Great Album Art From the CD Era

For those of us who take our music seriously and also who remember the (original) days of vinyl, the art and packaging of the album as a self-contained work of art is as important as the music contained within.  While the art of the original vinyl era of the 1960s and 1970s and even the new vinyl that is being released now is highly regarded, it's also used as further proof that vinyl beats all other formats.  Now, I've written about my love of vinyl and the personal experiences and memories I have of it and those feelings will never change. However, as someone who grew up in the peak period of the CD age and whose collection is predominantly on CD (1000+ CDs and counting), I also need to defend this assertion that only vinyl albums have worthwhile art and packaging.  Since you're currently reading this, it's obvious what my intentions are with this post, so without further ado let me set up what I want to share with you.

While interest in CDs and sales of the format are at an all time low, for many of us who are old enough to remember an era before digital music, physical formats will always trump digital-only collecting. I like having my most beloved music in a physical format for a variety of reasons, chief among them because I value the art and packaging as much as the sounds and, God forbid my ipod or hard drive crashes (and it has happened to me...twice), I still have copies to fall back upon. When bands still released their music primarily on CDs, many of them took as much care and effort into the artwork and packaging as their foreefathers in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s did.  As someone whose musical tastes spans the early 1960s to the present, I've seen this firsthand and so I want to share some of my favorite examples from my own massive CD collection.

(***A NOTE*** I am not taking into account reissues of albums from the 1960s and 1970s on CD which include the original artwork/packaging/booklets/inserts/etc. Not because they're not great...they are! But these are CD versions of the original vinyl albums. I am only focusing on albums released during the CD era, which I am defining as 1985-present, when the primary/only format bands released their albums on was CD***)

***...and please keep in mind that this list is purely subjective; these are simply some of my favorite examples!*** 

...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead

One of my favorite modern bands also happens to be one of the leading lights when it comes to keeping the flame of great album packaging burning bright.  Trail of Dead play a bombastic mix of noisy alternative and grandiose epic progressive rock and their album art always has the cinematic scope to match the music.  Part of the reason is that they are fortunate to have a fantastically talented artist in Conrad Keely, who also happens to be the chief singer/songwriter/guitarist/creative force within the band.  Keely is responsible for drawing and/or painting all of the album covers and inserts, as well as writing the accompanying liner notes and librettos.  As a fellow lifelong comic book fan, Keely's approach really appeals to my sensibilities and these albums could just have easily have been released in the 1970s or 80s and fit right in.   All of their albums have great art but the ones below are my personal favorites from their discography.  

The first album of theirs to have truly elaborate art was 2005's Worlds Apart, with a Marvel Secret Wars-inspired front cover, an elaborate triptych gatefold, and a booklet with illustrated lyrics.

The inner triptych

Their 2009 album, The Century of Self, had artwork from Keely that was drawn 100% in blue ballpoint pen which is very intricate and striking.

2001's Tao of the Dead was a gorgeous package where there was more to the story than just the music.  Several of the tracks on the album are part of a story Keely is working on called "Strange News From Another Planet" and the album art incorporates characters and scenes from the story. Also included in the package is a graphic novel containing the first part of the story (the rest is supposed to be forthcoming as a standalone graphic novel in the future).

The mini graphic novel

Inside the mini graphic novel

For 2012's Lost Songs, the CDs are housed in a thick book containing a 180-page story (with illustrations) by Conrad Keely. The CDs also contain the album in two versions: one version as discrete tracks, the other version as one continuous, segued piece of music.

That is a thick book to come with some CDs!

Their latest album, from 2014 and entitled IX, continues their tradition of elaborately designed artwork and illustrated booklet.

Some fans and critics consider the band's presentation to be ostentatious and over the top, but that's one of things I love about them. Besides the music, they understand that the experience of an album involves more than just the music; it's an appeal to the imagination and to the senses.


