Brian Salad Surgery

Many famous designers did artwork for album covers. One of this designers that I like is the master of eschatology H. R. Giger, the same guy that made all the art direction and scenery of the blockbuster movie Alien. His style, revolutionized the design in my vision. This cover was made in 1973, and comparing with the things that is made today, this one still looks quite fresh.

Giger was born in 1940 and his visions are focused on obscenity and deconstruction of the perfect. His works place the viewer in a cold world, organic and eschatological.

The way that Giger saw this Emerson Lake & Palmer album was perfect. His vision goes beyond the psychedelic trips and use of color, but in the way of making the listener feel inside that organic and futuristic world.

Look at this album at the stores, gives you an impression that this is a new release. Giger is beyond his time and his work will never be forgotten. In addition to Emerson Lake & Palmer, Giger also worked in some album covers for bands like Dead Kennedys, Celtic Frost, Carcass and Danzig, those bands that has a style of protest, bloody and purest organic sound.

To learn more the work of Giger http://www.hrgiger.com/ just get in and blurring of fear.

Somewhere in Time

How do I talk about album covers, without talking about Derek Riggs? This British artist revolutionized Heavy Metal album covers, especially with Iron Maiden, which each cover and each album were expected with so much anxiety. Iron Maiden can be considered the greatest Heavy Pop Metal Band of the world. They make music very similar and people are still crazy about then! Including me of course! =)

I have been addicted to Iron Maiden for many years, especially in times of LP formats, where the details of the album covers were much better to admire. I think Iron Maiden have lost so much with the CD format. All the art details, insights, stories involving the albuns now it seems so... small you know?

I will first talk about one of the albums I like the most, the Somewhere in Time. I could look at this album cover all day long, but in CD format is very boring. 

Every detail of this cover is amazing! For me, looks like he was painted for about 4 years! Each detail is so great and very well done. I think this design was revolutionary, not mentioning the previous album, Powerslave, which for me is the most beautiful metal album cover EVER!

Derek Riggs is the man! Like Storm Thorgerson who made the covers of Pink Floyd. Derek also did almost all Iron Maiden covers, he also made cover arts for bands like Stratovarius and Gamma Ray. The image of the Power Metal owes much to him, of course I'm not talking about the tight leather pants. =)

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon

If you like album covers art, you need to know about the work of this guy. His name is Storm Thorgerson and he did more album covers than you imagine. He was one of the first artists to worry about the musical image. He did and still does unbelievable amazing covers. Since the beginning of his successful career, he have done covers of bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and today, covers from bands like Muse, Megadeth and Mars Volta.

Who doesn't know this picture? Well, you don't need to be a music fan or a rock fan to know this revolutionary album cover art. Pink Floyd always had a reputation for beautiful covers that represents their philosophy. This owes much to Storm Thorgerson's work. He changed the design concept of showing the beautiful faces of bands members, especially talking about Pink Floyd, who have never had a reputation to be a handsome group, but they were known being junkies who make psychedelic music.

The importance of Storm Thorgerson work is so great that the consumers has been educated to criticize covers arts and his references kind of pushed all the designers to do something more. A beautiful cover art can sell an album and show the album spirit and the band style. Today with so much illegal CD copies, records companies will need to give as much to attract the consumers, as only one record with good songs can be downloaded in less than 30 minutes.

Talking about quality, imagine the time this album was released, which was a musical revolution. You enter in a store and look into this album cover on a shelf. Clearly this visual and music influence helped this album to become mythological.

This simple design certainly makes you think, "I would do it also!", but what makes this cover so damn good is the simplicity and the idea. Create images from music is very hard. It's a shame that the album covers designers aren't valued as they deserves.


http://www.stormthorgerson.com/ to know more about this brilliant artist.