154 wrote:
i've heard that roughly half of those teens in the UK who buy 7"s don't even own record players. it's like pogs to them.

Thats the sort of thing I was talking about. I used to buy a few 7s if they had interesting covers and have found a few interesting bands that way, now the racks are just stuffed full of Razorlite and toss like that.

Mediocre sound is due to the pressing quality and playback equipment. It sure as shit isn't due to anything inherent to the 7" 45 RPM format, as I have some 7"s that kick balls.

you know how an LP often sounds worse when it gets near the center (because of the tighter spirals), well a 7" is nothing but center. it can sound good if the side lengths are short and the treble isn't rediculous, but it often sounds like a mess to me.

as far as pressing costs, last time i checked bill smith it cost a little over $500 to do 500 records without artwork. and that's for black vinyl with simple labels. it just doesn't make sense aside from the novelty of putting out a 7".

MrFood wrote:Hold on. The goalposts have shifted a bit now. Earlier it was a blanket 'no visual design can be overdone'. Now all of a sudden you're getting specific.

What, they didn't teach you to read or retain thread titles in art school? The whole "context" thing -- let me guess, you weren't in class that day?

Because I can tell you right now that the objections I'm hearing have less to do with any work and more with moronic whining about personality types.

MrFood wrote:If you're talking to me (and I presume you are) then kindly go fuck yourself. I explained to you that I have been around awful bands who labour over their 'visual identity' because that is where they believe their 'true skills' are.

The spirit in which they made these awful things was truly careerist and perverse. That is why I found these people to be objectionable.

Another thing they apparently didn't teach you in art school is the difference between personal axe-grinding and aesthetic evaluation. I'm still waiting for the examples, and if I never heard another thing about your personal history, I wouldn't be missing out.

MrFood wrote:Let me explain again - bad singles, stupidly contrived overdesigned sleeves, made by bad bands comprised of daddy's-millions-upper-tier layabouts.

More whining. Class complaints. Zero design content. Yawn.

Dull bands are bands that do less design.

-r

MrFood wrote:Yes this is a very broad definition. So broad in fact, to be useless and irrelevent.

Right, and hearing you moan about your art school education and contemporaries - that's relevant?

You have an odd grasp of the practical application of aesthetics in a band setting.

Compelling music is not easy to make, and impossible to make without design of its component parts and relationships. These are all decisions - even when they don't appear to be decisions at all - and these decisions are what add up to the statement. The visual dimension of this design process as expressed in graphic or package design is a collection of decisions (or abandonment of decision) made by the same person or persons and as such will reliably reflect well the same positions of the music.

When someone subverts this process as you have described, by treating the recording itself as a regrettable afterthought, as overhead, as a ticket into the category of "rock record", I have always been able to tell by cues in the visual design. It's impossible to hide, really. You may call such an effort an example of overdone visual design, but what it seems like to me is that not enough thought went into it - something that was always meant to be solely a calling card for package design skills shouldn't even nearly look or act like a rock record, it should look like a brochure or portfolio piece. That's a case of not enough design.

-r

http://www.perishablerecords.com/buzzmuscle/front50.jpg

No one who has seen this in person would complain about the design.

warmowski wrote:If a rock band (or recording artist) isn't designing as a raison d'etre, then that band is very likely not worth hearing.

I'm sorry...you're ripping on a guy for going to art school and you're speaking like a pretensious fuck. I don't follow.

warmowski wrote: If you ask me, visual design can't be overdone.

This was your original blanket statement. To me, this assumes that even the most self-indulgent, thoughtless cluster-fuck is still not overdone by your standards. You want a specific example? How about (and i know this is cheese, but we're judging visual design aesthetic, right?) USA for Africa's "We Are the World"? It's clear the label & Quincy Jones wanted to sell as many as possible to raise funds for a good cause. In designing for this principle, there are a fuck-ton of tiny, little itty-bitty grainy photos on the back of all the superstar recording artists in studio. These photos are in fact so miniscule that it renders their subjects indecipherable. The lyrics are reprinted on the back & there is flashy 80's-style "design" all over it. Would you consider this design overdone?

warmowski wrote:Dull bands are bands that do less design.

Not a fan of minimalism, are we? I guess by your standards, the Shellac 7"'s must be shining examples of a dull band's design.

warmowski wrote:These are all decisions - even when they don't appear to be decisions at all - and these decisions are what add up to the statement.

