ENCORE

ENCORE

ENCORE
An extra piece of music that is performed at the
end of a show.
Phonic shares the ultimate visual playlist to share
the stories behind the design of 10 album covers
from the last decades.
listen to it. loudly.

1.
MY AIM
IS TRUE (1977)
Elvis Costello
Barney Bubbles’ design
Costello’s debut, pre-Attractions, has him cast as a malevolent
Buddy Holly with the provocation “Elvis Is King” surrounding his
photograph, almost conveying the message subliminally. My Aim Is
True came out in yellow, pink, purple, orange, green, crimson, and
beige versions.
Paul Gorman: “At the photo session for the album cover you
had Jake Riviera and Barney Bubbles behind the photographer.
Bubbles was getting Elvis Costello to throw shapes. So you’ve got
Elvis Costello, who is no fool, and two highly visually literate people
behind the camera man, and a really great photographer (Keith
Morris) directing as well. That’s why those images are so impactful,
because they were invested with much more than ‘go and stand up
against the wall,’ which is what most album covers were like at the
time, unless they were high concepts with people shaking hands in
suits and bowler hats while they’re on fire.

2.
THE
VISITORS (1981)
Abba
Rune Söderqvist’s design
While ABBA has had an everlasting effect on pop stars and
culture, just like how the band serendipitously began, the four
members harmoniously parted ways in the early ’80s. The core
symmetry of the group quickly vanished due to both couples
divorcing. On the record sleeve of their final album before
disbanding, The Visitors, one can feel and see that separation.
The four members sit in a darkly lit spacious room, apart from
each other, a harsh juxtaposition to their previous covers where
they were always shoulder to shoulder. Yet even within that dim
environment, an eerie sense of symmetry still exists, with Agnetha
and Anni-Frid on the left and Björn and Benny on the right. Two
columns, two groups of picture frames, and two tables leave the
women and the men in their own separate yet still similar worlds.

3.
FUTURE
SHOCK (1983)
Herbie Hancock
David Em’s design
Herbie Hancock is famously an early adopter, and his sense of
curiosity means no two albums in his extensive back catalog are
the same. Future Shock, with its name borrowed from writer and
futurist Alvin Tofler, embraces technology like never before as he
explores an emerging artform called hip hop.
Hancock has admitted he was perplexed by the Godley & Creme
directed video for Future Shock track ‘Rockit’, starring a houseful
of robots and a memorable pair of animatronic legs, though
he was more than happy to accept the awards it accrued as the
song became his biggest worldwide hit. For the album artwork, he
employed the services of David Em, a pioneer in computer art who
was manipulating digital media before personal computers became
widespread. Em was apparently the first artist to produce navigable
virtual worlds in 1977, using NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The
virtual landscape on 1983’s Future Shock sleeve is a little passé now,
though it retains a certain retrofuturist charm.

4.
CHECK YOUR
HEAD (1992)
Beastie Boys
Eric Haze’s design
Beastie Boys hooked up with their old Def Jam New York
compadre Eric Haze when they all found themselves living in Los
Angeles. Eric Haze [design, art direction]: “With Check Your Head
we were all living in California by that time, and I’d established my
design studio there doing work for artists like Tone Loc. There were
lots of sit-downs, lots of discussions. A number of other ideas were
exercised before we landed on the one that was published. I worked
most closely with MCA who was the most involved when it came to
the visual identity of the band.

5.
DREAM BABY
DREAM (2007)
Suicide
Michael Handis and Jared Artaud’s design
“Michael Zilkha of Ze Records asked an artist to design the
record and asked us what we thought. I wasn’t totally blown away
by the cover but it was definitely a very good job, a cool kind of
job for what it was. I mean, Michael was very much in the fashion
and disco kind of world in his own way, and I found the cover kind
of reflected that. It has a Madison Avenue polish, and it was never
something I was that crazy about once I saw it, but it worked.”
Years later, all tracks were fully remastered by Denis Blackham at
Skye Mastering, who previously remastered the recent acclaimed
Art of the Album reissue of their debut album. The album artwork’s
concept and design - presented on the vinyl as an embossed, mirrorboarded
gatefold sleeve – is by Michael Handis, with art direction by
Jared Artaud.

6.
WOMAN
(2016)
Justice
Adrien Blanchat and Delarue’s design
Blanchat: “That one I’m really happy with. The visual concept
came from Xavier eating in an amazing restaurant where the
chef was fermenting stuff. He took a picture of that fermentation
and then they wanted to have it flowing over the existing cross.
Charlotte did a very, very lo-res mockup that looks actually a lot like
the final result.”
Delarue: “The starting point of this artwork was a picture taken
by a cook in a Copenhagen kitchen of some kind of oil. The band
really liked that image and thought that its organic, sensual qualities
visually suited their new album and its name, Woman. Transposing
it onto the cross sounds like it would have been an easy task, but
it was actually pretty tough to create a movement that works.
After many attempts we ended up with an image that was pretty
low quality. I gave it to Adrien Blanchat and he pretty much had to
repaint everything in Photoshop.”

7.
Studio Pending’s design (Travis
Brothers and Isha Dipika Walia)
BLOOD ON
MY HANDS
(2019)
August 08
AUGUST 08 muses over the relationship problems that his music
has caused as he’s become increasingly successful. He likens his
art to another girl that he loves as much as he does his women and
therefore can’t let go. This leads to him expressing regret for having
developed feelings in the first place. He accepts the blame for this
“love triangle” and waits patiently for what he believes will result in
eventual loss.

8.
THE SLOW
RUSH (2020)
Tame Impala
Neil Krug’s design
Neil Krug says Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker was adamant about
traveling to shoot the cover for The Slow Rush, so they went to
Namibia, in southwestern Africa. “The room you see was pretty
destroyed and the sand was almost to the ceiling, so our production
crew, including Kevin and myself, shoveled and sculpted it all morning,”
says Krug. They closed the location to tourists, but by the time
they returned at sunset, the sand had shifted in the wind. “I was a
wreck at first,” says Krug, “but it looked so beautiful, like nature just
needed to sort things out.”

9.
COMFORT
TO ME (2021)
Amyl and the Sniffers
Bráulio Amado’s design
Amyl and the Sniffers are an Australian pub rock and punk rock
band based in Melbourne, consisting of vocalist Amy Taylor, drummer
Bryce Wilson, guitarist Dec Martens, and bassist Gus Romer.
Comfort to Me is the second studio album by Australian pub
rock and punk band Amyl and the Sniffers. It was released on 10
September 2021 by B2B Records in Australia, Rough Trade Records
in Europe and ATO Records in North America.

10.
PLAYBOYS
OF THE
WESTERN
WORLD (2021)
Black Light Animals
Bráulio Amado’s design
The eyeball often evokes the ominous in Western art, it’s used
for mystique and high jinks, too. The eyeball has made a comeback
in 2021 [we’d argue it never went away – ed.], featuring on the cover
of new Italian horror soundtrack compilation PAURA in reference
to the 1975 flasher flick Eyeball, and it’s here too on Black Light
Animals’ stunning cover for Playboys of the Western World.
It’s entirely reflective of the Kansas City psychedelic glam band’s
music, and what it’s actually meant to represent are moot points. It
would surely be impossible to turn down this glorious artwork by
Joshua Wilkinson.

ENCORE
1. My Aim Is True (1977)
2. The Visitors (1981)
3. Future Shock (1983)
4. Check Your Head (1992)
5. Dream Baby Dream (2007)
6. Woman (2016)
7. Blood On My Hands (2019)
8. The Slow Rush (2020)
9. Comfort To Me (2021)
10. Playboys of the Western World (2021)