You know I love me a good cover…hell, sometimes, I even love a bad cover…
Today we’re going to look at a good cover of a bad, bad pop-song…
Travis, a band from Scotland, finally(?) made a Britney song worth listening to…
Sometimes, a cover makes a bad song good. In this case, it makes the song at least bearable…
I hesitate to put the original on here, but for comparison’s sake, I must…Be warned…it’s Britney, bitches…
Yes, I know…it’s a horrible song from a mediocre talent…she’s not even that hot, not even in her prime…I mean, she’s no Jennifer Connelly.
But, friends and/or neighbors…here’s what happens when a different approach is taken…this version reminds me of Alanis Morisette’s cover of Fergie, in their approach to the music…
The whole time we were out, however, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Grundish & Askew cover. I couldn’t wait to get home (half drunk and full of piss and inspiration) to push forward on the design.
I’ve stopped working on the second look…I’m folding it up and sticking it in my pocket for later…I have a plan for that design that just might be interesting…
I once read a Q&A with Chip Kidd, the “rock star”of book cover design…He was asked if most authors have final creative control over the cover art…He essentially told the journalist that even if it’s not in a contract, the writer always has the final word…it’s their work…their soul…
While this may be true, they do have to trust the designer’s reasoning sometimes, and remember it’s also their biggest marketing and promotion media…
So I’m moving my focus over to look number 1…I’m happy with where it has evolved over the last few days. I feel like it’s very close to being a finished product, if the author (fingers crossed) approves it, then it’s just a matter of a few tweaks, and finalizing the dimensions and what-not…then bam. done…in theory…
So, here’s Grundish and Askew, version 3.0….
Here’s the front cover with the new font and a lovely bloody handprint.
and here’s the back cover and spine with the proper synopsis and bio and a tentative place for the barcode…
As I said, the author prefers the tattoo direction (much to my chagrin)
I took some advice from you guys and got rid of the lower fists…I think it’s getting closer, though I’m going to try using a more frantic (but legible) font for Askew when I get home and have access to my macbook pro and my large collection of fonts… (as opposed to this horrid PC I’m chained to at work that does not allow me to install fonts into my computer, even though I’m in the marketing department, often doing graphic design work, but that’s a different post entirely)
Here’s where the cover is currently…
here’s the front and back together
Even though the Rev. Dr. Carbuncle isn’t too interested in the other look, I refined it anyway…I couldn’t leave it sitting so unfinished…
I think he should at least consider this option once more…I adjusted the spine to parody the covers more.
A former colleague suggested I put the full title on the cover of the book, which in fact I had done, albeit in a very understated way…I refined it, by adjusting the byline to follow the same style, which I hope will help the full title stand out more…
I’ve pretty much given up on the idea of karmic justice, the older I’ve grown. I’m not a pessimist–but I know what’s happening (most of the time)…
Let’s face it, good is rarely rewarded. Hard work doesn’t pay off too frequently. Look at the facts:
Rush Limbaugh is rich, popular and successful…that alone proves that there’s no karmic justice in this world…but that’s just one example. Barry Bonds still holds the home run record, asterisk or not…The Octo-Mom is getting her own TV show, and the media will continue to enable all that’s wrong in this world…Bush gets to retire with no scrutiny of his wrong-doings…
This morning, as I sorted through the headlines of the day, I noticed a big one; it just jumped off the screen and did a little metaphorical happy-dance before my weary eyes…
60 Years Later Blocked: Judge Says No to Salinger Spinoff
NEW YORK — A Swedish author whose new book was promoted as a sequel to J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” cannot publish it in the United States because it too closely mirrors Salinger’s classic without adequate parody or critique, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Swedish author Fredrik Colting tried every avenue of argument and defense, claiming it was:
A critical examination of Salinger’s most famous character, Holden Caulfield (U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts shot that claim down as “problematic and lacking in credibility.”)
The depiction of a character in Colting’s book representing Caulfield 60 years later was a parody. (To this she said She said that Colting and his publishers made no indication before the lawsuit was filed that the book was meant as a parody or critique of Salinger’s work.)
She went on to say, “Quite to the contrary, the original jacket of ‘60 Years’ states that it is ‘… a marvelous sequel to one of our most beloved classics. It is simply not credible for defendant Colting to assert now that this primary purpose was to critique Salinger and his persona.”
So there it is…Salinger’s classic character, a character as big as American youth and angst, has been protected.
