Brightest Young Things

With a great deal of sadness we tucked away the Judging A Cover By Its Cover column into designer mothballs this year. Not to say/threaten that it couldn’t return in the near future, but there is no chance whatsoever that we would allow 2010: The Year in Packaging to go without comment. You know the drill cats and kittens – several sites provide some halfass version of this and then we layeth the smacketh downeth like our step-sister’s life depended on it for the fourth year and counting. (Which is to say that we care waaaaay more than they do, but let’s not get carried away like it’s a blood relative or anything.)

This will run much like the usual best and worst listings (and terribly similar to the last three years) but first we need a few ground rules. I will be judging covers based on expectations and possibilities as much as – if not more than – basic aesthetics. This means if you are a pop songstress and you produced a cover with your big ol’ airbrushed yap on the cover with scripty type and filigrees or you are a Top 40 rapper with a tough looking photo of you with your shirt off and bling to the gills draped all over the place – well, of course you did – and Merry Christmas, as I have left a pass under the tree for you.

If you are the bald guy from Live… well, you get a pass because I am just stunned to hear that you are still putting out music and can’t be bothered to view your design by template cover. If you were Eminem – when did you completely give up on this part of your game?

If it universally sucks than I won’t waste my time mentioning it here either (this especially applies to fading stars this year with hokey covers – looking at you Robert Plant, Richard Thompson, Hole, etc…)

As a side note – I wonder how great that Kanye concept would have been if I thought the images in the window were halfway decent? Pretty great I think. Of course, we’ll never know.

If you are a dead serious indie rock band – you might not fare as well… This is for items worthy of discussion only and to shame those that should know better and praise the proud few.

We are stretching this holiday joy into a two day affair, so yesterday was the red hot, just back from the club, 24 hour romp in the sack (and kitchen and hallway and your roommate’s bed and…) while today reveals the harsh reality that all of the painkillers from your knee surgery are missing from the medicine cabinet and your couch smells like urine and you think that girl that just left your group house in your roommate’s Volvo might be your third cousin.

So yeah – today brings out the WORSTies:

I don’t want to seem like a grumpy old man (too late! rings out the chorus) but the kids today… I know there has been a massive reduction in design budgets for many labels and the resistance to bands/artists producing their own artwork for releases has greatly diminished. It saves a lot of arguing and as less investment happens on the packaging end you don’t want to ruin your relationship with an artist over a 500x500 dpi jpeg. I KNOW why there is so much shitty design out there and why so few professionals seem to be involved in it. However, when it becomes so widespread that massive, well-funded campaigns and labels that put truckloads of effort into each individual package are infected, well – it’s the shits. The fact that this list will play out like so many other folks "top records of 2010" doesn't help my hopes for the future either.

There seems to be a current fashion aesthetic that embraces looking like you dressed yourself in the dark AND in someone else’s thrift store ravaged closet. Looking intentionally bad is supposed to be interpreted as "good." If you want to go out the door totally ragged and mismatched, it doesn’t bother me in the least; if you want to bring that same mindset to slathering craptastic collages all over your brilliant music – then you clearly want to see a hulking man break down and weep before you.

It’s all over but the crying…

Pairing girl group melodies with throwaway lyrics and a blanket of warm fuzz made Best Coast incredibly successful this year. It baked up (literally) an intoxicating appeal that proved hard to resist. Everything about them seemed to be marketed perfectly, and having Bethany Cosentino tweet away played like an innocent wild card – until they put out a record. Having your cat be the star of your twitter account is humorous. Having Snacks be the only requirement for your album cover is the very definition as to why most band’s are the worst people to actually sell their music. The half ass reference to vintage boardwalk postcards doesn’t help but just think about how that cat is going to look historically. Fifty years from now? It won’t seem so cute or funny no matter how high you get.

Sub Pop has famously allowed their bands just enough rope for decades. The part that is so criminal is that they have assembled some of the top designers in the world as their in-house department. Doesn’t matter when your friend has this bad ass drawing of a four-eyed Minotaur now does it? Taking away the “placed tied for seventh in my High School art contest” quality of this drawing, the most egregious factor is that this couldn’t look less like Blitzen Trapper sound! I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything less from a folk rock act that titles it’s record “Destroyer of the Void?”

Dom made some of the most interesting pop music of the year. They radiate talent. They also dress like they just had their suitcases stolen and had to wear whatever was in a soiled box down in their new friend’s basement. Unfortunately, their sleeves are closer to their shirts than their tunes. Mis-matched and poorly executed collage garbage (look at that non-clipping around the trees - look at it I tells ya!!!) that disguises any of the brilliance awaiting the listener. They do it all the time. This is just one example. It’s depressing.