Radiohead

While Radiohead is well known and highly regarded for their ambitious music, they also have very interesting artwork for all of their albums (except for maybe their debut), which is due to their collaboration with artist Stanley Donwood. Each of their albums have interesting presentations, but the ones below are my favorites.

2000's Kid A had very stark, ominous artwork which in and of itself was cool, but there was something else hidden underneath the CD tray...

What's that under the tray?

...why, it's a second album booklet containing some very interesting, bizarre, and disturbing artwork and writing.

Pop off the tray and voila! Bonus booklet!

Lots of weird clues and things in this one...

Their 2007 album In Rainbows was notorious because the band let fans name their own price to download it before the physical version was released in stores. However, if you're like me and you must have the physical version, you were in for a treat with the packaging.

The package folds open to show a bunch of goodies...

...including the CD in slipcase as well as stickers and inserts in order to create your own jewel box version of the album (if you so desire).

Construct your own jewel box, complete with stickers and inserts

2011's King of Limbs, while a rather disappointing album (my opinion), has neat packaging, being presented like an old vinyl album. It opens up into a gatefold with the CD held on the right hand side.

The Smashing Pumpkins

I distinctly remember buying this mammoth double album when it came out in 1995; I'd been a fan of the Pumpkins from their first album and after the exquisite Siamese Dream I was curious where they would go. What they ended up releasing was a sprawling epic that was 1990s American alternative rock's version of The White Album, and that included the packaging.

Each disc had its own title and theme and the album came with two booklets.

The first booklet contained elaborate color art that loosely (maybe?) related to the music but was nonetheless interesting to look at.

The second booklet was made to look like an old manuscript and had the lyrics for all of the songs accompanied by little drawings and doodles.

Beck

Beck's 2006 album is great musically, while artistically it was a blank slate...literally. Apart from a sticker with his name on it, the album cover was nothing more than blank graph paper. This was because... 

Where's the cover art?

...Beck invited his fans to create their own unique album cover! His thinking was that no two covers would be alike and in order to accommodate this, there were six sheets of stickers with different graphics and logos.

I've never had the heart to use the stickers, but it's still cool to look at them every once and a while

Mansun

You all know Mansun are a favorite band of mine for their music, but I also have always enjoyed the artwork for these two following albums.  Their second album, 1998's epic Six, is one of the lost masterpieces of the 1990s; a quasi-prog rock album with layer upon layer of complexity that somehow was categorized as BritPop when it came out!  The striking album cover is full of clues and references to the music contained within, as well as items of personal meaning to the members of the band.

The album was set up to be listened to like two-sided vinyl, complete with an interlude track halfway through. The booklet has lots of great photos of the band as well as the lyrics to the songs and is more like a theatre program than an album booklet.

Finally, I've always liked the painting on the rear cover of the booklet...the other half of the day for the cover's central figure (and it also happens to be a reference to my favorite song on the album, "Television.")

Mansun's fourth and final album, Kleptomania, was released in 2004 (after the band split up) due to fan pressure from a petition that was signed and submitted to Paul Draper and EMI/Parlophone. It was a 3CD set, with the first CD containing the final album, the 2nd CD containing popular singles and B-sides, and the third CD made up of rarities and demos. I just really like the presentation of the package, from the clear slipcase to the way the black and white lettering looks when the case is unfolded. The booklet is again a thing of beauty with notes about each song from Paul as well as lots of great photos and a potted history of the band.

The Bluetones

Last but not least, the second album from another favorite band of mine; this is probably also my favorite album of theirs. In keeping with the theme of the title, the booklet for 1998's Return to the Last Chance Saloon is hidden behind mini saloon doors which need to be opened before you can get at all of the lyrics and recording info. Neat!

Miniature saloon doors!

There you have it, some examples of what I think are great album packaging and art from the CD era. There are many more within my collection and I have a feeling I'll be doing at least one more post like this as I happen to go through and pull some of those albums out in the future, but these were the examples that came instantly to mind when I thought of doing this post. I hope you enjoyed it and would love to know what you consider some examples of great CD-era album art from your own collection.  Please share in the comments below!

