Kontempt

So, Kanye West's latest album 'Yeezus' (yes, as in 'Jesus' and the internet is rife with images of West looking noble and wounded beneath a crown of thorns - dude, it's as if he's just begging to be mocked at this juncture) swaggered onto record store shelves in the last week or so. Could be longer, I'm not really abreast of release dates. Today is certainly the first time I've had a chance to eyeball a copy. Now, I can't claim to know much of a damn thing about West, beyond what even the most cursory skulk through women's magazines or entertainment pages is likely to tell you. I've watched his development and transformation from rap artist to fame whore at a distance, with a kind of detached disinterest. I know that he is kind of a big deal; a self-styled media messiah and possessed of probably the largest and most unrestrainable ego in the entirety of the musical world.

I've seen the Taylor Swift humiliation, the 'George Bush doesn't care about black people' clip (totally worth watching for the look on Mike Myer's face alone), the weird little creature committing hara-kiri in that odd Spike Jonze video. I know about his relationship with Kim Kardashian (herself easily the best and most concise example of all that is wrong with this era's vacuous celebrity-obsessed hollowness and narcissism) - and I am aware that their baby is going to be named 'North' (for the love of God...). I have even heard a bit of his music. I don't hate it. I have a particular fondness for some of the early tracks - the clever use of novel samples (sampling Shirley Bassey was a masterstroke), the sense that here was an artist who was interested in more than macho posturing and braggadocio. Hell, as a rapper he was (while not as phenomenal as his fans would breathlessly assert) at least possessed of good flow and knew his way around a lyric.

I guess I've always been casually intrigued by him as a person. There seems to be a weird conflict in him between self-aggrandizement and self-loathing. This is readily apparent in the track from 'Yeezus'; 'I am a God' which could either be read as ridiculous onanism and self-promotion, or as a sarcastic, sneering attack on the emptiness of the media figure he's become. And with West there's simply no way of knowing for sure which way it's meant to swing.

But I can't talk about West in any depth. I'm not familiar enough with anything he's done to offer any more than I have already typed. The reason I bring him up at all is for something simple and snide and petty.

What the hell is up with the packaging of 'Yeezus'?
Seriously, have record labels just given up even pretending that they're trying to shift physical copies of their releases? For those who haven't seen it: it's a basic jewel-case release. The disc is one of those plain silver suckers that always give the impression that they're upside-down. There is no booklet. No artwork. Nothing. Just a bare clear-plastic case and an anonymous disc. The tracklist, credits and copyright information are all printed onto some sort of transparent sticker or insert that's somehow affixed to the back of the case. It's pretty hard to read. It beats out even 'Steal This Album' by System of a Down for laziest release design ever (and at least that disc was being subversive). It's nothing. It screams 'this is worthless', a thing of no physical value. I seems like the final stage in the worrying descent I first observed when some CDs started being released without cover booklets (i.e. the first European pressing of 'Silent Force' by Within Temptation)  Now, I know it's all just ephemera and that it's the music that matters, man. But seriously...

I'm old. Okay. I remember being a spotty kid saving up what little I could from mowing lawns and other such nonsense so that I could throw down $20.00 on a cassette tape the next time my family and I were in a town/city large enough to have a record shop. I remember poring over those tapes (yes, tapes, okay - see the 'I'm old' thing) - that tiny, reproduced artwork. I used to unfold the little covers. Read the lyrics. Study the images.

As I was a peculiar and craft-obsessed child I would make little figures and dioramas out of papier mache and polymer clay and I often based these on album covers.  I remember making my own 'Walls of Jericho' (Helloween's first LP) diorama; a huge ghoul - hooded and fanged - destroying the wall of a keep. I also fondly recall doing the 'Holy Terror' album cover: an oil-black serpentine monster coiling over a cross. And yup, I made the divided severed head locking lips with its other bisected half from the cover of Pungent Stench's 'Been Caught Buttering' (an image I now know as one of the fine and utterly disturbing photographic works of Joel-Peter Witkin).
I listened to a lot of metal.

Hell, for a while there I even made little fimo figurines of the band members themselves. And not even interesting-looking metal guys like King Diamond and Alice Cooper - these were mostly just generic long-hairs, based on the photos in those booklets. In hindsight, these craft-pieces were probably pretty rubbish.
I spent much of my childhood living in a very small, rural township. Why do you ask?

For me the artwork isn't something to be overlooked on the way to the music itself; it's the first taste of that music. Album artwork done properly should create a context for the music - because for the most part that's the first thing you'll encounter of the album proper (with the exception of an odd pre-album release single or two).
It helps create a world for the music to inhabit.
And over the years I have seen some staggering, beautifully-packaged works; discs in printed tins, heavy gatefold digipacks, ornate cardboard boxes, hardbound digi-books. One underground metal act; Negura Bunget (I think), even released an album packaged in a hand-crafted wooden box that was half-filled with Transylvanian dirt. You can't ask for more than that.

The artwork becomes something of an album's legacy - a means by which to instantly recognize it. Honestly, I'd say the cover of Nirvana's 'Nevermind' is easily as iconic as any of the actual music on the LP. And there have been many fine visual artists who have used the medium to spread their name and extend their reputation. There are loads of hefty coffee-table books entirely dedicated to record covers. As well as magazine articles, interviews with the artists/photographers. The motivations behind the artwork are often questioned and explained...because, hell, people want to know. It's interesting. Some vinyl obsessives even frame and wall-hang LPs simply because the artwork is so good and holds so much meaning for them.
Plus, where would we be without 'worst album covers' lists on the internet? That shit is hilarious.

So, what does the nothing-artwork of Kanye West's latest tell us - that there is no context for him? That he doesn't need one? Or just that the record label was too cheap and contemptuous of his audience to bother with it?
They know that he could release damn near anything and the fans would clutter the internet message-boards to mouth-breathe all over it, while the critical community would all rise up in unison to heap praise onto his colossal (and apparently thorn-crowned) head. He has after all redefined modern music. You know, again.

I really hope that this isn't going to become a thing, at least in the near future. I'd really like it if labels could continue printing artwork and releasing physical copies of albums for a while yet.