The Beat Surrender

Downloads are on the increase with people downloading more and more legal and illegal tracks by the day, iPods are a common necessity these days in the same way that everyone having a TV and a toilet that doesn’t involve you trecking down the garden are as well.

This has opened up the opportunities for artists of all sizes in stature, which is surely a good thing, they aren’t as reliant on record labels as they were, which means that record labels are having to get themselves in gear. The result of this is that smaller independent labels are also starting to flourish.

So surely it’s positives all round, so what’s your problem Kev?

It isn’t as problem as such, it’s more of a niggling concern I have, both as a fan of music and as someone who studied art at school up to the sixth form. I’m not a technophobe as such, I mean yes I do get baffled by technology and I’m not practical in that sense, but advances and changes in technology don’’ scare me as such, in fact I openly applaud anything that is positive progress.

My issue is with sleeve art and in particular, the fact that at some point iconic images and a major part of buying and owning music is lost forever. If downloads continue to grow at the same rate and physical sales of records and CDs continue to fall (and yes I know the 7” single is having something of a comeback at the moment but 12” and albums aren’t as far as I know) then surely we will be at a point in the future where people don’t bother with sleeve art.

Why would they really, labels and bands either have to pay someone to design it, or they have to spend the time themselves doing it. The majority of people who pay for their music downloads to go onto their iPod probably aren’t bothered about being able to download artwork so there would be no incentive to keep desiging record sleeves.

Don’t you think that would be a crying shame? I do and I’m worried.

Think back over the last 40 odd years of music and I can guarantee you that even if you don’t own the albums, you will be able to visualise the sleeves, as they are some of the most distinctive ‘art’ of the 20th Century.

I’m talking about The Beatles Sgt Peppers album, the Sex Pistols lurid Never Mind The Bollocks, the phallic peel-able banana from the Velvet Underground, the baby swimming for the money on Nirvana’s Nevermind and one of the best rock n roll covers ever, The Clash album London Calling and the power of that one photograph.

Some have been memorable for their controversy, Blind Faith and Roxy Music for the women, The Black Crowes bikini bottom cover and The Smiths Meat Is Murder to name just a few, either way these covers have been an essential ingredient in the band in question getting across their music to people.

As I’ve said above though these are just some of the iconic covers we’ve had, covers that have really set their mark in music history, their have been others that give the band or record label a distinguishing look. Such as the Stone Roses covers, Peter Saville’s work at Factory and to a lesser extent a label like 4AD, imagine the generations growing up over the next 40 years that don’t have this anymore, it’ll be poster and t-shirt design after poster and t-shirt design of bands posing for the camera or caught live, surely people want more than that on their bedroom wall, they want posters to make a statement for them.

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