On August 1, 1981, Music Television launched, completely revolutionizing the music world. MTV brought the format of the music video to the forefront of the record industry, thus ending the connection audiences used to find with the artist through an album cover. Now you could watch a stylized performance of the group right there on cable. It changed the whole game.
Of course the relationship between moving pictures and music was nothing that MTV created. As I said last time, Elvis having the first memorable album cover wasn’t the only thing he did for music and images. Between September 1956 and January 1957, Elvis appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show three times. Sullivan had the biggest family entertainment show on television and he had said that Elvis was “unfit for family viewing.” This was of course because of Elvis’ hip movements while he sang. This led to the historic final performance on Sullivan’s show in which Elvis was only shown from the waist up to prevent families from having to see these oh so perverse movements from The King:
Elvis also started appearing in movies, and that set the stage for The Beatles to become the biggest band in the history of music during the ‘60s. The Beatles also had a famous Ed Sullivan performance, and they had the movies Help! and A Hard Day’s Night. Even Kiss had a movie in the late ‘70s that may be the single worst movie ever made. It was titled Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park and was supposed to make the band look like superheroes. It was a total disaster and featured some of the worst acting and special effects in the history of movies. You don’t believe me? Check it out.
I digress. Bands had appeared on television shows, some even made promo videos that essentially count as music videos, like the Rolling Stones with “Jumping Jack Flash,” but it was not until MTV that the medium really picked up steam. It is common knowledge (isn’t it?) that the first video on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. True in a sense, but more than that video killed the album cover. A new format was going to take music by storm and soon you would remember artists more by their videos than their album covers. Let us take a brief look at some ‘80s artists more memorable for videos than an album cover.
Van Halen: Actually a bit of an exception here since the cover for 1984 with the smoking baby is pretty memorable, but you’re more likely to remember the video for “Hot for Teacher” with the blonde bombshell teacher dancing around and lead singer David Lee Roth being his usual comedic self.
Duran Duran: Have no idea what album “Rio” is even on, and I pride myself on being a fountain of useless music knowledge, but I know this video just because of those shots of the band on the boat in the suits that have become the defining images of the group and all the cool ‘80s special effects and bright colors.
Whitesnake: The ultimate example of knowing a video more than anything else the band has done. Do you even know the name of the album “Here I Go Again” is on? Doesn’t matter. You do know the image of Tawny Kitaen dancing all over the hood of that car in that white lingerie and griding on David Coverdale while he drives. Everybody knows this song and this video and they are lying if they don’t. At least every guy would remember it.
There were two artists who used the video component in the ‘80s and ‘90s to build up a legacy and cement their place as the two biggest stars of that generation: Michael Jackson and Madonna. Madonna’s first notable performance came on the MTV Video Music Awards when she played “Like a Virgin” while humping the ground and rolling around in a wedding dress, about a million more times sexually explicit than Elvis Presley swinging his legs around a little bit while playing guitar. In 1989 she released her video for “Like a Prayer,” which prompted a great deal of outrage from Catholic groups due to the sexual and religious imagery. In the early ‘90s Madonna was criticized again for her “Justify My Love” video which included sadomasochism and a narrative which can best be described as Madonna is sad and goes to a hotel, has sex, and leaves happy. Madonna used the music video medium to push the boundaries on what was taboo and made the representation of sex in music a huge debate.
Michael Jackson used videos in a much different way. Jackos’ videos were a spectacle, oftentimes short films. “Thriller” is obviously the most famous of all of his videos. It a mini-epic horror flick that completely revolutionized the relationship between songs and videos. The song and video combined to tell a story, and that is what set the stage for people like Madonna to use the video format to get a point across. People still reference the dancing in the “Thriller” video and Jackson’s bright red leather jacket. Even for the tour Jackson had planned on doing before he died, shirts were modeled after his zombie-style look in the video.
Into the ‘90s Jackson had notable video productions, including “Black or White” with the then-uber-popular Macaulay Culkin. Jacko came under fire for the video though because the end sequence features him going insane dancing, grabbing his crotch, and smashing cars with racial slurs like “No More Wetbacks” and other offensive phrases. Jacko even sees a shop window that says “KKK Rules” and throws the steering wheel from the car through it. Here is the uncensored, original version of the video complete with the wild ending sequence. Embedding is disabled so you'll have to follow that link.
Michael Jackson knew what the music video was all about. It was a fun little tool to entertain people and get your music known, similar to the album cover. I will always remember being about 6 years old, watching MTV with my brother, and seeing Rob Zombie for the first time. Like the album cover, the video was supposed to give you the defining image for a song, an album, or even an artist and with “Dragula” Zombie did just that. You needed to see Zombie as this terrifying dude who loves the dead and horror stuff. This little video got that point across perfectly. I will never forget seeing this video and having my mind totally blown:
Nobody does that sort of thing anymore. With the 2000s came a change in the relationship between music and images. Nobody really watches videos anymore since like with album covers, people just download a track, throw it on a device, throw it in their pocket, and they are done. People simply don’t take the time to watch videos, and really nobody shows videos anymore. MTV only shows reality television like 16 and Pregnant, and their partner VH1 has followed suit and now focuses on reality programming. British singer Robbie Williams made an album titled Reality Killed the Video Star in reference to this trend. Some people still put the effort in to making a video though. Lady Gaga always tries to make a big production out of her videos like Michael Jackson and Madonna, but it doesn’t have the same effect since the video medium isn’t what it was.
