Thursday, October 26, 2006
The Pillow Pusher Cometh
Pics and Video Nate Seltenrich — Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 4:57 PM
We can all accept the fact that as recorded music becomes an increasingly digital medium, its physical packaging becomes less and less relevant. But that's no excuse for album covers like these. San Francisco rock trio Pillow Pusher's second record, Room 5, may be "unprententious, uncontrived, original, clever, and catchy" (according to the press release), but its cover art is damn near embarrassing. The flipside of the digital coin means it's easy to create, capture, and edit digital images. So is this the best you could do? Four grinning pillows being sucked into a pixelated galaxy? It looks like it was made in Microsoft Paint.
Our runner-up for the day's worst album art is Charles Xavier's The XMan Cometh - Expect the Unexpected. Beyond having the same name as the wheelchair-bound XMen villain, drummer and vibraphonist Xavier is a Bay Area music vet. That's why he should know better than to give the nod to an album cover like this. The colors are hokey and his pose even hokier. Worst of all, it has two album names! The Xman Cometh or Expect the Unexpected -- which is it? Both are unclever plays on the musician's name, and together they amount to a big tub of cheese.
Local music wouldn't be local music without bad album art, but remember: the less your cover looks like the work of a farsighted fifth grader, the more likely your music is to be taken seriously.
Comments (4)
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Thanks everyone for the comments. We're just trying to have a little fun here. We're strong supporters of local music, and if I may add a personal note, I also run a blog called NASCENT that's proudly devoted entirely to local bands. This particular post on Ear Bud (the first in a series on album covers) is not intended to be a "review," but more a way to move beyond the traditional interaction between bands, labels, PR agencies, and media outlets (new CD + press kit = album review). I'm sure proper reviews of the new Pillow Pusher CD will be forthcoming, and at the very least, hundreds (thousands? millions?!) of visitors to our site who hadn't previously heard of Pillow Pusher now have a link to their website and a little information about their music. Maybe they'll pick up the CD or catch a live show next chance they get...and in the process of learning about the band, hopefully get a little chuckle.
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You reviewed a CD cover? Don't you review music? What a waste of employment you have. I think the Pillow Pusher cover is cute. The music is not boring like most music these days and I think the band deserves some credit for that.
I guess it's easy to criticize someone else's artwork than it is to be creative in giving a review of the music. The cover is only the package the music comes in, and believe me I have seen many "professional" album covers that were done so poorly as to be laughable. This is only another reason that local music has such a hard time breaking through when all that can be gotten is a quote from the band's own press release and some criticism of the album cover. I thought this was the music blog, not the "Let's be critical to album covers" blog. But all the review dealt with was two album covers. What about the Music???
Here is the Story behind the Art on Room 5 in case you artsnobs are interested. Pillow Pusher was named such b/c during their first show the pillow in their drummers (Ellard) bass drum slipped out. Thus the named on the spot at the now defunct music venue/sushi bar the Voodoo Lounge. On their first record PP bass player named Poopy Lickles drew a comic character named Fiber Phil which can be seen on their first record here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/pillowpusher Soon after PP played a gig at John Gill CDC Child Care iun Redwood City which is where the lead singer works. This gig was one of the best PP gigs ever. One creative kid took the actual pillow out of the drummer's bass drum and transcribed Fiber Phil to the pillow and put it back. The Fiber Phil on Room 5 is the real life Fiber Phil. The cover was done on photoshop and the theme refers to the amorphous state in which many excellent bands in SF find themselves in. And MS Paint is a fine program if you like flowers and wood. :)(:
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