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Columns: From
Hell's Heart..
April
2001: Album cover art: Judging a book by it's cover
Welcome to the April 2001 installment of "From
Hell's Heart..." This is an editorial column
written by the Metal-Rules.com team. Each month we pick a metal-related
topic and share our thoughts, feelings and ideas on it.
Album cover art: Judging a book by it's cover
By Rick
Are album covers important? I would think so. Have
I ever looked at an album cover and judged the music inside on
what picture was on the cover? Of course I have! The cover art
should give a representation of what is on the inside of the
sleeve. Pictures of Wizards etc. scream Powermetal to me as do
bloody corpses call out Death Metal. When I first got into metal
there was no internet to check out what CDs were out there so I
had to go to the local record store and flip though the albums or
cassettes till a name or a CD cover caught my eye. It was often
the album art that made me decide to buy an album or not. One of
the earliest album covers that caught my eye was Meatloaf’s
"Bat Out Of Hell". Now that was one cool piece of
artwork. I remember walking through Woolco at the tender age of 5
or 6 and seeing this amazing motorcycle flying from the grave and
it blew my mind. The thing was at 6 years old I didn’t get to
buy the album. My fascination with album art carried over as I
spent almost as much time looking at albums as I did toys for the
next few years. I remember that it was in the early 80s that I
started listening to music and after a year or two of listening to
the standard Bryan Adams, Rick Springfield top 40 stuff I started
to get interested in heavier stuff.
The road down the dark path has begun. I remember
seeing Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell around 80 or 81 and
thinking how cool that it was with the angels smoking and playing
cards!! Evil. The first cassette that I got was METAL HEALTH by
Quiet Riot. Now I love that cover. It was simple. Guy in a mask
and straight jacket. Very cool. Another of my favorites and one
that I think perfectly fits the content inside is MASTER OF
PUPPETS by Metallica. The rows of crosses with a puppet master
from the sky pulling their strings is one of my favs. The cover
was thought provoking as were many of the albums lyrics. I think
that covers should have some thought put into their choosing cause
they represent the band and their music to a certain extent. The
cover art is the first thing that introduces a band to the public.
A good first impression should always be their first thought and a
cover that represents the music they play. |
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Album cover art: judging a book by it's cover
By Michael De Los Muertos
Album covers are one of my favorite things about metal. Where
else can you see artwork that is at once horrifying, ugly,
visceral, or bombastic, and yet often pleasing to the eye,
usually at the same time? The kind of artists that paint things
like the type of stuff that appears on Cannibal Corpse album
covers aren't exactly easy to find out about, and you'd have to
have a keen appreciation and understanding of underground art to
find pieces like this outside of album covers. I find a cover
often sets the mood for a listening experience, as well as
serving as a potent communication device about the kind of music
you'll find on the disc itself. Accomplishing mood-setting and
communication functions while still being interesting and
eye-catching is the mark of a good album cover.
With that philosophy statement out of the way, I'll just go
off on some of my favorite (and least-favorite) album covers,
and why I like (or dislike) them. The cover of Six Feet Under's
MAXIMUM VIOLENCE is a great one. A raw, exposed skull being
probed by a ring of painful-looking metallic pincers perfectly
communicates the ugly, angry mood that awaits once you play the
album. Similarly, Rhapsody's DAWN OF VICTORY, with desperate
warriors slashing away with gigantic swords in the midst of a
battle scene that's little more than a big crimson pandemonium,
conveys the sense of epic glory-seeking that no one who listens
to Rhapsody can deny is front and center in their style. Perhaps
I have a thing for blindfolded ladies, but Rotting Christ's A
DEAD POEM and Dimmu Borgir's SPIRITUAL BLACK DIMENSIONS convey a
sense of beauty restrained by unspeakable darkness. The latter
is, in my opinion, one of the best album covers of the late
1990s, and perfectly suited to Dimmu's style of atmospheric
black metal.
Probably my favorite album cover is POWERPLANT by Gamma Ray.
Derek Riggs is well known for his work on Iron Maiden, but he
outdid even himself with this, one of the most fascinating album
covers of all time. The skull-faced demon and the melding of
themes from space and ancient Egypt, while exploding with color
and power, actually make you very eager to experience Gamma
Ray's space-age power metal.
