The Suburbs ~ Si Sauvage / Roxy Music ~ Country Life

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The Suburbs ~ Si Sauvage

Record Label: Self-released through kickstarter (no label)
Release Date: August 27, 2013

Si Sauvage - this relatively recent album was released by The Suburbs. It is rather special in numerous ways. It is the first album the band has released in 27 years (longer than I am old at the moment of writing this), features most of the original band members, it was launched through a kickstarter project and it has a lovely cover.

The designer, Kii Arens, had a brief musical career around the time the Suburbs were around. In fact, his stage debut was in 1986 where he opened for them. For the cover's design he wanted to go back to the success period of the Suburbs, the '80s.

From StarTribune (Kii Arens talking):

"The '80s decadence, [that was] so fun to be part of. The over-the-top stuff, pomposity, sexuality – the world suddenly deciding Adam Ant had talent."

"[The Suburbs] paid attention to what they looked like on stage," he said. "I wanted to make an album cover over the top and push the buttons. We seem to be becoming a little more conservative. I don’t think that belongs in the realm of rock 'n' roll."

What is (or what I find) particularly interesting about the piece is that it vaguely resembles the cover of Roxy Music's Country Life. Roxy Music was one of Chan Poling (Suburbs frontman) his favourites.

Roxy Music ~ Country Life

Though in my opinion the cover is relatively mild compared to some older albums, it is true that nowadays we seem to have returned to less shocking imagery. Kii Arens:

“I’m glad the band allowed themselves to use this more daring cover,” said Arens, who also shot more traditional portraits of the Suburbs. “There was talk about cropping the panties but Chan said, ‘No way! The panties are staying in.’ Good for him!”

In case you were wondering, the models are Irina Voronina (Playboy centerfold 2001), and Leigh Yaeger, an artist.

Roxy Music ~ Country Life

Record Label: Island, Polydor (UK) Atco, Reprise (US)[1]
Release Date: November 15, 1974

Photographed by Eric Boman, this cover was considered rather controversial at the time of release. It was subsequently censored in multiple countries, including the United States, Spain and the Netherlands. This was done by simply taking the back of the album, which was a picture of just the woods, and putting it on the front. Michael Ochs (some photographic archivist of mainly rock and roll) therefore called this "most complete cover-up in rock history".

Censored cover (US/The Netherlands)

Censored cover (Spain)

The cover was such an icon that people have mimicked it or have been inspired by it later on. Next to the influenced Suburbs album, there is also...

Sweet Apple ~ Love & Desperation

Robots in Disguise ~ Boys
with one of my favourite comedians:
Noel Fielding

Dum Dum Girls ~ Blissed Out

References (literature):

1. Michael Ochs (2002). Record Covers, Taschen, p.545

~ jar

Beck ~ Odelay

Beck ~ Odelay

Record Label: DGC, Bong Load Custom

Release Date: June 18, 1996

Couldn't find an album cover to do next. Luckily I have scraped the internet before for album covers, downloading about 200k if not more covers, so I just went through a few of them.

Beck Hansen. To be specific, his fifth studio album, the second at a major record label company. But that's about all we can say for sure. Basically everything about this album is ambiguous, open for interpretation, numerous stories go around and they are hard to verify. There is not too much to go into detail about on this album cover, so this might be a short post, but should still be interesting have you not read about it yet.

I know this is not about the albumcover, but I had to find out anyway. The name, version one:
The name Odelay actually comes from "Oh Delay" because the album was taking so long to record, according to Spin in an interview with Stephen Malkmus, who has worked with Beck (actually Beck has produced been his producer).

The name, version two:
Supported by Wikipedia (without a source), Odelay comes from the Spanish word (Mexican slang) "órale". This is also supported by numerous other sources, but noteworthy is what is written on WhiskeyClone, which seems to be supported by the lyrics of the song Odelay:

"Apparently when Al Hansen taught Beck how to rhyme as a little boy, Beck's first rhyme was "Pull down your pants and do the hot dog dance." Beck once told a story about how he once worked as Hot Dog Man at a kid's birthday party, which gives the phrase a little autobiographical resonance. His use of of the word "orale" (which mutated to "odelay")—a mutated Spanish word he used to hear while growing up in a predominantly Mexican neighborhood—also references his past."

The cover. Unless you know a lot about dogs or was curious about this cover (or both, like me), you may not know that it actually depicts a rare Hungarian breed of dog clearing a hurdle. The dogbreed is called a Komondor. Here's some random Google images to give you a better idea:

I know. This one will probably throw you off again.

Sure, it's an odd breed. So why did Beck pick this picture? There are numerous stories going around, so let's see if we can falsify some.

FeelNumb claims Beck chose the picture at the last moment (sounds a bit dodgy to me considering the album allegedly took long to create) when his girlfriend showed him this picture:

MentalFloss claims to have a quote from art director Robert Fisher:

"The photo was taken by a famous dog photographer called Ludwig, who lived a few blocks from the office. She was in her late seventies, and was enthusiastic to have a visitor.
Beck felt that it was kind of ambiguous, unrelated to the music, and was chosen almost at random. The viewer could read into the cover whatever they wanted. Odelay also sounded a bit like a dog command."

According to AIGA Design Archives, this particular photo was picked because it's "simple, strong, memorable—and in some weird way works with the album title. I wanted the type on the cover to hint at Beck’s roots in folk music." This appears to be a particularly reliable source, as their sole purpose seems to be to preserve artwork.

Then again, people that preserve art will probably not mention it if something was done last minute rather than an elaborate thought process. One thing we do know for sure, is that Joanie Ludwig took the picture, possibly together with Nitin Vadukul.

I'd put my money on it that the girlfriend story is just a myth, but believe what you want. The cover is still awesome.

~ jar