Squaring the Circle: The art of the album

I am showing my age, but I grew up in a time when the vinyl album was the main way to buy music and album covers were really important. The music video was not really a thing and so your visual impression of a band or artist was through the album cover. It was also a source of information as there was no Web.

A lot of albums would feature photos of the artists or often scantily clad women, but others stood out for more striking imagery. A lot of that came from Hipgnosis. These are a few that I own. The Led Zeppelin one was apparently very expensive to produce.

I have just watched this documentary about Hipgnosis on Netflix and it was right up my street.

Founder Aubrey 'Po' Powell narrates most of the story. His business partner Storm Thorgerson died a few years back. It goes into some depth about key works they did and has contributions from musicians such as Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason (Pink Floyd), Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Sir Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, Graham Gouldman (10cc) and Noel Gallagher. The latter is a fan and there is a line from him at the end saying Oasis could not afford the company's services. Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols gives the view from those who despised how the mega bands had nothing to do with the life they experienced.

The company used to operate from a grotty office in Denmark Street with no toilet. Some of the shops you can see in the old pictures are still there, but that area has changed in other ways. They worked with photography and other old technology as computers did not get involved until later.

The 1970's were a real time of excess in the music industry. Lots of drugs were consumed and lots of money was made. Hipgnosis were getting £50,000 or more for a commission at a time when that could buy a very nice house. It seems Storm cared more about the art than the money and could be difficult to work with. They would fly to exotic location to take photos that could have been done in a studio, but customers were happy to cover the cost to get the prestige.

When I went to the Pink Floyd exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum they had some of the album art blown up to giant size.

Things went wrong for Hipgnosis when they moved into making films and the pair split up over money issues. Storm kept working on album covers for more recent artists like Muse.

I would say their work is art and many people will have it hanging on their walls. With it being so abstract you could read what you wanted from it. I think part of the reason for the revival in vinyl is having the physical item to hold and look at. On Spotify or iTunes you tend to just have a small image and you lose things like sleeve notes. The CD was also a less satisfying format in that respect, although some people get clever with it.

The music industry has changed a lot since the 70's. There is still plenty of creativity going on, but it is often outside the mainstream and artists can bypass the big labels to reach their fans.

I am not sure of the link to Hipgnosis Song Fund who took on the name and have been doing big deals to buy the publishing rights to lots of music. Their founder also features in the documentary.

I will say it is well worth a watch, especially if you have nostalgia for that music and the period.

Rock on!