I just felt like including that out-of-context statement because when I first read it, I really felt like I was reading something Don Rumsfeld had said. Kinda made me giggle for a split second. Thanks for that.

joelb wrote:I rarely buy new ones unless it's cool and unavailable on another format.

I certainly wouldn't mind properly mastered convenience copies of the Shellac non-full length releases, a la The Hammer Party.

cwiko wrote:I'm sorry...you're ripping on a guy for going to art school

Hey, that Food guy ripped on art school, not me. I ripped on him. I don't know from art school, ain't never been.

and you're speaking like a pretensious fuck. I don't follow.

Fair enough: I do have a pretense. My pretense is: I know what I am looking at. See below:

warmowski wrote: If you ask me, visual design can't be overdone.

This was your original blanket statement. To me, this assumes that even the most self-indulgent, thoughtless cluster-fuck is still not overdone by your standards. You want a specific example? How about (and i know this is cheese, but we're judging visual design aesthetic, right?) USA for Africa's "We Are the World"? It's clear the label & Quincy Jones wanted to sell as many as possible to raise funds for a good cause. In designing for this principle, there are a fuck-ton of tiny, little itty-bitty grainy photos on the back of all the superstar recording artists in studio. These photos are in fact so miniscule that it renders their subjects indecipherable. The lyrics are reprinted on the back & there is flashy 80's-style "design" all over it. Would you consider this design overdone?

I wish I had a copy of this record so I could be sure, but I'll say no - the design is underdone. Underdone because cramming all the artists photos onto the skin of the package is clearly an act of artist aggrandizement that necessarily wastes some of the opportunity to communicate the gravity, urgency and emotion of starving kids. It seems like the kind of tacky maneuver mainstream music projects are so well known for. Had that panel been used in a better way -- had it been designed fully instead of under-designed -- you would today have an emotional resonance about starving kids when you look at it instead of seeing a dumb pastiche of tiny Kenny Rogers, tiny Al Jarreau and tinier Paul Simon.

warmowski wrote:Dull bands are bands that do less design.

:shock: Not a fan of minimalism, are we? I guess by your standards, the Shellac 7"'s must be shining examples of a dull band's design.

I assume you mean the white texturey ones with the slightly embossed band logo brushed with, uh, Shellac to bring out the embossing and stamped with a green-ink rubber stamp that nicely picks up the brown in the Shellac. That's six or seven elements there, balanced nicely. The effect may appear minimalist, the design work and visual acuity needed to balance and relate these elements is absolutely not minimal, nor accidental. These are fully designed. You may not be aware of this.

warmowski wrote:These are all decisions - even when they don't appear to be decisions at all - and these decisions are what add up to the statement.

I just felt like including that out-of-context statement because when I first read it, I really felt like I was reading something Don Rumsfeld had said. Kinda made me giggle for a split second. Thanks for that.

You explain what you see with the phrases you have, not the phrases you wish you had, or might want.

If not Rumsfeld, then how about Lee: If you choose not to decide...

-r

the 7" record is one of mankind's greatest achievements.

As long as they have the small hole that fits onto a regular turntable spindle, N/C.

The "big hole" design edges in toward the C direction, since 45 inserts are not always easy to come by anymore, especially not out in the boondocks, and this trend is likely to continue.

I knew a guy once who decided to go for the big hole on a run of 500 7" singles for his band, Chore. Reason: cheaper. How much cheaper? $0.03/pc. So you saved a grand total of $15 at the expense of whoever gives enough of a fuck about your band to buy your 7"? Brilliant.

More baffling is Jesus Lizard's three 7" set 'Lash', which comes in a 3-fold sleeve which can't have been that cheap to make, but still has the large hole discs. Strange. I really enjoyed the record, btw, just think that the format could have made more sense.

rocker654 wrote:

MrFood wrote:

BadComrade wrote:Wrong. Touch & Go put out albums by Coco Rosie. Coco Rosie.

You're not gonna believe me now... but... wait for it....

I've never heard Coco Rosie. Never.

I hear people who I trust saying how much they suck, and I avoid them. It works!

I only found out they were on T&G a little while ago too....

Tell me, if ignorance is bliss - what state am I in? What would y'all give to be able to say you've never heard Coco Rosie? Indulge me.

I think I heard a few minutes worth of their stuff. Somebody here linked to it.

Like a traumatic accident, I have blocked out any memory of it. So it kinda is like never having heard them before.

keep on talking, motherfuckers...keep on talking