Update:
Brady from The 9513 passed this one on in the comments. This is some truly unfortunate cover art for the upcoming Lee Ann Womack album. Call me crazy, indeed.
Since covers of upcoming albums are apparently breaking news these days, what do you think of the Kellie Pickler cover?
This is an open thread. Discuss what you like.
Kevin,
It’s a decent cover. It’s designed well and doesn’t look cheap. as for the head shot, it is meant to be inoffensive and seductive at the same time.
Why does everyone want me to care about album covers all of a sudden? Taylor Swift, Kellie Pickler, Rascal Flatts, ho-hum…
Also, why doesn’t Kellie Pickler have a right eyebrow?
The article that John linked to, about Rascal Flatt’s upcoming Greatest Hits Package, gave us this little tidbit: “Oh, and it’s described as an eight-panel, two-CD digipak with two booklets — one for each CD.”
Ah, I hope Dan M reads this, since he expressed his affection for digipaks over at his blog a few weeks ago!:) Will you be tempted to add this one to your collection, Dan?! In quiring minds must know…or at least my inquiring mind must…
I’ll echo Matt’s sentiments and say that it’s decent, but there’s nothing special that makes it worth discussing. If you want a cover to talk about check out the one that’s floating around for Lee Ann Womack’s upcoming album. I don’t know if it’s legit, but I sure hope it isn’t.
That would be a hideous cover for Lee Ann Womack.
And Taylor Swift’s cover is interesting and better than her other album covers.
the Pickler one doesn’t do much for me, EWW! to the Womack one, and I also like Swift’s new cover better than her old one and her “Beautiful Eyes” one (pls note I dont own the Beautiful Eyes” one)
on gac, when the played the lee ann womack song, that was the picture they so for the cover, so i would guess it’s real.
If that’s the real LAW cover, I will “Call Her Crazy”, that’s for sure.
For the Kellie Pickler one, I like it. It’s simple with personality, just like Kellie. xD
Also, I just saw the new Little Big Town cover for the re-release of A Place To Land. It looks hideous, I love the CD, but I liked the old cover much much better.
http://www.countryondemand.com/news/uploaded_images/LBT_PlaceToLand_CVR-765151.jpg
The Pickler cover looks like it took all of five minutes to make. It’s trying to be retro/vintage, which could be kind of cool if done right, but in this case, there’s nothing retro or vintage about it. Plus the way the scratches give way to Pickler’s airbrushed face is pretty cheesy. It gets a big thumbs down from me.
Lee Ann cover is insane haha
Kellie cover is cute, she is a beautiful woman…
Chris D.,
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. They look like ABBA.
Brody,
If I had my way, you guys would handle all the album cover designs for the major labels. Your graphics look more professional than most of what’s coming out of Nashville today, especially from UMG.
Fine. I’ll say it: it screams vaginal and fetish.
Well, I can’t disappoint Leeann!
I actually think the Rascal Flatts art looks classy (though I’m sure I’ll feel differently once the “glowing, neon” thing comes into effect) and I do love digipaks, but I have no idea what “panels” are in terms of CD packaging or why a two-disc set would require eight of them. It sounds like it’s probably going to be way overwrought and garish. But it’s Rascal Flatts, so what else is new.
I hate the Womack cover (honestly, I don’t think it’s even physically possible that the entire rest of her body could be hidden within the chair, so it just looks like a disembodied pair of legs), but the Pickler cover is one of the worst I think I’ve ever seen. She reminds me of the Passion of the Christ portrayal of Satan in that picture – apologies to her fans. It’s just that picture. The Little Big Town art sucks too; I don’t know why they didn’t stick with the concept used on the “I’m With The Band” artwork (ignore the extra white text in the middle):
http://www.hififusion.com/email/littlebigtown/radio/iwtb/images/lbt_email2.jpg
On a positive note, I have decided I really like the artwork for James Otto’s Sunset Man.
Taylor Swift cover: Why do 1970s Playboy features keep popping into my head? And does the MoMA know she stole that chair from their permanenet collection?
