In yesterday’s Independent, Peter Saville, the legendary album cover designer, declared the album cover “dead”.

Speaking from his studio this weekend, Mr Saville believes that cover art is dead, not just because of technology, but because the youth culture in which albums once operated has changed: “We have a social disaster on our hands,” he said. “The things that pop music was there to do for us have all been done… there’s nothing to rail against now.

“When I was 15, in the North-west of England…. the record cover to me was like a picture window to another world. Seeing an Andy Warhol illustration on a Velvet Underground album was a revelation…. It was the art of your generation… true pop art.”

While I agree, to an extent, the individual image on the cover of an album holds less importance than it once did, to say that album artwork is “dead” is to miss the point of this new multidimensional, multimedia, multisensory world we live in.

With the death of the LP, album artwork took a blow, being reduced from large and eyecatching works of art, to small, CD-jewel-case filling bits of paper.  The album packaging went from being a treasured piece of art, to being a small and manufactured artifact.  Now, with iTunes and the iPod, the album cover itself has been reduced to a 5cm square lit up on a screen.  It is disposable, intangible, and ultimately, less important to the musical experience.

But the problem with album artwork goes deeper than that.  Saville argues that today’s youth have nothing left to rebel against - sex, drugs, rock and roll - they’ve all been done.  He calls this a “social disaster”.  This could be Saville’s age showing, having little or no relation to today’s youth.  But it could also hold some truth - rock and roll was the revolution of the baby boomer generation.  Elvis, The Beatles and The Sex Pistols were the first acts to use rock and roll to communicate their message of revolution to the new teenage generation.  War was over, young men and women were no longer drafted into service, and they now had money and the freedom to express themselves.  Music was the vehicle of choice for our parents to find and define themselves.

What Saville fails to realise is that while music remains a revolutionary vehicle for today’s pop culture junkies, the 10 track LP is but a grain of sand on a beach of possibility.  Since the 1980’s, the way we interact with and consume pop culture has been changing and evolving at an amazing pace.  Teenagers today have the same thoughts, worries, insecurities, interests and pleasures that the teenagers of the 1960’s, ’70’s and ’80’s had, but their options for expressing and sharing these thoughts are much wider, faster and more diverse.  Pop culture for today’s youth is about the convergence of music, video and technology, and the ability to express yourself through interactive mediums like the Internet.

A musical release today encompasses alot more than a 10 track LP and an album cover.  From the most commercial of artists, to those doing it on their own with a MySpace account and a self-made CD-R, the avenues for release and promotion are varied and exciting.  Music has to become a ‘brand’ to survive in the modern commercial climate, and this offers more scope for the creation and expression of art, not less.

The Music Brand

To take a well planned out and highly successful example at the commercial end of the spectrum, Madonna’s “Confessions On A Dancefloor” album and campaign is one of my favourite ‘collections’.  On the surface you may see a 12 track album, and an album cover - once upon a time, this is where it would have ended.  But, in the 00’s media climate, the campaign is based on building a brand around the music which communicates the same message.

With “Confessions”, Madonna attempted to go back to her disco routes, and produce an album that would reignite some of the excitement of the late 70’s and early 80’s disco days, bringing in modern dance influences.   The campaign artwork, is built around that idea, beginning with the album cover.

The cover art for Madonna’s “Confessions On A Dancefloor” established the look and feel of the campaign - Madonna is seen dressed in a 70’s pink leotard, in a dance pose, on a black background decorated with pink and purple glitterball reflections.  The name “MADONNA” is turned into a logo, that is used repeatedly throughout the “Confessions” campaign.

The 70’s dance imagery was carried across into the video, in which Madonna dons the pink leotard and dances with an early 80’s boombox.  The different single releases reused the “Madonna” logo and glitterball effect for their cover artwork, sticking to some established branding rules for fonts and colours.

Promotional material for the album, including press coverage, posters, show tickets, flyers and digital mail-outs and text messages, used the “Confessions” style.  Images of Madonna came from the same photoshoot used for the album cover art.  Even Madonna’s website was rehauled to portray the look and feel of “Confessions”.  The thousands of different artifacts produced around the 12 track album, from videos to adverts, were used to promote the “Confessions” brand.

Madonna - “Confessions” Artwork

Whilst Madonna is an extreme example, being one of the world’s best selling artists, with an album production and marketing budget that would give most band’s a heart attack, it is a great example of how we interact with music culture today.  While “Confessions” branded material could probably fill a small branch of HMV, The Velvet Underground’s Andy Warhol designed LP sits as a small square of cardboard on a shelf.

DIY Pop Art

At the other end of the scale, far away from Madonna’s marketing machine of graphic designers and branding experts, today’s kids are doing it for themselves.  The Internet and digital culture mean that anyone can create and promote their music.  One such recent example was Leeds based new rave/grime/electro group, Hadouken!.  The band successfully created and released an EP of songs talking about their world and the experience of today’s youth, whilst successfully building a brand around themselves through limited record releases, merchandise and websites.

Hadouken! established themselves with a fresh sounding song called “That Boy, That Girl”.  The track got a limited release (1000 copies) via an indie label.  The single sleeve featured just the band logo - a hand drawn catroonish creation by one of the band members.  500 copies of this limited release were hand coloured by the band themself, using neon bright colours - a theme that was to become the band’s signature.

The band began selling merchandise, using the Hadouken! logo on t-shirts and hats, that in a similar “DIY style to the “That Boy, That Girl” single cover, invited the owner to paint and decorate in their own unique way.  The result was that the Hadouken! brand spread throughout towns around the UK, with the help of hundreds of artistic fans.

The “That Boy, That Girl” video, shot on a tight budget, features similar examples of neon painted imagery, and the DIY Hadouken! logo.

The band became an Internet phenomenon, and were promoted via their MySpace and message board, which used similar neon imagery to brand their web presence.  They established their ‘brand’ of youth rebellion not just through music, but through blogs, videos and other media.  Now signed to a major label, their subsequent single covers and album artwork has followed the same DIY design principles.

Hadouken! - Artwork

Pop Is For Everyone

Unlike the days when Andy Warhol was invited to design influencial album covers, the influence on the artwork now comes as much from the artists themself and the consumer, as it does any graphic designer or ‘artist’. The elitist idea that art is created for the masses by the few is one that does not sit well with the kids of today, and is probably the point that Peter Saville has missed.

Kids are rehashing album covers and band related artwork into websites, MySpace profiles, avatars and t-shirts.  Those who connect with the message being expressed by the likes of My Chemical Romance or Lily Allen have posters, DVDs, websites and various other mediums through which to celebrate the message.

In a sea of album covers and music related artwork, the impact of the individual album cover has been muddied, but the messages are coming through clearer.  Pop culture is meant to be for the masses, and is designed to be a part of the world we live in.  More so now than ever, that culture surrounds us everyday, and is available to us through multiple sources.

I too am sad to see the death of the ‘iconic’ album cover, but I do not think it heralds a “social disaster”, but the beginning of a cultural tidal wave like nothing we have ever experienced before.  The war in music between youth and authority is won, because our parents were the soldiers.  We now launch a new war, on our own terms.