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ANNOUNCEMENT: My Upcoming Book on Mansun

After a long gestation period and a bit of a delay (assuming you can consider three and a half years only a "bit" of a delay), I'm happy to announce that my next writing project will be a new book on one of my favorite bands of all time, Mansun. After I had published the first edition of my book on Blur's live history, Black Book,  in 2009, I began working on a similar book about Mansun. However, from late 2010 to the present I hadn't done any work on it. The few people I'd mentioned it to on the now defunct Mansun and Paul Draper message boards at the time didn't forget and I continued to be asked about its status the last few years. Fast forward to 2014 and there is a resurgence of interest in the band, a coalescence of those of us who have kept our passion for the band for many, many years and new fans who are only just discovering the brilliance of their music. There was a hugely sucessful fan convention in Chester, England only a couple of days ago where fans gathered, with band memorabilia on display, Mansun tribute bands, a souvenir programme, and the premiere of a new Paul Draper solo track, "Feeling My Heart Run Slow," for his (hopefully) forthcoming first solo album. The song was excellent and you can listen to it below.

The new book, provisionally titled "Rock and Roll Losers: Mansun 1995-2003" will be similar in format to my two Blur books (Black Book volumes 1 & 2) in that they were detail the live concert history of the band via available live recordings. Each concert will have an entry with the set list, sound quality, length, and description of the performances. In addition, there will be photographs from concerts as well as any live memorabilia I can get a hold of (ticket stubs, gig flyers, concert posters, etc). Finally, I have the backing of not only the organizers of the Mansun Convention, but of Paul Draper himself, who has offered his input and assistance and to whom I am most grateful.  I intend, if possible, to include a section at the beginning of the book with a biography of the band and more insight into their career as well as their concerts, hopefully using Paul and Andie Rathbone's own recollections. I'm tentatively scheduling the release date for Christmas 2014, although I do ask that you consider this date a bit fluid given that life can be unpredictable and no one knows what delays may pop up between now and then.

This is where you, my fellow Mansunites, come in and can get involved...similar to my Blur books, I am planning on including photos of Mansun ticket stubs as well as tour posters, gig flyers, and any other live memorabilia I can find visuals for.  In order to do this, I'm going to need your help. If you're willing, I'd love to have your scans of Mansun ticket stubs, flyers, posters, and anything relating to the experience of seeing them live in concert that you may have laying around. I'd also be grateful for any live recordings of Mansun you may be willing to send me a copy of that I don't already have. Not only will your contributions help improve the book, but it's a chance for you to be a part of the Mansun story, since anyone who contributes materials will be listed in an Honor Roll at the back of the book as a means of thanks from me to you.

So there you have it...I'm busily working on this in addition to everything else I've got on my plate, and I think/hope it will be well worth the wait. I am beyond excited to (hopefully!) have the input of Paul and Andie, the convention organizers, and to finally be able to share this work with the rest of the passionate and faithful Mansun fans all over the world.

Take it Easy!

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Mansun

For this next entry in my band profile series, I'm going to change gears from the older bands I've written about in previous entries and focus instead on a band that I was lucky enough to discover and be a fan of while career was still active. The band is Mansun, who consist of, above from left: Andie Rathbone (drums), Paul Draper (vocals, rhythm guitar, songwriting), Stove King (bass guitar), and Dominic Chad (lead guitar, backing vocals). Coming on to the scene in the mid-1990s at the height of the BritPop/Cool Britannia era that defined the decade in England, Mansun were completely out of step with the rest of the scene. While bands like Blur, Oasis, Suede, Pulp, and other lesser groups were ubiquitous throughout the decade and released singles and albums that defined their generation, Mansun were more the brooding, slightly off-kilter outsiders who crashed the party and found themselves with a string of highly successful records in the charts. They managed to outlast BritPop, but just barely, eventually succumbing to pressures both internal and external and splintering early into the new millennium.