Kellie Pickler: Brody beat me to the punch.
BLEH to both.
But Dan, you evaded my question! Are you going to buy it because of the digipak goodness it could potentially offer?:)
I like both covers, though I don’t care for ditzy pickler much.
I love LAW but that cover art is a disaster!!! I mean really…what do a pair of legs have to do with the album?? It looks awful! (but I will still purchase it because I love her!)
And I can probably recreate Picklers cover on photoshop! It looks very ‘amateurish’ (no offense to anyone).
Oops, you’re right! Tempting though it is (ha), my answer is no, because it sounds like they’ve abused the otherwise-magical digipak format (8 panels and neon just doesn’t sound good!). Too much of a good thing, you know. Oh, and then there’s the fact that I only like about four of their songs…so if I did buy it, I would probably never take the CD out of the digipak.
Kevin, your
Kellie Pickler image is pixelized. Feel free to use the one linked.
Also Kristy Lee Cook’s cover has been announced as well. For anyone who watched American Idol, it looks like she got her horse back.
Dan,
Imagine a double version of the Sugarland CD and you have the 8 panels. Front and back ‘covers’ constitute panels.
Ah, gotcha. I guess that’s not as bad as I imagined, then. Thanks Matt!
Hah, I appreciate the sentiment Kevin, but the only reason I say Pickler’s cover looks like it took five minutes is because it looks about like the graphics I’ve been creating. I will say though, that it doesn’t look nearly as bad as the crop of recent album covers using a font called Bleeding Cowboys (Brandon Rhyder’s is the latest).
The Lee Ann Womack cover will grow on me, but what bugs me is the gorgeous black and white with lace fringe cover for the “Last Call” single. This cover just seems to run in the opposite direction with a maniacal laugh at her fans.
Also, I agree that it looks like a disembodied pair of legs. But now whenever I see the album, I’ll just start laughing. xD
Kevin, I agree LBT does look like ABBA, it’s kind of creepy. Their cover is dreadful, I hate the random flowers (I think they are) in the background.
Here are a few more covers I ‘dug up.’ one’s interesting in that it appears that Tim’s “new CD” for fall is a 3rd Greatest Hits that comes ONE album after his last Greatest hits. Curb seems to be up to its old ‘cash grab’ tactics again. Also just found out that on 9/30 Broken Bow will release a Greatest Hits album on Craig Morgan. Guess we can expect a 10 song collection there (since that’s basically the amount of hits from his Broken Bow days).
Eli Young Band
Darius Rucker
Tim McGraw – Greatest Hits 3
Brody,
I don’t like the proliferation of the use of the ‘bleeding cowboys’ font much either. Still, I am not against labels using freely available fonts if they pay the creator for using it and it’s not over-used like that font.
Both of these covers are now fair game for Photocrap. :)
Trailer,
I can’t wait to see your take on those covers!
“Call me crazy” but I actually quite like Lee Ann’s cover. It’s very different, sexy and cool looking which I like.
Jane, I’m with you.
And let’s look historically.. soooo many great covers that have nothing to do with the album.
It looks like Tim McGraw is about to take a whiz on his album cover.
Matt, check this out. He released a Greatest Hits: Limited Edition yesterday, which seems to be a compilation of his first two hits albums. And then on September 23, a Collector’s Edition, Vol. 3 (what happened to Vol. 2?) is coming out. Is that supposed to include Greatest Hits 3 that’s coming out a couple weeks later in October? All that’s in addition to the Collector’s Edition he put out in May of this year that contains 3 discs itself. And you gotta factor in the combo albums he released to Walmart a couple months ago, as well. It’s insane!
I think Lee Ann’s cover is brilliant. Cool, yet classy.
I like the LAW cover, but maybe that just means I’m completely sick of headshots.
sixties, sexy and a little crazy – cool stuff, ms womack.
surely, that’s not a “budapest-look” in ms picklers eyes.
For some reason, the Womack cover takes me back to the cover for Jo Dee Messina’s flop album Delicious Surprise … could be all the purple.
Are faceless album covers the wave of the future now?