I can't say I'm tremendously fond of clever or
"story" type covers. I wonder if any of my fellow
Metal-Rulesians will mention the well-known progression of
Megadeth's Vic Rattlehead guises from the 1980s, including a
real estate agent peddling nuclear wasteland property (PEACE
SELLS…BUT WHO'S BUYING) and a participant at a high-level
conference of politicians examining an alien body (RUST IN
PEACE). Sometimes a cover can try to accomplish too much. Sure,
the RUST IN PEACE cover tells you about the subject matter of
one of the songs, but does it really convey anything about the
brilliance of the metal on the album? Similarly, while I voted
Dispatched's MOTHERWAR as the best album of 2000, it's cover
painting of a futuristic tank battle didn't do much for me,
while the illustration on its back cover - a line of skull-faced
soldiers in greatcoats and Russian Army fur hats - seemed a far
more appropriate choice.
Then there are the album covers that truly suck. Anyone
familiar with the band Raise Hell should remember the ludicrous
cover of HOLY TARGET, showing F-16s dive-bombing a burning
cathedral. Great idea for a black/thrash album cover, but the
painting itself is muddy and washed-out. (Incidentally you can
read my review of Raise Hell's second album, NOT DEAD YET, for a
dissertation on the failure of their next album cover). While I
love Dismember, and the eerie Dan Seagrave painting on the cover
of LIKE AN EVER FLOWING STREAM has to be one of the greatest
pieces of metal art ever created, most of the rest of their
album covers are completely laughable, from the
"menacing" hunk of junk on MASSIVE KILLING CAPACITY,
to a boring coat of arms on DEATH METAL, and little more than a
flaming skull face on HATE CAMPAIGN. The dumbest album cover in
recent memory, however, has got to be Pantera's REINVENTING THE
STEEL, hands-down. I actually laughed out loud when I saw it. A
guy in his boxer shorts jumping through fire? What's up with
that? Not only is it completely lame, it's nonsensical. Painful
as it is to look at, at least you get the point of the cover of
VULGAR DISPLAY OF POWER.
I greatly enjoy looking at metal album covers, and I'm always
interested to see the next cover from a band I really like.
Enjoying the artwork is one of the most fun things about metal,
and, disappointing as it is when a good band comes up with a
terrible cover, even a terrible band has an equal chance at
creating an album cover masterpiece. |
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Album cover art: judging a book by its cover
By EvilG
Can you judge the quality of an album based on it's cover? I
have been trying to think of a CD I love that has poor album
cover artwork, or conversely an album that I hate which has an
excellent album cover.
An album that comes to mind as one that has excellent content
within but has a boring album cover is Armageddon's CROSSING THE
RUBICON. The music is astounding yet the artwork, although
"spacey", is very plain and boring. An album cover
that blows is Ratt's INVASION OF YOUR PRIVACY (yes old Ratt is a
guilty pleasure of mine...so deal with it). This is an example of
where the album cover is crap but the music is great. On a related
note, I was recently informed that the chick on that album cover
apparently has turned up online on some porn site...go figure.
Another example of "bad cover / good music" is Black
Sabbath's SABOTAGE. Sure, that picture makes for a funny look at
the band and their "clothing", but it should of been
an inside picture, NOT the cover! On the other hand sometimes
the cover reflects what's inside. This is the case with
Megadeth. They have been known for excellent cover art like RUST
IN PEACE and PEACE SELLS... However, with RISK both the album
cover art and the music left left a very bad taste in my mouth!!
If there is one thing that even many non-metal fans realize
about metal, it is that the artwork for the CD's is amazing. How can
we talk about album cover artwork without mentioning Iron Maiden
and the talented Derek Riggs? Just about ALL the Maiden covers
are excellent. Some of my favorites being SOMEWHERE IN TIME and
SEVENTH SON... In terms of style I prefer painted album covers
over any photographic ones. Yngwie Malmsteen has had a few album
covers like that but his covers for TRILOGY and WAR TO END ALL
WARS make up for much of it. Slayer have always had interesting
album cover art and HELL AWAITS is no exception. Some might
think the art for this album is "sick" but I've always
found it funny. The expressions on the faces of the
people/demons in that painting are hilarious! I love it!! I
could ramble on about how awesome some covers are or how the
covers perfectly depict the album's storyline (ie. Rhapsody).