OK Go always makes neat videos too, like the one with the treadmills. I only know that song is called “Here It Goes Again” because I knew the video with the band members dancing on treadmills, and the 13 million views it has on Youtube speaks volumes about the simple fact if you make a cool video people will love it and take the time to watch it.
Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me” is another famous video made recently. It shows her playing two parts and telling a little story to go along with the song, something Michael Jackson used to do.
But now, only a few years later, music videos don’t seem to matter as much. Just like the album cover, the video was a tool used to cement an image of what the band was all about. Now with things like Twitter you can talk right to an artist; you don’t need to wait for a video to come out to see what they are all about you can hear right from them. And since MTV has spent years manufacturing culture and making things popular, they have decided to make reality television the big craze rather than music. Adele had a smash album with 21, but do you even know of any music videos from it? I could tell you about all of the singles, but I have never seen a video for an Adele song. Do they even exist?
Music seemed like a perfect fit for pictures and videos, but now that doesn’t seem to be the case. People seem to want to do a million things at once, hence smart phones allowing you to make a call and cruise the internet at the same time now. People don’t want to take the time to watch videos, and nobody buys albums anymore so the album cover and music video are effectively done. Now people can communicate with bands directly so they don’t need a clever PR tool like cool album art or an interesting video. Why bother taking the time to buy a record and look at the art or watch a video when you can send a tweet to Lady Gaga and have her answer you. That is much more personal and easier than spending money or taking a few minutes to watch something.
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Sources:
1. "MTV Launches." History.com. A&E Television Networks. Web. 07 May 2012. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mtv-launches.
2. Marcus, Greil. "Elvis Presley: The Ed Sullivan Shows." Mitch Schneider Organization. Web. 07 May 2012. http://www.msopr.com/n/past-campaigns/elvis-presley-the-ed-sullivan-shows/.
3. "Madonna Biography, Discography, Filmography." Fox News. FOX News Network, 03 Jan. 2008. Web. 07 May 2012. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193740,00.html?sPage=fnc.entertainment/madonna.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Sound and Vision Part 1: The Album Cover
Music and images have had a strange relationship over the years. In the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s it seemed music and images were meant for each other. Even in the ‘90s there was still a connection. But recently the relationship between the two has dwindled. With the ever-growing influence of technology in the world, people don’t seem to have time to look at something and listen to it at once. It is depressing. Most younger people will think of music videos when they think of the connection between music and images, but before that the most essential visual component of music was the album cover.
As Yahoo! contributor Christopher Wiegering Gianoli wrote back in 2008, “A book’s cover usually has less to say about its content than a CD’s cover” The reasoning behind this is that a book’s cover changes with new editions, but the album cover never changes and can become an iconic image on its own. There are albums people have probably never heard in their lives, but they can identify it by the image on the cover. Personally I try to avoid listening to Fleetwood Mac at all costs but I know they made an album titled Rumors because that cover with Stevie Nicks and some other guy in the band holding hands and posed strangely has stuck with me. And that was the joy of the album cover decades ago; you didn’t even have to listen to the band but that image they put out in front of you was enough to make you remember them.The album cover came into existence in 1938 when Columbia Records hired Alex Steinweiss and he began putting illustrations on record sleeves. Once 1950s rolled around, thanks to photography and the birth of rock and roll the iconic album cover began to emerge.
When Elvis Presley walked into Sun Records in the early 1950s and cut his first few songs, music began to change. Soon the rock and roll movement swept across America and acts like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis became huge national stars. The most recognizable album cover from this era was for the self-titled Elvis Presley record released on the RCA label in 1956. The black and white photo with the pink and green text would become a cultural landmark that numerous musicians would pay homage to throughout the years, most notably by The Clash for the London Calling cover in 1979. Tom Waits’ 1985 record Rain Dogs cover also bears similar structure to Elvis’ self-titled record. All three are pictured above and to the left.
Of course Elvis and his dancing completely revolutionized the relationship between music and images, but that will be discussed later. But that cover for his first album went a long way in setting the standard of using the album cover as a work of art that would make people remember you. Once the ‘60s and ‘70s rolled around bands took this to heart. There was no Youtube or Twitter for bands to use to get their names out and the music video wasn’t a big art form yet, so the image on the album cover was the biggest way to show what a band was about. That image on the cover had to define whatever you were about to do in the music that followed.
