What's with the loose flap though?

We know he's too tight to put them in jewel cases, but shit Prince, you can't put a little magnet tab on the flap?

NouveauDance said:

Ironically, the packaging for Musicology is probably more expensive to produce than jewel cases!
Me, I think the packaging is okay, as my cds stay in their cases! I would have prefered a little more info in the liner notes though, and consistency on the font would have been nice.
I wanted to see a shout out to Jehovah on there!

theblueangel said:

I know one cute lil' kid who got pictures all over his walls, yo.

And if you didn't go into a psychosexualdramatic froth over the possibility of owning a poster of that picture from the Tavis show, I'd personally call up the nice men in white suits to come over and cart you off to the funny farm.

Not to get all Barbara Billingsly in "Airplane!" on yo ass, but Ward, I think you're gettin all up in the Beav's grill on this one (and stick with me here, cuz don't worry, I may be having a brief lapse into fairness here, but just like Ike and Tina, I'ma do it nice....and ROUGH).

I have a hard time believing the packaging of this CD is a cheaper route than going with jewel cases. If you give something a custom digipack treatment, it's gonna cost more than slapping a booklet into a jewel case. Maybe I'm wrong, and if I am, eh...lesson learned. But the design on this thing shows a little inspiration, even if the front flap is annoying and won't shut right, and even if the lettering on the spine doesn't really stand out and gets swallowed up on the shelf among yer other CDs, and blah blah blah whatever (and I STILL cannot stand the "Musicology font" - it looks weak on the album and it looks weak on the concert t-shirts, and the best thing I can say about it is that it looks "sporty", UGH).

Still and all, I have to ask the question - if ya don't like it, could ya do better? Maybe you could throw something together with less typos, maybe you could throw something together with more consistency in the design, but could you keep up with lyric submissions from a man who's CONSTANTLY changing the arrangements of his tunes (and we all know this is the case), and maintain something close to consistent as a final product? Maybe ya could, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be a walk in the park. And for that, ol' SammyTerryNation deserves a smidge of credit for accomplishing something that so many of us, regardless of our creative leanings, would LOVE to be able to do.

I think the booklet looks fine. I can't think of a booklet in a Prince album that's really rocked my world, though when I think of cool album design, I can't help but think about the ATWIAD package or the Parade package (dang, that collage RAWKED in the gatefold sleeve, but that's more o' that picture kidstuff, nyuk nyuk...). Sure, an essay would be cool - what's up with no acknowledgments or thank yous? Not even an EVOLSIDOG? SHEEEE! - but I gotta say, the essay in TGE seemed slapped-on and kinda beside the point. Maybe something like the Crystal Ball liner notes or the Emancipation liner notes, as fugly as they were, would be cool - at least there were little jottings about the tunes - but with this album, I don't think you need the commentary. The music holds up on its own.

NOW. Here's what I have to say about the typos.

Has anyone ever seen Prince go out with a hole in his pants or a tomato sauce stain on his lapel? Heck naw, and if he did, someone's head would be on a purple paisley platter. Ever even seen the man's mascara clump?? NO! (okay, maybe once or twice - I seen some tore-up lookin' pictures of the man from the mid '90s - but that's another story) So if the man is gonna be that fastidious about his personal appearance, wouldn't he want to be equally as cautious about how the words he's written appear? Maybe it's just cuz I'm a writer, but I'D certainly think so.

See, I know a lot of people don't think this a big deal, but (and I really don't mean to be condescending about this) a lot of people dont' know what goes into a polished piece of writing....the editing, the proofing, the first and second and final passes that churn through a publishing house until every "t" is crossed and every "i" is dotted. If you saw the first drafts of what came out of the word processors of even the most celebrated writers, believe me, you'd PLOTZ. It takes work to make a piece of text look good, and it ain't just sittin' in front of a keyboard wondering what comes after "Once upon a time..." - it takes people who know how to catch errors, people who have read their Strunk & White, and people who know their way around a pica ruler, to make this stuff look the way it should. And if they've done their job right, you as a reader will never even know they exist.

And I'm guessing that the major labels run everything through proofreaders before a new CD hits the wrecka stow shelves. And I'm guessing that NPG is in a weird place where they're in-between major-label support and indie-label DIY production, and all the cogs aren't exactly in place. And things like attention to detail get lost in the shuffle. Which, you know, is kind of a drag, but maybe it's all part of the process.

I'd like to see the days again where a Prince product looks polished and seemless and I don't even consider shit like "did someone PROOFREAD this??" - I mean, as simple as it is, SOTT looks exquisite. The type, the design, everything about it was just scrumptious. But you betta believe that sucker passed through a bunch of twitchy, caffeine-addled eyeballs at WB before it hit the shelves. It's a shame that the same kind of scrutiny isn't applied to his stuff these days, but it's just a commentary as to where the priorities lie - the music sounds great, and what adorns it just kinda is what it is, and at best it's a showcase for the guy who designed it, for better or for worse. I mean, if you put a piece of Godiva chocolate in a Now'n'Later wrapper, the chocolate's still gonna taste divine, ya know?

And I think the art design on Musicology is a bit better than a Now'n'Later wrapper...it's a Ho Ho wrapper at the very least.

The most critical I can be of this latest venture is that Sammyboy needs to be a little less font-happy and put some of that serif-philic energy to use on the accuracy of the text. As far as the overall composition of the thing and the general look and feel of the package, I think it's a step up from what we've gotten in the past few years. I look forward to future stuff (even the sideline stuff that's marketed mainly to fans) being taken up a level, cuz it's almost there.

Now I think I'm gonna shut my trap on the subject and turn on the stereo.





first pass edit
[This message was edited Thu Apr 22 9:16:27 2004 by Anxiety]

paisleypark4 said:

Why yes, perfectly satisfied...they're both beautiful, classy, simple and correct.

paisleypark4 said:

Sure I getcha...like I said, pictures is for kids!! I love kids more than Michael Jackson though, so I ain't mad atcha.

Anxiety said:

True that! In fact, I'm currently dripping semen cause I just won this baby on ebay:


That picture on the left NEEDS to be in my bedroom. Oh, and for the record, I have a huge NPS cover poster at the foot of my bed...there's no writing on it, just the picture of him with the cartoon ear bling and gold chain necklace....but the picture is cropped MUCH lower, and you can see that he's not actually wearing a shirt at all....just 2 frilly red sleeves...kinda like something a figure skater would wear. It's hot.

Apparently, I prefer my pictures in poster form and on my walls...probably because I don't make a habit out of flipping through CD booklets and looking at pictures, so I see them much more frequently on the wall...and there are some DAMN sexy Prince posters out there, lemme tell ya!

Anxiety said:

Shit yeah, I could do better - and I'm not just talking about the typos and errors. I think the cover is unimaginative and boring, so much so that the first line in more than one review of the album I've read goes something like, "Despite it's dull cover..."

I SHO nuff know you could do better, Anxiety...with your hands tied behind your back and a leather bondage hood over your head.

And honestly, I don't think it would be too hard to keep up on the lyric submissions of Prince...I mean shit, I'm just Average Andrew from Ohio and I manage to keep up on that shit, so why the fuck can't SammyCrappyAssNation?

You say good design, I say deservedly much aligned. Let's call the whole thing off.

theblueangel said:

andrew, you coulda asked me prior to the first avenue party that i went to on monday if i'd pick you up a poster and you woulda got it for free! they had TONS of those promo posters there.