To conclude, you cannot judge an album by it's cover but it's
typical that if a band puts a lot of effort into their lyrics
and music you can be sure that in most cases that the album cover
art
will get the same treatment.
Godly!!!
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Blah...
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Album cover art: judging a book by its cover
By Nathan
Well I already touched on this subject last
month. So instead of philosophizing about the importance or
non-importance of album cover artwork, allow me to throw out some
personal opinions. First of all, I mostly appreciate hand drawn
artwork over and kind of photographic or computer-generated
artwork. I’ve always thought the human element gives the
artwork a warmer feeling. The same goes for drafting and
technical drawings in architecture and civil engineering.
Although in these cases hand drawings are pretty much obsolete
thanks to AutoCad. But I’ve always preferred the look of hand
drawings to anything else. Artists like Dan Seagrave, Andreas
Marshall, and Kristian Wahlin (Necrolord) do more for me than
Travis Smith and Dave McKean. Don’t get me wrong, Travis and
Dave are phenomenal artists, and I love their work. I just
prefer the others.
That said, allow me to list some of my favorite
album covers: Gorguts THE EROSION OF SANITY, Asphyx CRUSH THE
CENOTAPH, Slayer REIGN IN BLOOD, Hypocrisy PENETRALIA (I don’t
even own this one), Cynic FOCUS, Diabolique THE BLACK FLOWER and
BUTTERFLIES, Dismember PIECES, Iron Maiden POWERSLAVE and
SOMEWHERE IN TIME, Kreator CAUSE FOR CONFLICT, Obituary CAUSE OF
DEATH, October Tide GREY DAWN, Opeth BLACKWATER PARK, and
Sacrosanct RECESSES FOR THE DEPRAVED.
On the other hand, here’s some album covers
that annoy me: Black Sabbath SABOTAGE (just for Bill Ward’s
red tights), Deteriorate (I don’t know the album title, but it’s
the one with the melting skull), Nokturnel (again, don’t know
the title, but it’s the one with the band members hanging on
chains), Carbonized SCREAMING MACHINES, Comecon FABLE FROLIC,
Dream Theater A CHANGE OF SEASONS (just for the kid), Entombed
SAME DIFFERENCE, Flotsam and Jetsam WHEN THE STORM COMES DOWN,
Judas Priest TURBO, SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE, and DEFENDERS OF
THE FAITH, Loudblast/Agressor split LICENSED TO THRASH LP, and
Metal Church HANGING IN THE BALANCE. |
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Joe's RANT!
Well, I’ve been mulling this topic for the
past five days and I still have no idea what to write... Can you
really judge the quality of the music on an album by how the
well cover art is done? Hmmm... Obviously artwork can tip you
off as to what style of music to expect from an unfamiliar
artist since certain types of artwork are associated with
certain genres of music (Can you imagine an
"Eddie-like" character gracing the covers of Britney
Spears’albums?), but can it actually reflect the quality of
the music on the CD? Actually... Now that I think about it, it
probably does. I know if I were in a recording band and had put
in all the necessary thought, work, and money into making a good
quality album, I wouldn’t want some lame-assed, piece of crap
art on the cover...
Nowadays, cover art may not be quite as important for
grabbing record buyer’s attention with the advent of
pre-sampling music both in stores and on the internet, but it is
somewhat disappointing (for me, at least) when an artist/band
writes and records a good quality CD only to put little or no
effort into acquiring a decent piece of art for the cover (Jacob’s
Dream - s/t comes to mind). But fortunately, most artists that
take any sort of pride in their music also take some pride in
what appears on the fronts of their CD’s. And personally, I
think all albums should have decent quality artwork on the
covers because when a person buys a CD, they’re not just
buying the songs, but the "whole package". Good
artwork on a good CD is like the "icing on the cake",
so to speak... And if artwork wasn’t important to me, I’d
probably be one of those people that’s loathed by Lars Ulrich
et al.
Well... Looks like I had something to say on the subject
after all... :-) |
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Album Covers: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!!!
By Jesse
Talk about a genre of music havin' a monopoly on awesome
album cover art!!! I mean, no other genre even comes close!!!