Mansun formed in Chester, England in 1995 when Draper and King brought in Dominic Chad and decided to form a band. Using a drum machine, they recorded some demos and released their debut single, "Take it Easy, Chicken" in late 1995. The band was initially called Grey Lantern, but then switched to Manson for their first single before settling on their eventual name of Mansun. They came to the attention of DJ John Peel and eventually signed with Parlophone Records. At their debut gig in August 1995, they'd drafted Carlton Hibbert in on drums and Mark Swinnerton on drum machine programming. Swinnerton left after a few months and the four-piece line-up released some more singles before Hibbert was sacked, after feuding with Chad, in spring 1996. Julian Fenton filled in on drums until Andie Rathbone joined in August 1996, solidifying the line-up.  Their debut album, Attack of the Grey Lantern, was released in early 1997 and knocked labelmate Blur's critically acclaimed self-titled fifth album off the top of the charts. The album is a concept album looking at  various bizarre characters amidst life behind the scenes of the village they inhabit, all from the perspective of the Grey Lantern who observes it all. The Stripper Vicar, Dark Mavis, Egg Shaped Fred, Penelope Cheapskate, Fatima Toothpaste, and other residents populate daily life in the town,  as it's revealed that the vicar is a stripper and that Dark Mavis is his daughter. The end of the album concludes with the death and funeral of the Vicar as the entire town gathers to pay their respects. Beginning with the beautifully sweeping opening track "The Chad Who Loved Me" and ending with the long chanted fadeout of "Dark Mavis," it's a fantastically grandiose album, where every song segues into the next...the entire record comes off like a technicolor movie for your ears. The songwriting and band performances are top-notch, and the album hangs together as a cohesive whole masterfully. Beyond this, there are several excellent tracks that work as standalone songs outside of the album's concept, including"Wide Open Space," "Naked Twister," "Mansun's Only Love Song," "She Makes My Nose Bleed," and others that would become staples of their live act (which will be discussed later in this piece).

After the touring and promotion for the album was finished, the band began recording their second album. However, at the time Draper was suffering from writers block; because of this, rather than bringing completed songs to the sessions, he brought forth dozens of song fragments. Stitching these together and making the album from scratch in the studio, the result was the critically acclaimed but (relatively) commercially flawed album Six. It's a sprawling, dense, and harrowing album full of twists and turns, hidden bits tucked in every corner...a true headphones records and to the 1990s what the White Album is to the 1960s. With its elaborate album cover filled with hidden references to the lyrics and the kaleidoscopic texture of the songs (again, without breaks between tracks), the album had a definite psychedelic and progressive rock feel and had little to nothing to do with BritPop. Throw in the fact that there was even an interlude partway through where the album was split in half like a vinyl record ("Witness to a Muder, Part II"), and you're left with a masterpiece that was perhaps too ahead of its time given the moment in 1990s Britain when it was released. There were, however, several successful singles from the record including "Legacy," "Negative," and "Being a Girl." While the album was met with confusion in its time, it has since rightly been hailed as the pinnacle of the band's recording career and it is often invoked as one of the lost masterpieces of 1990s rock. Due to Six's relative failure, Parlophone insisted that an outside producer oversee the sessions for the third album, the making of which was not a particularly happy time for the band. They were pushed into a slicker, more commercial-sounding direction and the resulting album, Little Kix, while solid, lacked the spark of their previous efforts and was quite uneven. The band hate it and fans are split on it...in my opinion, half of the album is great and half should be swapped with the B-sides for the album's singles, which are stronger tracks!