“Delicious Surprise” a flop? It went gold, and produced a #1 single.
I don’t like Lee Ann’s album cover at all. I really hope they change it before release. It’s horrible. I seriously thought “WTF?” when I saw it the first time a few days ago. From the beautiful and classy cover of her last album to this? Not a good idea.
Brady,
You’ve just highlighted what Curb tends to do with their artists. (That link BTW is for the 2nd 3 disc collection. Those collections are just packaged editions of the regular albums. Curb released the double package of Greatest Hits 1 and 2 at wal-mart first. The Amazon new release is just Curb releasing it everywhere. I actually considered buying that one since I don’t own physical copies of either hits record (It was pointless w/the first one since I owned all the previous albums).
If I were Tim, I’d be upset with the way Curb has saturated the market with his stuff (they have done the same thing with LeAnn Rimes and possibly JoDee Messina). Hell, this label released a short, 10 track collection of Hal Ketchum’s “Greatest Hits” when a longer, better collection was already available.
Ok,
Here’s a fun one,
Can you guess which Adam Gregory single ‘cover’ I made? I put them back to back here. For the record, I made it in like ‘5 minutes’ to go with my iTunes artwork…
I think McGraw has publicly expressed discontent with the Curb label for awhile now. He at least felt that his first GH album was premature.
I like Kellie’s PHOTO. Simple, beautiful, alluring. Not sure about the graphics.
Her eyes will draw attention on the shelf. I’ll buy the CD no matter what.
Leeann,
That’s true. And honestly, Curb has treated him well for the most of his career. So he has a lot to be thankful for but The 3rd Greatest Hits album should NOT be coming out now. It’s entirely too soon. He released the first one in 2000 (6 years into his hit-making career), Greatest Hits 2 in 2006 and now this one in 2008. Crazy. The only ‘bonus’ from it is the Def Leppard track and a Tim/Tracy Lawrence version of “Find Out Who Your Friends Are (which probably has Kenny there, just not credited).
Curb should’ve done something along the lines of Toby Keith’s “35 Greatest Hits”, and just compiled a 2-CD collection of all of McGraw’s hits with a new track tacked on. It would sell a lot better than Greatest Hits 3 will.
Kevin,
That makes the most logical sense but when are labels that logical?
I love the new Patty Loveless album cover with her holding a guitar and the old records on the floor.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26663379@N07/2680507492/
I think the Lee Ann looks a little cheap. It would have been a good disco album cover in the 70s but based on her current single, it doesn’t seem to match the feel of the album (at least I hope not).
Since this is an open thread I’ll toss this out there. Why does it seem like country music is the play for pop and rock stars to go once they have lost their mainstream success. The latest example is Jessica Simpson. She’s on the front of cmt.com every day and they are acting like she is such a big deal. Meanwhile, anyone who follows pop music and pop culture just sees her as a washed up, has been. I’m not saying she shouldn’t be able to reinvent herself (she should), but just wondering why it always seems to be country music/radio that will take these people in and treat them like royalty, when stars like Loveless, Pam Tillis, Trisha Yearwood barely get played on the radio when they release new music. It’s so messed up to me.
I thought I posted my response yesterday but I don’t see it here. Oh wells.
Lee Ann is indeed crazy.
Kellie looks like a young Christina Aguilera with that hairstyle and angle of her face.
Oh, and replying to Roger Newcomb, yeah, that’s what a lot of country fans are complaining about with the sudden influx of former pop stars like Jewel, Darius Rucker, even Kid Rock. Jessica Simpson’s the easiest target to be made fun of because of her reputation as an airhead. At least Jewel can give musical advice and seems to have knowledge about music instead of just having a voice and image.
not a fan of the kellie cover. As far as Lee Anns, i can see where they were going with it, but they didn’t quite get there.
Kellie Pickler has a album? How did that happen?
I apologize for the self-promotion, but I have “photocrapped” covers for the Rascal Flatts, Lee Ann Womack and Pickler covers over at my blog now.
Trailer,
I think we can let it slide by, since you’re a regular member/contributer of our community and all.:)