We’re lucky he was still alive to challenge the publication…had he not defended his work himself, I doubt the ruling would be the same…
For those of you just happening upon this post, the designs below have been updated in a newer post.
I’ve been working on some book cover designs for a friend and fellow Vicious Books author, Lance Carbuncle. His new book, Grundish & Askew, is a modern telling loosely dedicated to the classic Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck.
I went two directions. I made four different versions, but two overall directions…
The first follows certain themes from the book (a holy burro, a lost basset hound, tattoos…)
This is the direction we’re going to go with it, per the author’s choosing.
It’s not fully developed yet, just the basic idea…I’d like to redo the cover pic with some fake tattooes so it looks more realistic…otherwise, I might have to do something to make it less photo-real…
Here’s the cover
and here’s the front and back together
I personally prefer my second look…it’s designed to be more artsy, less informational…less obvious…More striking without overstating…I liked this direction because it stands out…it could be the type of book people leave out on their table, or the type that catches a consumer’s eye on a shelf in a store…it’s designed so either way you have it set down, it’s looks like the front cover…I made the font treatments correspond to the words…
Here’s the BACK cover
Here’s the FRONT cover
and here’s front and back together
I’m going to hold onto this design, keep it in my back pocket, I think…unless I can convince Lance to use it…what do you think? Which would you be more likely to pick up and buy?
• The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
• An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
• Wilma Flintstone’s maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble’s Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.
• Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
• The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
• A group of unicorns is called a blessing. Twelve or more cows are known as a “flink.” A group of frogs is called an army. A group of rhinos is called a crash. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group of whales is called a pod. A group of ravens is called a murder. A group of officers is called a mess. A group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a parliament.
• Every time you lick a stamp, you’re consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
• The phrase “sleep tight” derives from the fact that early mattresses were filled with straw and held up with rope stretched across the bedframe. A tight sleep was a comfortable sleep.
• Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight >floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.
• 111,111,111 x 111,111,111=12,345,678,987,654,321
• No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
• There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
• A snail can sleep for 3 years.
• What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers all have in common?– All were invented by women. (girl power)
• Married men revealed that they change their underwear twice as often as single men.
• 40% of all people who come to a party in your home snoop in your medicine cabinet.
• The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
• Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
• It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.
LNFs on this day:
1920 – The U.S. Post Office Department ruled that children may not be sent by parcel post.
*Why LNF? Why Plain White Shirt? Read Rorschach’s Ribs and all will be understood.
We’re hosting a brunch this morning for our friends. We’ve all been friends for well over 15 years now…
We used to hang out at bars…every weekend…a few of us still do, but a great many of them now have (multiple) kids…so bar-hopping is kind of extinct, aside from those (very few) instances invlolving a baby-sitter…
So now we brunch…rotating from house to house each time…we’ve gone from smokey, late-night binge drinking to children friendly breakfasts…
I love me a good cover…when it’s done right. We do more than one in Strawfoot…
It’s interesting to hear another musician’s take on a song…it’s not coldplaying it so much as reinterpreting it…nobody’s claiming to have written something new…they’re just paying tribute, or in some cases, taking the piss on someone else.
Some are even better than the original…
There are different types of covers:
There’s the reinterpretation of a song, where an artist of a different genre takes a song and brings it into their style. The best example of this is Gin and Juice, by the Gourds. This is the song that got me into cover songs. I found it on napster, in its heyday. It was labelled as a song by Phish the first time I downloaded it, String Cheese Incident the second…it was months before I was able to determine it was by the Gourds. I love the gourds, their mandolin is awesome…
So, here’s the original version, in all it’s glory, to jog your memory.
And here’s how the Gourds did it.
This was so well done, that even Snoop dug it.
There’s a respectful, tributary cover that doesn’t stray too far from the original.
Here’s Bill Monroe, doing the song that got me into bluegrass and the mandolin…
and here’s Jack White doing it justice…I could do a whole post on this song alone…(and probably will)
And of course, thanks primarily to Weird Al, there is the parody video.
Here’s my all time favorite, Alanis Morissette taking the piss on Fergie.
Fergie in all her ridiculous Fergieness…
Alanis taking the piss…
I love all three types. Mind you, there are some covers that should never be made. They harbor on the shores of blasphemy and cause many a corpse to turn in their graves.
I won’t post such horrendous outrage here, but you can go here to see what Sheryl Crow did to this.
