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People generally don’t buy wax anymore because digital music is easier to procure, but it’s still nice when a band expresses itself with creative cover art. In this vein, ArtVinyl has come up with their 50 nominees for best Art Vinyl in 2009. Their experts this year include Mark Sinclair of the Creative Review, Spencer Hicks from Rough Trade, and John Doran with The Quietus. After the jump, we select our top ten out of their picks. Who’d we both miss?
(1) Bat for Lashes: Two Suns, EMI. Art direction, concept: Natasha Khan. Design: Andrew Murabito. Cover photography: David Benjamin Sherry. Set design: Tony Hornecker.
(2) Skunk Anansie: Smashes & Trashes, One Little Indian. Design & Illustration: Shotopop. Photography: Derrick Santini.
(3) The Mars Volta: Octahedron, RLPE. Design: Sonny Kay. Original artwork: Jeff Jordan.
(4) Massive Attack: Splitting the Atom, Virgin. Design: Tom Hingston. Artwork: Robert del Naja, aka 3D.
(5) Jarvis Cocker: Further Complications, Rough Trade
(6) Smith Westerns: S/T, HoZac (Chicago)
(7) The Hours: See the Light, Is Good. Artwork: Damien Hirst.
(8) Baroness: Blue Record, Relapse. Artwork: John Dyer Baizley.
(9) Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca, Domino. Design: Rob Carmichael at Seen. Photography: Jason Frank
(10) Teeth of the Sea: Orphaned by the Ocean, Rocket
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23 Responses
The Low Anthem. Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
What about Motorpsychos “Child of the future” (Rune Grammofon) – now thats artwork. Kim Hiortøy rules!!!
Jarvis Cocker’s Further Complications? Really? As in, really? I favor minimalist types but he has done the same stylings with his first record. The latest one looks like he ransacked the garbage of a studio and took the rejected poses he did for his Rankin photoshoot. No Jarvis, you can do much better.
Great list, here’s mine!
http://heddaville.com/post/246172099/top-10-favorite-album-covers-of-2009-so-far
Jacuzzi Boys–No Seasons LP. I think the artist was some kinda psychedelic twelve-year old.
“People generally don’t buy wax anymore” – okay, so while I’ll allow that digital formats are easier to procure, wax is definitely very popular, and increasingly so. I work at Insound.com, a store that sells indie vinyl and other merchandise, and we just had our biggest sales month ever in October – and a LOT of that was vinyl. In a down economy, that’s a pretty powerful indicator of the power of wax, and its my opinion that full-sized art is an element of vinyl’s resurgence (superior audio quality probably the leading factor).
As for the art itself, I am a huge fan of the Skygreen Leopards’ “Gorgeous Johnny” http://bit.ly/GnWeP and Circulatory System’s “Signal Morning” http://bit.ly/18kl8e “Embryonic” by the Flaming Lips was also a fantastic cover, as was “The Spirit of Apollo” by N.A.S.A., but I don’t see what the big deal is about the “Bitte Orca” cover. I’m biased though… I sort of think everything that the Dirty Projectors touch is tainted by hype, which isn’t so much based on how good their music is, but rather on how recognizable they are. “Dirty Projector? Oh yeah! That band David Byrne likes.” Etc.
fever ray should be on this. and dirty projectors cover sucks.
where’s broadcast’s new album? it’s in THREEDEE!
[...] Flavorwire. 17 Nov 09 | Flowmi | Diseño, Objetos | 0 comentarios | flowardealo Etiquetas: arte | [...]
CORRECTION NEEDED: The Mars Volta cover is a painting by Jeff Jordan NOT Sonny Kay and it blows the rest of these out of the water…
Hi Yomama. I’ve added Jeff’s info, but Sonny was involved too, as far as I can tell.
Caroline! Yes, Sonny did do the design, I just wanted to make sure Jeff was credited as most of the cover is his painting…
The Mars Volta cover is the only one worthy of being considered. I can hardly believe the rest are even up for discussion.
massive atack
8, 6 and 2 are all much stronger than the poorly rendered mars volta cover
I don’t understand how a painting or an illustration borrowed from an artist put on a cover makes it a Top album cover !!!! Unless it’s create specially for the album those covers have nothing to do here.
However Jarvis Cocker, Bat for Lashes, Skunk Anansie deserve their place here.
I’ll have you know that the Teeth Of The Sea album cover was created specially for the album thank you, by a certain John Ball, who for some reason isn’t credited here.
As was The Mars Volta’s “Octahedron” (hence, the octahedron in the painting).
Yeah Jeff Jordan!
I like his style.
The Bats for Lashes cover is amazing. Great photographer.
Love Bat for Lashes, “Two Suns!”
The Smith Westerns lp is definately the best sounding of any of these turds.
BILL CALLAHAN!