The artwork adorning The Love Club EP is a fitting example of Lorde's iconoclasm. She has found favor for a kind of social commentary that goes distinctly against the grain. Her youth and pop sense would encourage predictions otherwise, but the reality is Lorde is relentlessly sensible and speaks honestly in ways that people can identify with, if they can't however find much of it in popular music. The embrace of marginalized creatures and undervalued stones in this beautifully rendered minimalist cover parallels her sensibility. Apps that adorn images with animal features are giving way to ones that adorn with 'floral headdresses', 'reefs of leaves', and 'olive frond crowns'. One can assume the idea came from this album art even if the olive crowns in the app have been gilded with some blinding gold/platinum alloy of contrasting (and preposterous) regality.
The cover for the Stone Temple Pilots classic album Purple is a fine example of cultural appropriation in the effort of homage. The Qilin ridden by the child is said to herald the death or birth of a great ruler. Considering the maidens at attendance it can be assumed the child is in fact that great ruler and is thusly arriving. Such a spirited composition on the musical work of a western artist can be interpreted as opportunity for and encouragement to cultural transcendence and unity. Coincidentally, blacks in the U.S. have lately made hay of cultural appropriation, and recently attacked Norwegian vlogger Gilan Sharafani for her tutorial on "heat-less curls" allegedly involving "bantu knots". As this album also intimates, I can assure you: wherever people have had hair, and as far back as they have had hair, they have made "bantu" knots regardless of race and probably without giving credit to Miss Bantu or King Bantu or whoever. The Chinese symbol for Purple is an ambling top-heavy creation to which some Nigerians might say "Batá" a common salutation that means "take a load off".
In their 2nd collection, Chvrches has moved on from the stark iconographic imagery that once seemed their calling-card. Iconography contrasts greatly with photo-realism and artist making that transition on album covers might find people expecting the works to as well be drastically different.
This is an example of musicians and their artistic directors refusing to compromise a work of art during the difficult process of appending titles. For Down For You Ta-Ku has chosen a composition that complements and enhances the artwork of the chosen artist rather than distracting from or lazily commercializing it. Samuel Burgess-Jonhson's floral art is reminiscent of the teleological style of Massive Attack's 2006 album cover for Collected. The still-life photography differs in its full bleed and achieves its sombering effects less through hallucination and more so through emotionally affective saturation and darkness.
The trio has skipped that conversation in favor of a 2D artwork that psychologically elicits notions of motion picture and/or motion graphics. Behind signs and symbols was an attractive outfit and fans were very much into the visual appreciation of Chvrches at-work by Every Open Eye. Anyone who thought a sense of depth would be lost on this album, or would be overshadowed by bright artwork, underestimates the depth intrinsic to Chvrches' compositions including the composition of this cover.
One of the greater photographic album covers in existence adorns Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. Most will recall how at first glance they were unaware of the precipitation that gives the picture its general mood, perhaps characterizing it in their minds as a faddish or caricatured representation. However, the turned-up collar is intrinsic to the accentuation of the rain as an issue to be reckoned with. The album and titular single are full of reckoning with social issues, yet always in that way of Marvin Gaye's that doesn't sacrifice art in the process. The composition has a gothic flare and the typeface showcases letter-case homogeneity, indeed using all lower-case lettering in the title before the turn of the millennium popularity of such stylings. The gotham intoned by the overall work has a more specifically feudal tone when the letterforms are considered. This may lead one to infer that not just disparity, but accumulation was as well a concept Gaye was attempting to reckon with and account for.
COVER CRITIC
The classic The Who cover The Kids are Alright is particularly relevant today during the fallout from Britain's vote to leave the European Union. The counter-protest is raging, the architects of the divorce are faltering, and Scotland and Ireland are considering leaving the UK to rejoin the EU. Flags of different nations have different aptitudes when it comes to visual display. Some, may look most aesthetically appealing hanging vertically. Some raised horizontally. Some yet look best conically skirting around a staff in a ceremonial setting. This album shows the Union-Jack's ideal propensity is as a blanket draped over four sleeping lads.
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