Presentamos una nueva sección que llamaremos Twenty Items.
La selección de hoy se compone con las portadas de albums de rock que consideramos merecedoras de ser incluídas en cualquier lista de este género.
Al recorrer la lista, nos encontramos con una diversidad de métodos y opciones aplicadas al artwork del disco. Desde una ilustración que Crumb elaboró durante toda una noche para presentar el trabajo listo al amanecer, pasando por la gráfica de obras conceptuales que tienen a Orwell como fuente inspiradora, hasta tapas que sintetizan el discurso revolucionario de una época. Es que para algunos, la portada del disco -además de bonita- es una pieza también digna de admiración; es el objeto que contiene la música que nos reconforta, pero también es el contenido que nos lleva al disco cuando este dejó de sonar.
Para escuchar el disco: click en la imágen -ver arriba- o en el nombre del disco.
Comenzamos:
# 20 - American Idiot
Año: 2004
Banda: Green Day
Autor: Chris Bilheimer
“I'm sure there's psychological theories of it being the same color of blood and therefore has the powers of life and death...And as a designer I always feel it's kind of a cop-out, so I never used it before. But there was no way you couldn't use it on this cover.” (Spitz, Marc. Nobody Likes You: Inside the Turbulent Life, Times, and Music of Green Day.)
# 19 - Horses
Año: 1975
Banda: Patti Smith
Autor: Robert Mapplethorpe
The photo was taken by Mapplethorpe using only a Polaroid camera and the natural light in the apartment. The record company made attempts to alter the image, but Smith would not allow it. According to Smith, Mapplethorpe only had one rule for the photo shoot; if she wore a white shirt, it couldn’t be a dirty one. “I got my favourite ribbon and my favourite jacket, and he took about 12 pictures”, recalls Smith. By the eighth photo Mapplethorpe had exclaimed “I got it.” (vía)
# 18 - Nevermind
Año: 1991
Banda: Nirvana
Autor: Kirk Weddle (foto)
“If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.” K. Cobain (Azerrad, Michael. Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana. Doubleday, 1993.)
# 17 - Strange Days
Año: 1967
Banda: The Doors
Autor: Joel Brodsky
The trumpet player - Looking for someone to toot a horn, art director William S. Harvey collared a passing cab driver and offered him $5 to appear in the shot. The battered hat was the cabbie’s own. “He kept trying to get closer into the shot,” says Brodsky. “He called us for months after the shoot to try and find out where he could go to further his modelling career” (vía)
# 16 - Oktubre
Año: 2004
Banda: Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota
Autor: Rocambole
“En realidad esta imagen no es la original, cuando el disco salió en vinilo todavía ni existía. Un día el Indio me pidió que dibujase un aviso para anunciar un show, y así nació, de un dibujo hecho en la calle en cinco minutos; después, cuando se reeditó el disco, la imagen era tan popular que decidimos ponerla en el librillo del CD.” Rocambole (vía)
# 15 - St. Anger
Año: 2003
Banda: Metallica
“En las cuerdas que atan el puño apretado, encuentro una analogía a la sociedad uruguaya actual, televisada por Tenfield. Feliz día.” Un transeúnte, 18 de Julio y Andes.
