So the “who they” Art Vinyl people have awarded the best album cover of 2009 then. I believe a public vote may have been involved, indeed one assumes it must because the winner was Muse who have a lot of public. The Resistance is not a bad album cover, indeed it follows many of the rules of the best album cover of all time* in as much as it has a high concept, contains the colours of the rainbow and is a bit trippy. Let’s be fair, if it had been on the cover of Orbital’s In Sides, I probably would play the album more often.
But hold on the BBC seem to be displaying the shortlist. And OK, I like the variation in styles between the covers, from optical illusions to pig faced portraiture (The Fever Ray cover is particularly striking). But hold on, what is this nestling between the second hand Banksy of Green Day and the aforementioned La Roux cover.
It can’t be.
Really? This top-down view of a half arsed game of Kerplunk, with ropey lettering is one of the best album covers of 2009? REALLY? Surely we all agreed six months ago that we had alreeady found the worst of the year no matter what soft soaped sepia nonsense they put on the Susan Boyle album. Would anyone want this monstrosity on the wall?
Because of course that is what this is all about. Becuase Art Vinyl, the subtly named sponsors, do exactly that. Make picture frames for your records with easy access. Go on, spunk £40 on a frame now!
*This being the cover to Emerson Lake And Palmer’s Tarkus of course. Wins the best cover artwork of all time for its depiction of an Armadillo Tank on some sort of rainbow battlefield. It does not win the best interior gatefold artwork though, I’ll let you ponder that one.