The Sound Board

The only thing I really miss from Vinyl.

I've just been listening to The Police, and was so struck by the cover of their Ghost In The Machine cover art. Embarrasingly, despite it being extremely striking I don't think I ever once bothered to think about it (in my defence I never owned this album)



Of course I looked at it for a few seconds 40 years later and suddenly saw it clear as day. And thought "genius".

Probably the first designer that comes to mind on the subject is Peter Saville, who was one of the brians behind Factory Records in the UK which spawned a whole factory of iconic designs, none more influential than Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures:



1980. The lead female character in Speilberg's sci-fi Ready Player One was still wearing this as a T-Shirt in 2045 (whose appropriation kinda irritated me but there we go). It's not Fairlight CMI fourier analysis as I always assumed, but the radio signal of a Pulsar. I don't really know what that says about anything to do with the actual record, but it does look cool.

But the designer who had the most impact on me was Michael Granger. His painting, Oxygene, was bought by Charlotte Rampling, Jean Michel Jarre's wife, and so became immortalised by not just the artwork but the name itself.



Now that's one arresting image and arguably more relevant today than in 1976. Even thick 10 year old me couldn't miss its meaning.

Jarre's follow up Equinoxe always fascinated and disturbed me too. Creepy as hell.



(incidentally, looking at the two now - why the minor typeface change on the slants?)

Amid the many iconic covers much clebrated and discussed over the years - Nirvana's Never Mind, The Beatles Abbey Road - which ones did you keep staring at as you grew up?

Fabulous thread and where to begin with ?
Hypgnosis ? Peter Saville ? 23 enveloppe ? Designers Republic ? Anton Corbjîn ?
So much to write about…

Peter Saville was the man. A modest one at that - I don’t think he ever considers himself an artist, rather a designer who refurbishes artistry of the past.

Erik wrote: ↑Mar 11, 2024 8:46 am Peter Saville was the man. A modest one at that - I don’t think he ever considers himself an artist, rather a designer who refurbishes artistry of the past.

Perhaps the most brilliant and bonkers of his designs was the original 12" sleeve for New Order's Blue Monday:



Those bits of black were holes. And production costs were so expensive with the specced card used, holes punched in it etc that Factory Rercords lost money on every sale.

Erik mentioned this thread recently and I thought it was due a re-airing. Anyone else got any good contenders? Especially ones with stories attached.

Here's another era defining pair for me. First, U2's Boy:



Striking, huh? Written in the latter teenage years, the whole album is about adolescence ("in the shadows boy meets man") but specifically it seems to me about wishing to hold on to childhood innocence.

There's a place I go
And I am far away
There's a TV show
And I can grow
Sometimes the hero takes me
Sometimes I don't let go
Stories for boys.

The boy himself was the younger brother of Bono's friend Guggi from the Virgin Prunes (this gang all had ridiculous names and pretended to live in the fictional Lypton Village).

However, Island records were concerned it could be perceived as pedophilic so changed the cover for the American release::



The band's second and often melancholic album October was just a shot of the four of them at the docks in Dublin. But for the third, War, they did this:



...which pretty clearly speaks for itself I think, but only so in reference to the original cover of their first album. And yes, it was the same boy, Peter Rowan. As an adult, Peter became a photographer. From Rolling Stone magazine in 2011:

It also afforded him a rather spooky interaction. While on assignment, a stranger once struck up a conversation with him. “A guy started talking to me about my camera and said he used to be a photographer and his most famous picture was ‘War,'” he says. “I said, ‘that was me!’ He’s a judge now.”

U2 has long since moved on to other subjects for their album art. And a few years ago, they gave Rowen a photo they took for one of their covers, with a message on the back from Bono that read: “Stay a child. I am enjoying it.”

On the outside, at least, Rowen is still an adult. And few can ever tell that he was once the boy from the album covers. “When people find out, sometimes they say my eyes are still the same,” he says.

EDIT - just noticed that this was in the Legacy section, so going to ask Erik if he's okay if we move the whole thread to the new open section.

Moved topic from archived posts.