Sqwink Album Art Blog

Wow. Now that’s a great word to start a review on the new Kings of Leon album Because of the Times. My opinions for the previous review for the Arctic Monkeys latest album were rather negative, so I’m glad to see album cover which is fantastic!

I’m writing this review on the 22nd March 2007 - and I’m aware that there seem to be three different versions of the cover in circulation. The ‘light-bulb Image’, ‘Light-bulb & Scull’ and a Brown/yellow montage. I don’t know for definite which ones are going to be released in which country, special editions, etc. However, the album cover I’m reviewing appears on Amazon.com and a few other major sites, so I’m presuming this is the main one…

The Kings of Leon’s 2nd album ‘Aha Shake Heartbreak’ (image 1) procured what came to be quite iconic album art. The white flower set on a black back-drop set Caleb Followill and the band into the mainstream (although, there was another Aha Shake Heartbreak ‘yellow’ version/alternate available).

The latest album, ‘Because of the Times’ (image 2) appears to carry on a theme of ‘images-of-impact’ - for respected musicians who’s music has impact. To cut a long-story-short, I love everything about this Kings of Leon sleeve. It’s visually-stimulating, almost provocative and importantly, conveys the notion of a musical progression. By this, I mean that the shattering light-bulb is almost a metaphor for the Kings of Leon discography: the music hasn’t just evolved - it’s moving in a whole new direction.

Yeah, I know, an image of a shattering light-bulb is nothing new, but used in this context - it’s original. From a graphic designer’s point of view, I’m scoring this album cover 9/10. If you agree/disagree with this blog or have any questions or comments for me on this review, please feel free to leave them below.

Review by Andrew Kelsall, Sqwink CD Design

What’s that going over the hill - is it a monster? No it’s not the Automatic, it’s the new album cover the Arctic Monkeys 2nd Album Favourite Worst Nightmare. I’ve been waiting to review the new Arctics CD Cover for a while now, so when I finally saw the Sleeve (below), I was to say the least, surprised…

The new cover is set in a style worlds-apart from the cover of the Arctic monkeys debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. THAT album cover stirred up plenty of controversy for depicting a man smoking a cigarette, so as a result, heath organizations condemned the album cover. Fortunately these days, controversy equals popularity, so it only helped propel Alex Turner and the lads into superstardom.

Because of the success of the first album (and the cover), I initially found it difficult to like the new album cover for ‘Favorite Worst Nightmare’. The entire ‘vibe’, in my opinion, is all wrong. Yeah, the imagery is fitting with the album tile “Favorite Worst Nightmare” - but the overall album cover art is NOT fitting with the Arctic Monkeys music and sound. The new album sleeve DOES display a sense of continuity with the first album by the use of [near] black & white photography, but this cover doesn’t convey a post-punk revival music style - rather it reminds me of the track “Thriller” by michael Jackson! In addition to this, the graphical-composition has gone awry, because the logo and title ‘touch’ the roof arial on the houses. I feel that the arial should have been removed (by photoshop) from the image to leave total grey sky around the green logo.

However, despite these oversights, the Arctic monkeys new cover ‘works’. Why? Because the Arctic Monkeys are now an ‘established band’, meaning their music is known World-wide. This means a larger percentage of their music sales is a direct result of their music, not the album art, to be blunt. But do consumers buy a CD because of its album art? Yeah, that’s right - CD Covers can have a huge impact on sales. For instance, I’m not really a David Bowie fan, but when the album ‘Hours‘ was released in 1999 I bought it solely because it had a fantastic hologram on the Sleeve! So even though the Arctics CD cover design won’t harm sales, its not going to be selling to people interested in terrace housing!

So, what about this new Arctic Monkeys logo? The graphic-style of the new logo identity reminds me of the now-famous Movie Poster for ‘The Man With The Golden Arm’ (image 1) by legendary Designer, Saul Bass (the man who designed the AT&T logo). This poster, designed back in 1955, depicts a drug-addicts art in a sort of ‘paper cut-out’ style in theme with the rest of the poster. I think there is striking similarities between the graphic-style of this poster and the ‘cut-out’ looking letters that make up the name ‘Arctic monkeys’. It just goes to show that great design can have influences far into the future.

I have a split opinion on the new logo design though. I loved the previous logo design - it oozed with British indie spark, but the new one (and especially in conjunction with the word ‘Brianstorm‘ on the first single cover art) just procures thoughts of the ancient movie ‘Tron’. However, this logo IS different, sets the Arctics artwork apart from a jungle of conventional artwork that streams onto the store shelves. Image 2 shows the new identity on its own, for sake of clarity.

Conclusion

Basically, I think a great opportunity has been wasted here. Yeah, the CD will sell…but not by a significant contributory force led by a great CD cover design. The design is visually attractive in its own right, but I feel it conveys all the wrong messages to the wrong audience. Adversely, on one last positive note, the new logo is eye-catching, so when this Arctics Album hits the stores the new (and green) logo will make it instantly recognizable. I’m an Arctic Monkeys fan like many, but this post is solely about the Album cover art - not the music, so I’m giving this album cover artwork only 2 Stars out of five. I know that they’ll be plenty of people out there that like this artwork, but this post is my own opinion. If you agree/disagree with this blog or have any questions or comments for me on this review, please feel free to leave them below.

Review by Andrew Kelsall, Sqwink CD Design
[There are more CD Cover Art reviews in the “CD Design Artwork Reviews” Section, to the right.]