# 14 - Disraeli Gears
Año: 1967
Banda: Cream
Autor: Martin Sharp
“In many ways, the way in which the title of "Disraeli Gears" came to happen represents a perfect example of the humor and joy one can find in being part of a band. As the story goes, Clapton and Baker were discussing the fact that Clapton wanted to buy a racing bicycle when one of their roadies, Mick Turner, noted that racing bicycles had, "it's got them Disraeli Gears." In truth, he meant to call them the proper term, "derailleur gears," but instead substituted the surname of the nineteenth century British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. For whatever reason, the band found this absolutely hilarious, and the name of their album is a never-ending reminder of Turner's comment. Disraeli Gears is also remembered for its shockingly vibrant cover, and the artwork featured on the cover is in many ways responsible for the "psychedelic art" movement that would become commonplace over the following years. Created by Australian artist Martin Sharp, he would go on to design pieces for everyone from Bob Dylan to Donovan, and his works remain the finest of the entire psychedelic art movement. Sharp also gave the group a poem when Clapton mentioned that they had music that needed lyrics. This poem turned out to become the b-side to the "Sunshine Of Your Love" single, and Sharp takes the writing credit for the song, "Tales Of Brave Ulysses." The rest of the songs of Disraeli Gears is a shared effort in terms of both music and lyrics, and this is one of the key reasons why the album is so fantastic.” (vìa)
# 13 - Dookie
Año: 1994
Banda: Green Day
Autor: Richie Bucher
“I wanted the art work to look really different. I wanted it to represent the East Bay and where we come from, because there's a lot of artists in the East Bay scene that are just as important as the music. So we talked to Richie Bucher. He did a 7-inch cover for this band called Raooul that I really liked. He's also been playing in bands in the East Bay for years. There's pieces of us buried on the album cover. There's one guy with his camera up in the air taking a picture with a beard. He took pictures of bands every weekend at Gilman's. The robed character that looks like the Mona Lisa is the woman on the cover of the first Black Sabbath album. Angus Young is in there somewhere too. The graffiti reading "Twisted Dog Sisters" refers to these two girls from Berkeley. I think the guy saying "The fritter, fat boy" was a reference to a local cop” Billie Joe Armstrong
# 12 - In the Court of the Crimson King
Año: 1969
Banda: King Crimson
Autor: Barry Godber
“Barry Godber was not a painter but a computer programmer. That painting was the only one he ever did. He was a friend of Peter Sinfield, and died in 1970 of a heart attack at age 24. Peter brought this painting in and the band loved it. I recently recovered the original from EG's offices because they kept it exposed to bright light, at the risk of ruining it, so I ended up removing it. The face on the outside is the Schizoid Man, and on the inside it's the Crimson King. If you cover the smiling face, the eyes reveal an incredible sadness. What can one add? It reflects the music.” Robert Fripp (vía)
# 11 - Diamond Dogs
Año: 1974
Banda: David Bowie
Autor: Guy Peellaert
“The Stones' It's Only Rock N' Roll and Bowie's Diamond Dogs are among Peellaert's most famous work, which also includes a book of rock star iconography entitled Rock Dreams. The Diamond Dogs artwork was especially controversial upon its release as it depicted Bowie as a half-man/half-dog with a genitalia. Later prints of the vinyl had the genitalia airbrushed out, but the original artwork was restored when the album was released on CD. Peellaert also created posters for films like Taxi Driver, Short Cuts and Paris, Texas.” (vía)
# 10 - Weasels Ripped my Flesh
Año: 1970
Banda: Frank Zappa
Autor: Neon Park
“Neon Park was working as a poster artist with the Family Dog, a San Francisco design group, when he got a call from Frank Zappa asking him to come down to Los Angeles. Zappa had seen the drawings Park had done for a group called Dancing Food and wanted him to paint the jacket for the next Mothers of Invention record, Weasels Ripped My Flesh. At their meeting, Zappa showed Park a magazine cover. "It was one of those men's magazines, like Saga," says Park. "The cover story was 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh,' and it was the adventure of a guy, naked to the waist, who was in water. The water was swarming with weasels, and they were all kind of climbing on him and biting him. So Frank said, 'This is it. What can you do that's worse than this?' And the rest is history.” (vía)
# 09 - Hail to the Thief
Año: 2003
Banda: Radiohead
“The colors just look great because they're taken from signs of desire to be noticed at high speed. They are very pleasing colors-- but the frantic-ness and intensity of them is slightly disturbing as well. Advertising is designed to be seductive and attractive and, in a lot of ways, it's very beautiful. But there's something unsettling about being continually sold something. I liked taking the elements of roadside advertising out of context because it removes the imperative and just goes to the essence of it-- the pure heart of advertising. (...) It's also ominous because all these colors that I've used are derived from the petrol-chemical industry. They're only possible because of the fractioning of hydrocarbons. That's how they get the pigments. None of it is natural. It essentially comes from black sludge. We've created this incredibly vibrant society, but we're going to have to deal with the consequences sooner or later.” (vía)
