Vintage Album Artwork Exhibit (Fullerton, CA)

Posted by CheckPoint in Music News on Aug 6th, 2009 | one response

Certain points of life become magnified when you live in this crazy town of LA. One of those for me is undoubtedly the saying; “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Although pop-culture (or the corporations holding the strings) strives to pigeonhole art by dictating what we should think or like about something, it’s really is only ourselves who have the final say. Which is why an art exhibit entitled “What were they thinking - 100 of the worst record album covers” really caught my eye. In an age where all forms of ‘visual attraction’ have been stripped away from the music industry, leaving solitary, soul-less and often name-less mp3 files sitting on our harddrives, how can we cast aspersions on how music was presented in what we now consider the golden age?

Jim Washburn, the curator of the exhibit in Fullerton, CA seems to be just the man for the job, or at least he thinks he is! There are some shockers in there, but I’m more of a historian than a finger pointer. I’m intrigued to see the beautiful variation of what album artwork could be, before the age of ‘in house designers’ who re-format the same tired layout many times a day to get something out for that new band the label really couldn’t care less about.

I’m going to really enjoy thinking about a time where bands, managers, label heads and an ‘arty friend’ got together to discuss the merits of a model draped in whipped cream. Beats another blond, photo-shopped, 15lb lighter version of the lead-singer, staring wistfully into the camera, with that look of “please buy my music - they told me I’d be a star by now”.

All of the information about the exhibit is available here. Ironically the article is called “You used to be cool, man”, and they still are for me… seriously fuc&ing cool!

CheckPoint