I watched a Sky documentary on the role of photography in music. There was an episode on record sleeves, or what we call album covers. Mummy once bought me a book on famous album covers which I loved. With the advent of CDs, these became less important, and now with streaming, even less so. There is still some form of artwork or photography, but it's not the same. One of the guests in the documentary said he would buy albums because of the great cover, even if he had not heard of the artist before. And sometimes the music would not be very good.
One of my favourites of course as you might well guess, is the cover of London Calling by The Clash. I used to have a poster of it at the back room in our home at Newton Court, and recently I actually bought the album, and T-shirts featuring the cover - I think Ethan's wearing one of them. I have the other here with me. It's a phenomenal shot, though it almost didn't get used because it's slightly blurry. But I think the blurriness captures the raw energy and vitality of the band, especially since it showed one of them bashing up his bass guitar!
And some of the photos I have taken over the years, might have become good covers if you guys were musical prodigies like the Jacksons, or Hanson. Mmmbop anyone? I used that song on a home video of you guys running around in the park playing football if you remember. I particularly like these from our NZ and Japan trips.
OK this last one is a little lame but that was my station. Which reminds me of an excellent movie I just watched. "Fruitvale Station" is based on a true story about the police shooting of a black man in 2009 at that station in the US.
So little has changed in all this time. But people need hope.
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