This is just for my own curiosity. What do you guys think of Prince's artwork (album & DVD covers) since he left WB? Do you think his stuff in the last decade is on par with his "classic" days? What is your favorite album cover ever?

laura di puma rocked, let's just put it that way.

no, i don't think his album art has been all that since he left WB, though of course it left a lot to be desired even during the later WB daze.

i don't think the visual/image side of his work is as important to him anymore. i think he has a vague concept and he leaves it all up to other people to execute. i think he sees himself less as a brand these days, and he's more interested in his life and his experiences and his process as an artist and a person. if that makes sense.

my favorite album cover of his ever? hmmm. probably ATWIAD or SOTT or even lovesexy. i think everything up to and including lovesexy is pretty iconic, whether it's considered great design work or not.

it gets worse with time

Dirty Mind is my favorite
the front cover, the back cover
and the inside slip cover
with him & the band
[Edited 1/25/06 16:53pm]

I find some of his album cover artwork a bit sinister these days.

For me nothing has matched Lovesexy or 1999 OR any of the others up to that point.

I specifically didn't like Graffiti Bridge. And Diamonds and Pearls really annoyed me. It was the sort of album that my mum liked.

Yikes ! I should've known that was a bad sign.

My favorite covers are 1999 and Controversy

Tangerine17 said:

It's stunning just how bad "Rave un2 the Joy Fantastic"'s cover is. Just LOOK at it! LOOK! He did want people to BUY the album, didn't he?

"Emancipation" had an ugly color scheme cover. That symbol was always a hinderance to the overall design of a cover.

The "tree branches" and "brick wall" of the "Musicology" album look manufactured, and his hand-on-chin is so "posed"- it's that kind of unnaturalness that worked in the 80's but not in todays' music scene. Just be a regular guy instead of creating an "aura".

"One Nite Alone Live!" should have had a live concert photo akin to the movie poster to "Sign o the Times". I look at that box set in stores and think, "No one is going to have ANY idea what that box sets' about". A pure vanity shot. Once AGAIN, grabbing his chin! Why?

"Crystal Ball" or beach ball?

"Come" was depressing and not cover-worthy. Should have used the cover of the "Letitgo" single instead, with that sculpture of a hair-do!

"The Gold Experience"- That photo with stalker Prince blurred and hiding behind gold chain or something, with the junior-high doodle lettering of the title, and the damn symbol again, almost lost in the same color as the rest of the cover.

"Chaos and Disorder"-once again, you DO want us to buy this album, right? Oh yeah: no!

"Grafitti Bridge" : free association?

" Diamonds and Pearls": gimmick

"NEWS"-just boring.


***


Prince album covers are usually indicative of the contents: when Prince has his act together, it's TOTALLY together:

1999, Controversy, PR, Parade, SOTT, Lovesexy, Rainbow Children : good and/or interesting covers; good and/or interesting music.

Bad covers are an omen of the contents. You CAN judge a Prince album by it's cover! Favorite cover ever: PARADE. TRC was a nice superise.

warning2all said:

I agree completely. I think the "chin" pose is to show some mystique, like "Hey, what could he be thinking about?," since it looks like he's thinking. As it is, though, it makes every photo look the same. "Rave" was just... Ugh.

warning2all said:

Hey Warning, that's all fine but how do you really feel?

Tangerine17 said:

I liked the covers of the 80's. Tang, you seem to be informed regarding current and past P activities, so here's a Q referencing the past. How much input did P have on his album covers from the 80's period. Did he always have absolute final say? Did he have to or was he contractually obligated to collaborate on album covers? Were the concepts his original idea and they morphed from there?

I always wondered about the artwork and how they came to be. The most intersting covers to me (the ones I spent a lot of time looking at) Around the World and Sign of the Times. I remember trying to match the ATWIAD cover "characters" with the songs. I also remember when I realized that the "1" on 1999 was a penis. Very creative. In a horny toad kina way.

Post Warners I liked the Truth album cover, unfortunately it wasn't released. Some of my favorites r 1999, Sign O The Times, The Gold Experience (wasn't the original kind of like a hologram the one Letterman showed) I think that would've made the cover look better with that pic.