# 08 - Cheap Thrills
Año: 1968
Banda: Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin)
Autor: Robert Crumb
“me sentí halagado y necesitaba el dinero, así que lo hice. Por supuesto lo querían para algo así como al día siguiente, así que me tomé algo de speed y trabajé toda la noche. Recuerdo acabarlo después de que saliera el sol” Crumb (vía)
# 07 - London Calling
Año: 1979
Banda: The Clash
Autores: Ray Lowry (diseñador) - Pennie Smith
(fotógrafa)
“Esa fue la única vez en la historia del grupo y en la vida de Paul Simonon que destrozó un bajo. A pesar del cabreo de aquel día, al acabar recogió las piezas y se las llevó consigo. A día de hoy, aún las conserva”
"Al igual que la portada del debut de Presley capturó perfectamente en una imagen la irrupción desatada del rock’n’roll, la de “London calling” hizo lo propio con el espíritu del punk y el post-punk, en un disco que asombrosamente incorporaba la iconografía de un pasado que parecía haber quedado definitivamente atrás y que sumaba también sus sonidos (ska, soul, funk, pop, reggae, rockabilly…), algunos de los cuales conducían precisamente hasta el momento en que Presley irrumpió en la escena para cambiar la música popular para siempre.” (vía)
# 06 - Push the Button
Año: 2005
Banda: The Chemical Brothers
Autores: Tappin Gofton, Big Active, Kam Tang
I’ve always liked both The Chemical Brothers music and their artwork. Push The Button is no exception. I was about to talk about their latest (and pretty damn good) album ‘We Are the Night’ but thought I’d wait to see if any more singles are released before delving into that one.
What I didn’t realize before starting research on Push the Button was there were so much artwork created for it. There’s three singles, each with a second disc and a colour variation, a live album, ITV and even two fan based bootleg remix albums! All kept in the same iconic styling and each supporting the iconic look of the album cover. And that’s not even counting press ads, posters, flyers.
The style of artwork reminds me of Soviet propaganda posters of the post WW1 era. Their limited colour palette and stark imagery stands out in a CD rack of over produced imagery.
Each singles artwork has a theme and is carried across both covers. The second cover was created the UK release where two discs were released. The rest of the world received just the single disc.
Galvanize was the first single and is themed “Construction” or maybe “Destruction” depending on how you read the artwork.
# 05 - Dark Side of the Moon
Año: 1973
Banda: Pink Floyd
Autores: Storm Thorgerson (diseño) - George Hardie (ilustración)
The idea itself was cunningly cobbled from a standard physics textbook, which illustrated light passing through a prism. Of significance was the simple, elegant layout against black – standard textbook illustrations did not do this. Also important to the art direction, was the fortuitous decision to listen to Rick Wright, who suggested we do something clean, elegant and graphic, not photographic – not a figurative picture. And then to connect this idea to their live show, which was famous for its lighting, and subsequently to connect this to ambition and madness, themes Roger was exploring in the lyrics… hence the prism, the triangle and the pyramids. (vía)
# 04 - Revolver
Año: 1966
Banda: The Beatles
Autor: Klaus Voormann
Voormann was nervous when he brought his new creation to The Beatles at Abbey Road
Studios. “I put it up on the shelf, and there was silence in the room. I was shaking. Then they came over and started talking details and the ice was broken and I was so happy.” Paul remembers that day, “ It was very exciting to see the drawing. It was, ‘Wow, what a great cover!’” “And that…”, says Klaus decades later, “…made me so happy.” (vía)
# 03 - Animals
Año: 1977
Banda: Pink Floyd
Autor: Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Powell
La imagen muestra el ahora infame cerdo, que es el sinónimo de los shows en vivo de Pink Floyd, flotando sobre la usina elctrica de Battersea en el sudeste de Londres. Tomó tres dias lograr la toma que fue usada, y en el segundo día el cerdo se escapó y flotó dentro del recorrido de los aviones que debían aterrizar en el aeropuerto de Heathrow. Treinta años más tarde el callejero se volvió a escapar, esta vez en la actuación de Roger Waters en el Festival de Coachella. (vía)
“De una forma parecida al clásico Rebelión en la Granja de George Orwell, el alegórico ciclo de canciones de Waters, divide a la especie humana en tres categorías, cada una de las cuales da título a una pieza principal del álbum. Los cerdos son moralistas, santurrones y tiránicos, pero en definitiva patéticos; los perros, pragmáticos y competitivos, dispuestos a usar sus garras para llegar a la cumbre; las ovejas forman un rebaño sumiso y masificado (¿la visión que tenía Roger sobre el público de Pink Floyd?), insignificantes soñadores cuya única función en la vida es ser usados y objeto de abuso de los perros y los cerdos. Se trata, por cierto, de algo muy distinto de la caprichosa fauna antropomórfica de aquel Viento entre los sauces que tanto le gustaba a Barrett (aunque tal vez no tan distinto de las depredadoras "ratas" del Syd post-Floyd).
