This is the thread where you make remarks about Calexico's cover art

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Cover arts like these:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000089CPF.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00004SQWM.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000064B7.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― Famous Athlete, Saturday, 22 March 2003 03:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, I know. It's poster art, and it doesn't belong on an album cover. It conveys nothing whatsoever about what's inside.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Saturday, 22 March 2003 03:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't you think it's interesting, though, that they would keep choosing to use this kind of "poster art?" Why do you suppose they keep doing this? I remember the Pitchfork review of Hot Rail dwelled on the "ugly" cover art for quite some time (as they are prone to doing, dwelling I mean), saying that it's not so ugly once you get to know it.

― Famous Athlete, Saturday, 22 March 2003 03:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I dunno, man. It's pretty darn ugly.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Saturday, 22 March 2003 03:57 (twenty-three years ago)

I quite like the one for Feast of Wire, although you're right....it says fuck-all about the music contained therein....but so what?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 March 2003 04:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, matching the art to the music is kind of an art in itself, wouldn't you agree? In this sense, Calexico is really up to something strange with their recurring color-blind dot-matrix Photoshop motif. In fact, this might work to cause a new thread "which album covers are least representative of the music inside?" But I bet it's been done. I'm not gonna bother to search.

― Famous Athlete, Saturday, 22 March 2003 05:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, I find those pretty unappealing. It's sort of a shame, because if I remember correctly they've also done some really great-looking faux Mexican shop calendars that actually do make some kind of coherent sense with the music.

― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 22 March 2003 07:57 (twenty-three years ago)

And on a side note, what's a "feast of wire"? Do you actually eat wire? Is this a saying somewhere?

I guess my PC-stereo setup could be described as a feast of wire. Although I would probably just call it a mess.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Saturday, 22 March 2003 08:08 (twenty-three years ago)

the wire symbolizes either the border between the us and mexico or technology. feast of wire is a feast despite the wire (symbolically) separating those countries. it's a word-play, obviously. they said something like that at morning becomes eclectic, if i remember well.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Saturday, 22 March 2003 08:58 (twenty-three years ago)

The cover is pretty incongruous, it's true. If I had no idea what the music contained within sounded like, I'd probably guess they were some nü-metal mexicali skaterock band or something.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 March 2003 09:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I think they are meant to sit together as continuity of style. like say the smiths covers or belle and sebastion- like a set or collection

― girl scout heroin (iamamonkey), Saturday, 22 March 2003 13:58 (twenty-three years ago)

They work as a group is what I'm trying to say/ also forces you to buy them all for the full effect

― girl scout heroin (iamamonkey), Saturday, 22 March 2003 13:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Also, Joey's from southern California (same town I'm from) and I think the prevailing aesthetic in Calexico covers has to do with SoCal Latino art: the sorts of airbrush paintings you see on the sides of vans (still! if you're in the right neighborhoods that is) etc. The calendar is also part of that, just a different part. So I think the art matches the music in a lot of ways & I like the Calexico cover art!

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Saturday, 22 March 2003 16:53 (twenty-three years ago)

nine years pass...

I like these

― killa amc (admrl), Wednesday, 28 March 2012 18:34 (fourteen years ago)

I want to like Calexico, but don't. (I just find them blah.) I know that's not what the thread is about.

As far as matching music to art, sometimes I think consistently putting a graphic design style together with a particular sound can eventually make the two go together, whether or not it made sense initially. No I don't have any examples in mind.

― _Rudipherous_, Wednesday, 28 March 2012 20:41 (fourteen years ago)

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