Speaking of depressing - haha - I will be the first to admit that I don’t really “get” The National. All the pieces are in place but I just feel like the songwriting doesn’t reach the heights of the overall sound that they produce. Even though I felt the early records were just so so design-wise, I thought they were on target with the black and white photography etc… With “High Violet” they use artist Mark Fox’s “The Binding Force” to numbing effect. The funny part is that Fox has an abundance of sculpture and drawings that could have fit their music – yet they chose one of the pieces least characteristic of his body of work and most like a 1989 dance single from The Information Society. Epic fail. Be sure to really force the type in there while you have the chance as well.

The melted faces of the cheerleaders should work on the cover of Sleigh Bells “Treats.” But it ends up being the same disconnect the duo has as a live act – drawing on Derek Miller’s old hardcore mindset – rather than the new take on pop music they have on record. They roll all around in hooks and fat beats and the fact that they take both to a new sort of extreme is what makes them so damn exciting. To act like it is some sort of ironic stance is not only career suicide, but just plain dishonest. This cover seems to personify that confused stance.

It’s pink/purple checkerboard time kids! Surfer Blood with horrible type and perhaps the most clichéd image imaginable for them – weak business and misses the mark on their guitar textures within. Totally resolved and polished in turn is the MGMT cover. The problem is that the mix of 80’s videogame doesn’t want to play nice with the 60’s psychedelic swirl. Maybe this cover is actually perfect for the mess that awaits the listener?

Continuing our ruby hues is some of the worst photoshop work ever committed to what might be declared a landmark record 20 years from now. Ariel Pink patches together intricate pop relays to twist and turn your ears into the sweetest corners. He makes you believe that there is nothing wrong with mashing five songs worth of ideas into two minutes. Yet, the cover manages to create not one single element of believability in it’s photo retouching. Sure, it is a hokey context to begin with, but at least execute it in a professional manner. I am also struck by how creepy the band come across and what an instant improvement it would be to remove them.

I said I would let Taylor Swift off the hook for vacant imagery and big scripty type. You, Band of Horses, are no Taylor Swift.

I remember hearing about Warpaint pulling themselves off a small local show early in the year and hearing that “things were happening” for them. I didn’t really see why at the time - and I still don’t. While I can hum along to small parts of “The Undertow,” this album art seemed to more than confirm the misplaced attention they are receiving. Horrendous (and ugly) painting or digital mess – who knows? Don't care? Check. Clumsy, clunky type with massive drop shadow/glow that is strewn across the top super big - yet still visually illegible? Check. Crying so hard that I just shorted out my laptop? Check.

Our final two covers brought me particular discomfort, as they featured some of the finest bursts of pop music this year (or any year for that matter.) I read an interview in Tape Op with Yeasayer where they described writing a really hooky pop song and then trying to fuck it up as much as you can and add in strange bits until it is almost unrecognizable – yet still has that pop song at it’s heart. They managed to do that to incredible effect on half of the tracks on this record and created insane dance music for record collectors and club kids alike, but you can never lose track of the “pop” part. For the sleeve art, Chris Keating lost track. Using Benjamin Phelan’s art is a HUGE mistake and it is not attractive to either audience - or anyone for that matter. Much like The National’s issue – Phelan is very talented and has numerous sculptures/installations that would have served as excellent choices – just not this option.

This is one of the best albums of the year. It is also a burning example of what happens when someone with no skill whatsoever tries to make an album cover look like a professional did it – without actually hiring a talented professional. When Twin Shadow played here recently I grabbed George Lewis Jr. and asked him what was happening business-wise with the record. When he told me 4AD would be re-releasing it, I squeezed his arm and leaned in with force and told him “be sure to get Vaughan Oliver to design the packaging, it could be the best part about being on 4AD.” He smiled back at me. I repeated it and squeezed harder. I meant it. I really meant it.

John Foster owns his very own design firm, Bad People Good Things, and he writes lots of books – you should own a pile! “1,000 Indie Posters” is out this very moment, just in time for your holiday shopping. Be sure to pick up “For Sale” or “Dirty Fingernails” or perhaps that paperback of “New Masters of Poster Design” your granny had her eye on as well.

Previously in END OF YEAR 2010 LISTS:

• 1/21: Songs To Consider ...
• 1/4: The Top Ten Sneakers of 2010
• 12/30: Top Ten Guilty Pleasures of 2010
• 12/21: The Best Musical Moments of 2010
• 12/20: Songs That Made Me! Happy in 2010
• 12/15: Best Music Packaging of 2010
• 12/14: Top 10 Movie Superlatives of 2010!
• 12/8: Music You May Have Missed In 2010
• 12/7: Knock-Out Movies of 2010