I've enjoyed some of prince's album covers quite a lot over the years. Whether mysterious, kitschy or sexy, the best ones were often almost striking as the music. My absolute favourite: "Sign O The Times".
BUT my question to YOU is: WHAT ARE HIS WORST ALBUM COVERS?


MY (TOP) 3 WORST:

-"The Gold Experience" (Excremental brown tones have never been good for conveying gold. The front photograph of prince is simply too unfocused to strike out. Combined with the SYMBOL and the title it creates an unbalanced effect)

-"Old Friends For Sale" (Generally sloppy artwork. The photo makes Prince look like a squirrel. A depressed squirrel, that is. Sloppy Photoshop adjustments to blend in artificial background is probably the worst Photoshop job, I've ever seen.)

-"Symbol-Album 1992" (Surely they could have done better than use a still from a video? The Limited Edition is slightly better, but should really have been the cover for "The Gold Experience")

christobole said:

the vault: looks like a kindergartener played with mommy's computer on photoshop...

chaos & disorder: horrid, horrid, phuckin horrid!!!

controversy (front cover only): the airbrushin wuz unnecessary.


everything else is cool, i suppose.

OF4S yeah.

And Crystal Ball is pretty boring.

The Vault.
Plus his hair just puts me off on that one.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

I just noticed that you said The Vault also.
It's true though.

4 votes for THE VAULT!

Batman.

I was dissapointed by how cheap the graffiti bridge cover looked.. like art on a van.

The Vault - He looks like Sybill Fawlty waiting for a bus.

LittlePill said:

yeah, that sux 2. the batman logo close up, wow...

but you people ALL bow down to a photo of a naked man on a winged horse?

WHOOO. Real ARTISANS, you folks.

otan said:

it's a helluva lot better than the aforementioned covers, u gotta admit...



beats the vault's cover anyphuckin day.


mine!

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

I just look at that and think of the line from Kalifornia... "ELVIS, GET OFFA HIM!"

otan said:

Put me down for The Vault.
Reminds me of a cheesy bootleg cover. Which is sort of appropriate considering the music on the CD, I guess.

christobole said:

I love the cover of this one. It's strange and draws you into another world, a Prince futuristic world. I love all the little kids around them, it's whimsical and like somekind of movie. It's great.

I don't know that it was a still of the video. Which came first is not clear, could have been, but at least it kept everything in consistent theme.


I think the very worst covers have been New Power Soul, a terrible cover that just confused fans and the regular record buying public. Especially since the term "NEWPOWERSOUL=>" had been used in Lovesexy as a spiritual, above all material things, peace awakening type way.

Then Prince uses the name again, but with him with a gold GUN mike, Chains, chicks with heels...ugh, just bad. Still haven't bought the album!

And Emancipation. Just...blah! Too mystical, too many ideas everywhere, like Prince and Parke tried TOO hard to make a perfect something. The chain thing was a good solution, but, execution was over the top. Too much orange too.

I think Parke was getting sloppy. In fact, the sloppiness and lack of real design/typography skills (although I think he's a really talented painter) actually made Prince look...cheap. Like he's gone to Kinko's or Computer Learning Centers to get things designed! Image is everything and it wasn't making him look good.

For Sign O The Times, professionals handled it with Prince. You can do a search on the org, I've posted info on Sign O The Times artists here and there.

But there was a team of designers at WB for most of Prince's best albums. One of them was my teacher in design college. She said that Prince wanted a theme of trash on oneside and flowers on the other, hence the "Ghettos 2 the left of us, Flowers 2 the right!"

I also think Around The World In A Day was fabulous. And Most of the Parade album and singles were great too. Especially the inside record sleeves and gatefold of Parade. ALmost felt like that album should have been a double album.






ooo
[This message was edited Wed Mar 19 16:43:40 PST 2003 by FlyingCloudPassenger]

Emancipation had TERRIBLE art direction...very cheap looking in quality and in style.

Graffiti Bridge is another lackluster album cover. I always thought the inset photo of Prince wearing his leather jacket would have been a better choice.

Crystal Ball - Its just too plain

XtrueX said:

you crazy.

the artwork sucks
but the music is supreme.

1st Place: New Power Soul - if he was going to add cartoon art to actual drawings, he could have at least done it Exodus style.

2nd Place: Come - that shit terrifies me

3rd Place: Rave

christobole said:

One Night Alone - They used fucking VIVALDI for the font!!! The layout and photos are insanely amateurish. Guess P couldnt afford Herb Ritts anymore (may he rest in peace)

New Power Soul - Ugly Ugly photo of Prince. I really enjoyed the illustrations inside though, they should have used them on the cover instead. At least this CD had a custom font designed by Chank (a minneapolis native as well).

Chaos & Disorder - ugh!

Batman

Tom said:

Fonts are for computer Font files...a TYPEFACE is the actual letterform.

TYPEFACE, TYPEFACE.

Put me down 4 the Vault 2.
Next, NewPowerSoul
Rave would be my next choice. The whole look ruins it 4 me...the hair, that outfit, and what's with the stance?

Emancipation by far!

The Black Album!

The Vault: old friends for sale for sure !!

One of my personal problems with Emancipation is the colour. I don't like it, but it may be just me, I am colourblind

The symbol album was great because the symbol was printed in the plastic, I always try not to get it scratched.

I think the Purple Rain CD lookd horrible, but the art works on the sleeve for a LP.

Ans Chaos and Disorder is great, because there's lots to discover.

I like the Purple Medley because of the title, when you turn it upside down, it looks like it says help me. But that painting is ugly in my opinion. The pic inside is cool, but, the black blocks on the people's eyes disturb me, both positive as negative.

FlyingCloudPassenger said:

exactly...plus i don't like how they used that particular typeface, especially when they have all caps on some stuff. fancy-schmancy typefaces/fonts are not good when it comes 2 all caps.

OK, I can't find it in my collection right now but the cd single The Work pt 1. UGH! I hate that painting/drawing of him. It is so hideously ugly!