A weekly look down into the mortal coil of music industry design.

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Artist: Megadeth
Release: Rust In Peace
Label: Capitol
Designer: Ed Repka
Release Date: September 24, 1990

The bad thing about this cover, other than being a tad cheesy (I’m sure it was received much better when it was first released), is the obvious dated-ness, what with the world leaders at the time of writing/recording.

From left to right, they are John Major, Toshiki Kaifu, Richard von Weizsäcker, Mikhail Gorbachev, and George H. W. Bush.

Vic Rattlehead - The Candidate For Change!

A weekly look down into the mortal coil of music industry design.

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Artist: Cynic
Release: Focus
Label: Roadrunner
Designer: Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert (?)
Release Date: September 14, 1993

In honor of the band reuniting, recording, and still being my favorite band, here we have Cynic’s Focus. Paul and Sean are band members that are credited for the re-issue are, which is the same as the original art, so I’m not exactly sure if they did the original. They may have just produced the original files for the re-issue.

Anyways, I never liked this cover at all when I first bought it. It looked too psychedelic and colorful; it smeared by cred sitting next to my Metallica and Megadeth discographies. But I suppose their mix of death metal and jazz warrants such a stoner-doom-kinda-symmetrical spiral ink art image.

A weekly look down into the mortal coil of music industry design.

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Artist: Nirvana
Release: Nevermind
Label: Geffen
Designer: Robert Fisher (art direction), Kirk Weddle (photography), Spencer Elden (baby)
Release Date: September 24, 1991

If you ever want to set yourself up for embarassment, make sure you’re a baby and get your nether region photoed and plastered on an obscure Seattle band’s album cover. Oh, and make sure the album goes on to sell ten million copies.

Geffen prepared an alternate cover without the penis, as they were afraid that it would offend people, but relented when Cobain made it clear that the only compromise he would accept was a sticker covering the penis that would say “If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pædophile.”

Kurt’s wild conjectures notwithstanding, this is another great example of questionable artwork somehow slithering its way into the public’s consciousness just by album sales and critical praise of the music. Just don’t stare too long at…it. People will look at you funny.

A weekly look down into the mortal coil of music industry design.

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Artist: Rush
Release: Permanent Waves
Label: Island/Mercury
Designer: Neil Peart and Hugh Syme (art direction), Deborah Samuel, Fin Costello, Flip Schulke (photography), Paula Turnbull (model)
Release Date: January 1, 1980

If anything, you would think I would pick 2112 as it is more of an iconic cover than this one, but I’m a little biased here because this is in my top 10 albums of all time. But good music doesn’t always = good design, as a general caveat. I remember seeing this cover from my brother’s collection. I always wondered why the girl seemed so nonchalant in the middle of a explosive disaster area. I think at one point that the girl was the singer, but I was a young and impressionable buck back then.

It turns out, just like Rush’s lyrics, the cover has a deeper story behind it.

From the wikipedia entry for the album:

The cover contains several visual allusions to the album’s title - in the background is a wave of water whose motion is frozen by the picture, i.e., a permanent wave, a man ‘waving’ at the girl in the foreground, the girl in the foreground has a permanent wave in her hair, while her dress is ‘waving’ in the wind. A fifth allusion is the picture of Truman waving the famous newspaper. A sixth ‘wave’ allusion can be found the red line running through the band’s name represents the electro-cardiograph line of a normal human heartbeat.

Peart explains the art, taken from a Rush fansite, 2112.net:

In the basic sense, all that cover picture means is forging on regardless, being completely uninvolved with all the chaos and ridiculous nonsense that’s going on around us. Plus she represents the spirit of music and the spirit of radio, a symbol of perfect integrity and truth and beauty.