I've seen a few clunkers in my time, but metal album covers are
almost always stimulating in one way or another!!! Now I'm not
gonna sit here and philosophize with you guys...'cause I think y'all
know why metal has consistently held the position of dominance
in this area (hint: METAL RULES)!!!
So, if you don't mind, I'm just gonna break down the good,
the bad and the ugly for you (in my opinion):
THE GOOD: Iron Maiden, KILLERS. Let me revise that,
how 'bout the freaking best album cover ever!!! Talk about a
horrific cover to end all horrific covers. Eddie is definitely
at his most brutal!!! His punk hairstyle has given way to a more
metallized version...the Eddie we all know and love!!! Plus,
just look at the freaking blood drenched hatchet and the
grasping hands and the menacing look and the...don't get me
started!!! It fucking slays, period.
THE BAD: Ozzy, SPEAK OF THE DEVIL. Let's face it, this
is a bad cover. It's so fuckin' bad in fact, that I love it!!!
This is like a B movie in an album cover sense!!! Who could have
possibly pitched this idea??? What did it cost to put
together...two bucks??? I mean just look at it!!! Nice freaking
grape jelly!!! The Ozzy discography, however, is full of bad
album covers (and few awesome ones!!!). BARK AT THE MOON is a
stinker (although again, I love it for the pure cheese factor)
and what the hell was was Ozzy thinkin' when he agreed to the
OZZMOSIS cover??? Then again, Ozzy was never known for his good judgment!!!
THE UGLY: Poison, LOOK WHAT THE CAT DRAGGED IN. I
actually like this album!!! It freakin' burns the whole way
through!!! The cover, on the other hand, is one of the most
hideous monstrosities ever forced upon the human race!!! Simply
hideous... |
The Good
The Bad
The Ugly
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Album cover art: judging a book by its cover
By Keith
I think if you take the time to put together a
good booklet for your CD it's worth it's weight in gold. Cool
artwork will grab a customer's attention, and even if that
person does NOT buy it I'm sure it will a topic of discussion
when he/she gets together with his/her friends. That will create
a buzz, and as any musician knows, any way you can get a buzz
working is great. Looking at the artwork of Guns N Roses
Appetite For Destruction disc, I saw some cool artwork. There
was a story behind the cover also. If you remember, the name of
the album came from a piece of art called Appetite For
Destruction. It was a picture of a futuristic monster attacked a
half-naked women. Now, as you may have guessed, this caused some
problems for the band. Many people, mostly women's
organizations, felt that the cover was inappropriate. This
helped create some much needed publicity for the unknown, at the
time, band. Upon caving into requests to change the cover art,
the band decided to use a tattoo that Axl had gotten after the
band had formed. Besides the fact that it was the cross bearing
skeleton figures of the band (very cool!!!), it created another
story for the band. Even before you opened the package to listen
to the music, which is probably one of the greatest hard rock
albums of all time, the band had created quite a story just off
of their artwork.
You gotta take what you can get when you're
trying to make it in the music business. |
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Album cover art: judging a book by its cover
By Skyklad
This is one of those situations where at times you actually
CAN judge a book by it´s cover, not all the time of course, but
a good majority of it. I say this out of personal experience. I´m
talking about situations before there was internet, soundfiles
and other metallers to actually converse with. My main method of
discovering new bands was to go into the local shops and peruse
through their miniscule metal sections (if there even WAS a
metal section) and see what albums "looked" cool.
I´d look at the logo, layout, songtitles and such and thus
found many cool bands in this manner. It is definitely
been a large factor in the discovery of new bands. Certainly it
cannot be said that I didn´t occasionally hit some really bad
bands who happen to have cool artwork though so in a
contradictory sense you can´t always judge a book by it´s
cover. LOL.
When it comes to the artwork it seems that no other
forms of music can transcend the ingenuity, artistry and
expressionalism that metal captures on album covers. It is
something that can even distinguish bands by genre. For example:
Power Metal albums generally have a very majestic scene or
fantasy oriented layout and Death Metal albums usually have very
morbid or disgusting scenes going on. All in all I think that
the cover art does play a big role in the metal world and it is
often utilized by many a metalhead to pick out something
different to explore. |
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