"Dirty Mind", "Around The World In A Day", "Parade", "Sign O' The Times" and "Lovesexy" have the best covers ever!!!

Obviously the "Controversy" cover was inspired by fellow WB artist Tom Waits' 1980 album cover "Heartattack And Vine"!

Parade is the best one.

lately the covers have been getting worse and worse
with NPS and The Vault... at the absolute deep end

On the whole, his album covers were much much better during the WB years. Much more artistic, interesting and better designed.

This is an interesting post and a topic I've not given much thought to and come to think of it, I'm surprised. I've often associated P's covers with the music inside and I rarely do listen to the albums with bad cover art.

Controversy, 1999, Around The World In A Day, Parade and Sign O' The Times were all brilliant and contain most of his best work, along with Purple Rain.

I never liked the cover of Purple Rain, but I think it was a great choice and obviously hugely effective!

The Rainbow Children was a very very nice surprise and I felt at the time it was the first signal that Prince was really going to make a worthy return to form. Then Musicology dashed that hope, but I enjoyed all the publicity and success he had with his #1 tour in '04.

I'm really hoping Black Sweat is as good a funk tune as Te Amo Corazon is a loungy jazz song, and PLEASE more wonderful videos, as well. Selma worked wonders! I've often thought Prince should just reclaim his sound, ala U Got The Look, Kiss or even Erotic City.

The design on the post WB albums is definitely worse. You've got the Photoshop overkill of Emancipation and the 'tossed-off-in-5-minutes-before-lunch' Photoshop of Musicology. The typography is awful. He really needs to get someone in with a good knowledge of type.

I have a theory - it's not just Prince who's album artwork is suffering after entering the 90s. It's across the board. I'm going to sound like an old fart for saying this but the decline in the quality of album sleeve artwork coincided with the decline of vinyl. The 12 inch format lent itself so much better to creative graphic design. From the 60s to the 80s there were some great album covers - real iconic stuff. You kind of lose the impact with CDs. There's also the rise of digital tools like Photoshop to consider. I'm not saying there are no more great album covers. It's just that they're a lot rarer than they used to be.

A lot of the imagery, type and colours that represent a genre of music are more or less set in stone nowadays. Go into a music store and look at the racks for a certain genre (Hip Hop, Metal, anything) from a distance and you'll see how similar a lot of the jacket designs look. There's a general lack of thinking out of the box and risk taking. End of ramble.
[Edited 1/26/06 1:47am]

stim said:

exactly. remember back in the days of Purple Rain, Sign o the Times
and Lovesexy, and even Diamonds & Pearls, when an album had an own
style of font, sometimes especially created for the album artwork.

i miss that. these days it's just like they take a quick look at a
regular list of Windows Fonts and pick the first one that they can
find.

Jillibean said:

I agree, plus I would add sign of the times

IstenSzek said:

I wanted to post a pic!

IstenSzek said:

...so HERE we Go!











With thanks to Paradetour.com

I'm missing 80s Prince so much...

Cheek said:

was it this one?

IstenSzek said:

No!

Cheek said:

this one perhaps?

IstenSzek said:

No!

This one:

Cheek said:

that would have made a nice prince cover

i always imagine myself in suspenders on
the cover of dirty mind

IstenSzek said:

That pic is super cute!

I'll burn an extended one-tracked Lovesexy CD with this pic on the cover!

Cheek said:

i guess you don't get a lot of pictures where you come from

IstenSzek said:

I forgot to laugh.

Posthumous said:

I'm so with Posthumous O.K.A.T.F.M.C.K.A.A. ().

ATWIAD and SOTT - that's artwork at its best. Well, even The Black Album. Maybe we should add News. But after all, artwork during the WB area was best (in Prince terms). Yet, with the exceptions of ATWIAD and SOTT, the artwork was far from what it could have been.

Also, I'm absolutely into fold-outs (vinyl) and digipaks. Look at how Kate Bush's "Aerial" has been done: Hell, even the picture CDs came correctly positioned to fit in with the background graphics! First time I saw that...

I love extensive credits and any artwork which challenges you to discover new details everytime you look at it.

And, of course, there has to be a concept in it.

Wolf

purple rain, the best cover ever.
then controversy
i like the halogram thing with d&p

so i guess, i like the artwork better when he was with wb