The relation between album artwork and music? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

UnderGround wrote: "But we shouldn't judge the quality of the music by the quality of the cover art."

With many thousands of albums available and when it's only possible to listen to a small part of them, the cover art is to me one of

the important guidelines to whether give it a try.

Edited by David_D - June 28 2023 at 09:03

quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond

UnderGround wrote:

Lewian wrote:

UnderGround wrote:

  Many people do it

I don't think so. What's your evidence?

When Forbidden Myth's first album released, a site made a review. The reviewer wrote that the cover was designed by amateur and this made him to believe that the musical content would be the same...

One of the best Greek metal producer told me that for many people, the artwork is very important to buy an album...

OK, it's probably true that the decision of some people to buy/listen to an album in the first place may depend on the cover. In fact when I was younger and it wasn't so easy to check out music before buying, I bought a few albums mainly because I liked the cover (only if they were really cheap though).

What I don't believe is that once somebody has listened to the music, they will still downrate it if they don't like the cover. I mean these are people who are supposed to be interested in the music, which comes to you through the ears not eyes...

Edited by Lewian - June 28 2023 at 08:37

UnderGround wrote:

A friend of mine tell me once that nowadays we do not listen to the music but we "watch the music". With YouTube and all these informations is very difficult to focus to the music...

Many times when I want to listen a new song from YouTube, I do not watch the screen but only listen to the music...

I suspect that a video on youtube will dominate the album artwork more than the music.

Anyway, it'd probably be naive to think that only the music counts and the visuals don't play a role at all. However I think the more somebody is properly into music, the less the visuals will influence their appreciation of the music. Of course if your first interest is fashion or cinema or fantasy/SF it may be different.

^ Fun fact. There's only seven dancers in the whole video.

Stressed Cheese wrote:

UnderGround wrote:

A friend of mine tell me once that nowadays we do not listen to the music but we "watch the music". With YouTube and all these informations is very difficult to focus to the music...

Many times when I want to listen a new song from YouTube, I do not watch the screen but only listen to the music...

Most people use spotify or connect something similar to a set of speakers these days. YT is also common, but a lot of albums are just the album art and nothing else. Oftentimes when friends are having music on I have no clue what we're listening to because there's no screen on anywhere, and there's no CD or LP sleeve lying around. Nobody really listens to music via MTV or whatever either these days, so in a way we're in the least visual era of music in a while.

I will say that I do often not look at a video if a song has one on YT. I prefer to make up my own imagery and if I watch a videoclip after I'm already familiar with a song, it never really matches my own idea of the song. That black midi clip is great, though, and part of the reason I got into them, I think.

I am still listening from cds, vinyls and my old cassettes.

Also from youtube, bandcamp etc.

I am not using streaming platforms like apple, spotify etc.

As a musician i never use these platforms to sell my music because streaming has almost no profit for musicians.

If i want to support an artist, i listen to his music on youtube or bandcamp and i am trying to find where can i byy(physical or digital)...

Just realized i got off topic... Smile

Edited by UnderGround - June 29 2023 at 04:52

https://antonisadelfidis.bandcamp.com/album/zantea-chronicles-the-dream-dominator

Saperlipopette! wrote:

^ Fun fact. There's only seven dancers in the whole video.

I believe it. I had noticed that there are multiple copies of the dancers in the video.

No, I know how to behave in the restaurant now, I don't tear at the meat with my hands. If I've become a man of the world somehow, that's not necessarily to say I'm a worldly man.

Originally posted by I prophesy disaster

I prophesy disaster wrote:

As for the original topic, the relation between album artwork and music, I don't think there is a strong correlation between the artwork and the quality of the music. But I do think the artwork does give an indication of the type of music. For example, a metal album will have very different artwork to a folk album.

https://antonisadelfidis.bandcamp.com/album/zantea-chronicles-the-dream-dominator

There's another album whose cover had a strong influence on me:

Univers Zero - Uzed:

(I'm listening to the album right now)

No, I know how to behave in the restaurant now, I don't tear at the meat with my hands. If I've become a man of the world somehow, that's not necessarily to say I'm a worldly man.