The Kiss album Love Gun immediately comes to mind since looking at that image on the cover of the band standing around like kings as women are gathered at their feet makes you step back and think “Wow these guys are like total hardcore rock gods, get so many chicks, and must be awesome.” Then you throw on the album and the opening lick of “I Stole Your Love” melts your face off and you see that cover got you prepared. Same goes for their Alive! record since the first time I saw that as a six or seven-year-old my reaction was essentially, “Holy crap.” Then I turned on the album and my reaction was, “Holy crap.” The songs fit the image of this big, powerful group commanding a stage. It was the perfect joining of album cover and album.
In a 2008 piece, Christopher Knab of Fourfront Media & Music wrote, “Your cover is your calling card to the industry and to the consumer.” That image you put on the cover is going to be the first thing people see and will be image that comes to mind whenever they hear a song from the album. It is the easiest way to advertise your music since if the cover looks cool, original, or interesting people will want to hear what you have to say. That was the philosophy which lead to album covers being so monumental and legendary in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
The ‘60s saw a great many iconic and instantly recognizable album covers. The Velvet Underground & Nico is memorable for there being no title on the cover, just the signature of Andy Warhol and his painting of a banana. The banana skin on the original pressings of the album was a sticker that could be peeled away, revealing the image of a pink banana underneath. Another classic cover came on The Who Sell Out where each member of the band is advertising a different product. Both are to the left.
Of course the most memorable album covers of the ‘60s came with the biggest band of the ‘60s, the Beatles. The hand-drawn cover of Revolver is classic. Even more than that is the cover for The Beatles, which has prompted the album to be known as The White Album. Rolling Stone magazine voted the cover for Sgt. Pepper as the greatest album cover of all time. The image of the Beatles wearing the bright military uniforms among the cut-outs of other celebrities is one of the most famous images of the band. Numerous artists have made pastiches of the covers from their records. Most notable are the Abbey Road tributes and homages.
(Revolver, The White Album, Sgt. Pepper)
(Top LtoR: Abbey Road, The Abbey Road E.P., Late Orchestration; Bottom LtoR: The Simpsons, Sesame Road)
The cover for Abbey Road is one of the most famous, if not the most famous album cover of all time. The image of the Beatles crossing the street has been redone by The Simpsons and even Sesame Street. The Red Hot Chili Peppers even crossed a street naked for their Abbey Road E.P. cover. Kanye West paid homage to it for his Late Orchestration live album, which was recorded at Abbey Road studios.The Abbey Road cover is associated with the urban legend that Paul McCartney died and was replaced with somebody who looks and sounds just like him. People think the cover of that album is a sign, as McCartney is walking out of step with the others, is not wearing shoes, and is smoking. The fact people could theorize like this over the image on an album cover is a prime example of how important the art used to be with music.
In the 1970s there were even more notable and famous album covers. In 1971 The Rolling Stones released Sticky Fingers, which has the well-known image of a man’s crotch in tight jeans. The original cover for the vinyl LP was designed by Andy Warhol and featured a working zipper and belt that could be undone to reveal the image of a man in his underwear. Kiss had paintings on the covers of albums which appear on cups and blankets to this day, and Love Gun even came with an actual cardboard toy “love gun.” Artists today don’t put this same kind of effort into their product.
(LtoR: Nevermind, Get Behind Me Satan, Graduation, Born This Way)
How many iconic album covers have there been since Nirvana’s Nevermind in 1991? Music videos took over as the dominant visual expression so album covers stopped mattering. The only ones from the 2000s that come to mind are Get Behind Me Satan by the White Stripes and Graduation by Kanye West. People don’t even care about album covers anymore since with so many people downloading music illegally you don’t get the album art with it. If you buy songs off iTunes you are more likely to just buy single tracks rather than entire albums, and the artwork doesn’t even matter since you put it on an iPod or a phone and throw it in your pocket. Even the biggest stars of today like Lady Gaga don’t put the effort into an album cover. That cover for Born this Way was laughably bad.
Album covers used to be a clever marketing tool and would oftentimes have an image that would be synonymous with that musician forever. It was a way for the listener to get to know the artist. By the advent of MTV in the 1980s, the iconic images that symbolize an artist’s career like Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run or Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell (to the left) were gone and replaced with a whole new medium that would change the relationship between sound and vision for over two decades.
Also as far as clever pastiches go, Sesame Street even got The Boss. They can’t do that anymore since nobody makes a cool album cover.
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Sources (Why were so many people writing about album art in 2008?):
1. Benson, Robert. "Album Cover Art History." Yahoo! Contributor Network. Yahoo!, 25 Feb. 2008. Web. 07 May 2012. http://voices.yahoo.com/album-cover-art-history-1030815.html?cat=38.
2. Wiegering Gianoli, Christopher. "The Importance of Good Artwork for Your CD Cover." Yahoo! Contributor Network. Yahoo!, 5 Sept. 2008. Web. 07 May 2012. http://voices.yahoo.com/the-importance-good-artwork-cd-cover-1875424.html?cat=33.
3. Knab, Christopher. "Your CD Cover Is Your Most Important Advertisement." Music Biz Academy.Com. Jan. 2008. Web. 07 May 2012. http://www.musicbizacademy.com/knab/articles/cdcover.htm.
4. The History of Rock and Roll class I took Freshman year at SUNY Albany
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