.

Black Snow 2 – The Completely Different Xmas Compilation

Some – perhaps even Aled Jones – might think of this as a volley from the “anti-Christmas” side of the War on Christmas – it does, after all, use the dreaded “Xmas” spelling – but I see it as more of a neutral to pro-Christmas statement.  It’s got Santa on the cover, after all, and despite the spelling, you know what holiday it’s about.  There’s no “Chrismakwanzakkah” gags or all-encompassing “holiday” references here; it’s straight-up “Xmas,” if a “completely different” version of Xmas.

Now as to what that “completely different” entails, I have to admit to being a bit stymied.  I think based on the title alone, I might have assumed this was a compilation of Christmas (or “Xmas”) music by African American artists, perhaps mostly in the rap/hip-hop genres.  (Which would be an awesome compilation I would love to own, by the by.)  The cover doesn’t really scream “hip-hop” to me, though.  The dirty, collaged, Urban Outfitters look of the cover and the main font force a re-examination of the title.  Perhaps this is kind of a gothy, Lite Industrial take on Christmas music?  Or instrumental electronic versions of holiday favorites?  I guess I don’t have any idea what we’re in for here, but this is probably a fun listen, and I think I’d take it over Aled’s Gift (sorry Aled).

Rita MacNeil and Frank Mills – The Spirit of Christmas

Rita and Frank have brought us, I’ll wager, another decidedly Christian take on the Christmas album, but this one appeals to me a bit more than Aled’s.  Maybe it’s the hominess of the cover – they’re not trying to impress you with their slick, churchy godliness, they’re just hanging out by the piano getting ready to sing a few tunes for you – but I just like these guys more than Aled.  They also seem like, while they’re definitely into the whole God thing, maybe they’re not so hung up on it that they can’t bust out a a “Frosty the Snowman” or “Blue Christmas” in between the more traditional, Christ-focused numbers.  Rita and Frank honestly just seem like a couple of nice folks who really like the holidays – sorry, Christmas – and want to share their music with everybody.  (Evangelists take note: if you’re trying to woo grumpy atheists, best to go with the cheerful, homespun angle rather than slick and earnest.)

Most of them aren’t kidding.  They just haven’t the slightest sense of irony, and, in the words of the Magicians’ Alliance, they demand to be taken seriously.  It usually doesn’t work.

Engel – Threnody

There are a lot of signifiers here that we’re dealing with the Way Too Serious genre: Vague band name that might be a reference to a philosopher or serious historical figure; album title that most anyone (particularly anyone into this band) will have to look up in the dictionary, and then probably forget the definition of within hours (double points for said title being a reference to the dead); highly stylized, logofied band name on the album cover (this will be a recurring theme in this column); and, of course, an angel with black eye makeup blowing a trumpet, superimposed over a stained glass window.

I imagine Engel to be somewhere in the heavy rock/metal spectrum of things.  Not much of  a leap there, I’m pretty sure anyone who’s ever heard music before would make the same assumption, and Engel is probably jockeying hard for that market of people who see an album cover and think “dude, that looks intense,” and then buy it.  There’s every possibility that this album is, in fact, per its title, a tribute of some sort to a person or persons who passed away, in which case it seems in poor taste to poke fun at its self-seriousness, but when your job is to write about things you don’t know about, you end up in these situations sometimes.  Even if this album is such a tribute, it seems to me that there could be a subtler, more tasteful way of going about this, regardless.  At least take the eye makeup off the angel, for goodness’ sake.

McFly – Shine a Light Pt. 1

It’s easy to poke fun at the metal dudes for their overblown earnestness, but they’re by no means the only or worst offenders: electro-pop-punk-alternative-90s-rock bands (or whatever McFly is) are just as easily susceptible.  McFly has a unique problem, though, in that the odds are they named themselves at a time when they were feeling perhaps a bit less like they needed to be taken seriously (“Hey, what’s that guy’s name from that one movie our parents like? ‘Hello, McFly!!’  Haha, that would be great!”), but as they have progressed in their career, they feel the need to compensate for their goofy band name with sober expressions, lens flare, and singles with titles like “Shine a Light Pt.1.”

It’s not an uncommon problem, this outgrowing of the band name (see, e.g., Hoobastank, The Beach Boys), and I understand a band not wanting to change its name once they have made an established name for themselves (I will give McFly the benefit of the doubt and assume they’ve established a name in one way or another), but seeing the shared family name of Michael J. Fox and Crispin Glover’s characters in one of the finer movies of my youth rendered in metallic, futuristic type and superimposed over a bunch of frowning doofuses is just sad.  Frankly, they look more like Biffs to me anyway.

Arjen Anthony Lucassen’s Star One – Victims of the Modern Age

Here are a few more clues someone is taking himself too seriously: Including his own name as a possessive at the beginning of his band (or “project,” as I’m sure he refers to Star One) name (extra sober points for including the middle name, and further bonus points for a Scandinavian name); making a reference to “the modern age” in a dark, foreboding sense; album artwork that is meant to be a comment on the perils of contemporary urban life, complete with faceless buildings, isolated people, and a huge explosion (ooh, and more lens flare!).

I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that Mr. Lucassen  has something important he needs to say about The Modern Age.  In fact, I’m guessing he pretty much said it all with this album cover and we don’t really need to go so far as to listen to the record, which is probably some very serious contemporary prog rock, with occasional flourishes of orchestral instrumentation,and an allegorical narrative that weaves throughout the songs and tells the tale of a pair of brave souls doing battle against the cruel modern age in which they live.  Or, you know, something like that.