ARTamental

Album cover art. Either you love it, or you don’t pay it any attention at all. Album cover art tends to be a passive art form that, for the most part, goes unnoticed unless you’re The Beatles, Pink Floyd, or Roy Ayers. People rarely care enough to inquire about the album cover artist or explore how the piece came to be.

So far this year, there has been one particular album cover to hold my attention, and it’s ironic because I’m not a fan of the music in the least. The album cover is the truly the best part of the entire project. I find myself thinking about it frequently, wondering how the cover is related to the album, who created it, and if there were any more works available by this artist. So I found out.

I researched this article like I have never researched before. I googled for at least an hour gathering bits and pieces of information, and I’m even attempting to listen to the mixtape as I type this (which isn’t going very well I might add) to try to find some sort of connection between a great album cover and mediocre music . In a nutshell, I do not like Drake. But the album cover definitely deserves some attention.

Said album cover:

And here’s Drake’s explanation of the album cover concept as reported by HipHopDX:

“It’s this kid in pursuit of love and money…sometimes you just get so far gone, you get wrapped up in this shit.” Drake added, “The title has a lot of meanings—as the way we carry ourselves, the way we dress, the way people view us, not to sound cocky, it’s just that feeling that we’re just distanced in a good way.”

So articulate. *cough*

My original interpretation was very similar, and was further justified once I dug a little deeper into the origin of the art work. This particular piece was done by Darkie, and is an adaptation of a classic cover from the “The Economist” magazine pictured below. This cover was just one piece of an award winning print campaign developed by AMV BBDO in September 2007.

What’s the worst thing to lose as we get older? Our teeth? Our curiosity?

100,000 of your brain cells die every day. Make sure it’s not from boredom.

You can’t know everything about everything. But you can give it a good go.

Dissection. Good if you’re a story. Bad if you’re a frog.

Looking for the herd? It went thataway.

A brilliant advertising campaign indeed, and a very interesting choice for Drake’s album cover. It demonstrates an awareness and depth of knowledge that simply isn’t reflected on the record.  A sample well flipped…maybe a little too well considering.

Credits

The Economist Black campaign was developed at Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, London, by creative director Paul Brazier, creatives Mark Fairbanks and Paul Cohen,typographers/designers/illustrators Non-Format, Geoff McFetridge, Mick Marston, Matthew Green, Seymour Chwast, Fine ‘N’ Dandy.