From here it was sadly downhill for the band; their planned fourth album was to be a back-to-basics affair, stripped down, rawer, and self-titled to boot. However, internal tensions throughout its gestation led to King being sacked after the final tour in 2002, and the band called it a day in 2003. But the story didn't end there; vigorous fan petitioning led Draper and Parlophone to release the final album sessions in 2004 as a 3-CD box set, entitled Kleptomania, that also included a disc of rarities and a greatest-hits disc as voted on by fans in an online poll. Listening to this set, it's reinforced how much of a shame it is that the band split when they did, as the 4th album tracks have a raw, gritty energy that bristles, and while the trademark Mansun sound is stripped down, it doesn't mean they've gone completely low-fi...the beautiful atmospheres and textures their best work has is still present, and to great effect. A further compilation, Legacy: The Best of Mansun, was released in 2006 and contained all of the band's promotional videos and a new mini-documentary on the band, on the bonus DVD included in the set. Since then, it's been quiet from the band, with rumors of Paul Draper's solo album, as well as rumors of a full band reunion, popping up over the years. Nothing has happened although those of us who have been passionate fans of the band have never stopped loving the band and their music, to the point that there will be fan convention held in Chester in August 2014, where rare Mansun memorabilia will be on display, there will be several Q&A sessions with people from the Mansun camp, and the first Paul Draper solo track will be premiered!

As for Mansun's influences, in an era where their contemporaries were citing 1960s and 1970s legends like the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who, Small Faces, T Rex, and David Bowie as musical touchstones, Mansun, while sharing the Bowie influence, drew upon different inspirations, including 1980s New Wave, Duran Duran, ABC, and Magazine among others. Along with being musically apart from their peers, Mansun were also quite striking in their appearance, eschewing the Fred Perry/Adidas/neo-Mod stylings of BritPop in favor of a darker, Gothic/Romantic look that had more to do with the Doors, the Velvet Underground, and 1970s punk than any of the more colorful and florid looks making a comeback in the 1990s. Whether it was Chad wearing a dress, the band wearing eyeliner, or Paul with the word "STRIPPER" scrawled across his chest with lipstick, there was more of an edge to their look than the mainstream bands of BritPop. This melding of their look and their music was perfect and manifested itself to great effect not only in their promotional videos, but in their concerts. For as great as Mansun's records were (and still are), they also were one of the best live acts of their era, putting on shows of incredible power. The songs took on a harder, heavier edge in a live setting, with many of them stretching out to ten minutes or more, including storming numbers like "Take it Easy, Chicken" and "Taxloss," which were two regular showpieces of the live act. Additionally, they drew upon their rich catalog of B-sides, many of which were as good, if not better, than album tracks. They had a handle on dynamics, where quieter passages were used to great effect to build tension and excitement before the music would explode over the audience...one only has to hear a live version of "Electric Man" or "Comes As No Surprise" to hear what I mean. And instrumentally, the live stage gave them a chance to stretch out and flex their chops, none more so than Andie with his thunderous drumming flying all over the drum kit, and Chad with his stinging and soaring solos and his mastery of effects pedals. Some songs were transformed from their majestic studio incarnations into powerhouse performances, including "Naked Twister," "Mansun's Only Love Song," and "Everyone Must Win," while longer concept pieces like "Television" became truly epic when played live.

For me personally, the appeal of Mansun's music, besides its quality, is the fact that while it had identifiable touchstones, it was simultaneously so different and unique; the band truly had a sound all their own. In addition, many of their songs had an outsider appeal and dealt with topics that were more personal than what many of their peers were writing about at the time...I find them to be analogous in this way to other bands who had this natural outsider ethos and embraced it, such as The Kinks and The Smiths. Beyond that, the music and lyrics work so well together and have so many layers to them that repeated listens still reveal new things, and the songs always sound fresh and interesting, which is the hallmark of any great band. I can also find new ways to relate to the same song depending on circumstances or my mood, which makes for a rich listening experience. 

Mansun are virtually unknown here in the USA beyond a small but devoted following. When I've tried to expose my friends to them, they almost always have no clue who I'm talking about...a few of them have recognized "Wide Open Space," which was the band's only (minor) hit song here, but that's about it. In a way, however, I like it this way...it makes the band more of an intimate secret here, something that can be held close to my heart and that I don't have to share with everyone else in the mainstream. And in keeping with the band's status as outsiders, that's absolutely fitting.

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