Sin embargo, a diferencia del disco Diamond Dogs que David Bowie grabara años antes, inspirado directamente en 1984, la trilogía animal de Pink Floyd no era una mera adaptación del libro de Orwell. Mientras el modelo de la alegoría de Orwell era claramente la Unión Soviética, el blanco de los ataques de Roger era el sistema capitalista e individualista de su propia sociedad. Y mientras en Rebelión en la granja los cerdos terminaban haciéndose con el poder, la obra de Pink Floyd llega a su clímax con una rebelión de las vengativas ovejas, una vez que por fin se despiertan de su complaciente estupor.” (Nicholas Schaffner - La odisea de PINK FLOYD - pgs 212-213)
# 02 - Goo
Año: 1990
Banda: Sonic Youth
Autor: Raymond Pettibon
It's one of the most iconic record covers in the history of indie rock, and was drawn by the artist Raymond Pettibon based on this old photograph. The cover has been used on a lot of merchandise, and has been parodied many times over. All of these images were found on a Tumblr called Goo Mashups, and some were created specifically to appear on that site. (vía)
# 01 - Wish You Were Here
Año: 1975
Banda: Pink Floyd
Autores: Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Powell y George Hardie
“Se necesitaron tres tomas y veinte minutos para conseguir la imagen. Ronnie se colocó un traje ignífugo debajo de sus ropas, una capucha y una peluca, y se le roció con gasolina a la que prendieron fuego”
Ningún equipo artístico ha dejado tanta huella en el diseño relacionado con el rock como Hipgnosis. Fundado en 1968 en el Reino Unido, sus socios eran Storm Thorgerson y Aubrey Powell, a los que se unió posteriormente Peter Christopherson (más tarde, componente de Throbbing Gristle) antes de su disolución en 1983. Ellos son responsables de numerosas portadas recordadas y admiradas por generaciones, realizadas para artistas como Led Zeppelin, Yes, T. Rex, The Pretty Things, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, XTC, 10 CC, Wings o Pink Floyd. De todas ellas, quizás la más celebrada es la que diseñaron para “Wish you were here” (1975).
El propio David Gilmour, guitarrista, vocalista y compositor de Pink Floyd, resumió todo lo anterior en unas declaraciones suyas que bien sirven de punto final: “A pesar de lo difícil que era darle continuidad a ‘The dark side of the Moon’ y la falta de comunicación dentro de la banda en 1974 y 1975, conseguimos hacer el que considero que es nuestro mejor disco, o al menos mi favorito. Para mí la música trata del espacio y la soledad. Storm hizo una portada que era un espejo visual que reflejaba perfectamente el sentimiento de la ausencia que impregnaba por aquel entonces tanto a la música como a los músicos que la hicieron”. (vía)
Antes de terminar, pregunto: ¿cuáles faltaron?
