Interview

[Wulf]

Interview with Bent in Veil of Sound

[suntripper]

Thanks for posting. A good read.

[supernaut]

Thanks! Interesting bit about the "lightweight" turn-of-the-millenial albums.

[supernaut]

and if by Ballard Bent means JG Ballard, I can heartily recommend his novel Concrete Island. Nice to see him liking him.

[Aki]

Kim's insulting cover design for HBM vol 1?

[Ratmaus]

The way I read it, Still Life With Eggplant was the ‘insulting’ one (I totally get that, tbh), and although Kim did more covers after that one, it was no longer with carte blanche. My interpretation, I could be wrong..

[cloudhawker]

"there is way more substance and darkness in those records than the relatively banal and 2D Trust Us-era albums that are actually pretty cartoonish in places."

Haha, that's a fairly harsh review of your own body of work, particularly as it is the era that so many keep in so high regard. Oh well, if you ever doubted MP is a living, forever evolving organism.

[Aki]

@Ratmaus

I see and understand your point of view.

Is Still Life With Eggplant insulting because it was perceived that the cover idea was completely undesigned (a low level idea) for MP?

[mikke]

I doubt Kim's design of Still Life With Eggplant cover has helped to sell the record…

However, I don't get the idea the behind the title either, two not so good ideas combined?

[Ratmaus]

@Aki: I can’t speak for the band, but … well, I might appreciate the «still life» tradition taken into a modern expression, in this case with the hard flash photography aesthetics that was trending a few years ago. Still, I personally find this one butt ugly, and even if Kim put a lot of effort into it, I can easily imagine the band seeing the front cover and going «ok, so this is how much you care?». Or «A moldy apple and some random vegetables on the floor in ugly lighting, that’s a good representation of these songs to you, Kim?». If so, I wouldn’t blame them.

[Aki]

Hmm. Personally, I don't like the cover, but I'm in the design business, so I understand that Kim didn't do a good job. It seems that Kim was given the green light, and I wonder if the band and the designer could have talked a little more before making the cover, if it wouldn't have had such a sad ending. I can't help but think that if the band and designer had talked a little more, it might not have had such a sad ending.

[supernaut]

I‘ve always took this cover as somewhat of a dry joke. Can‘t say I like it but I also don‘t find it bad boring ugly or whatever. It also eludes me why it‘s supposed to be worse than DB, AADAP or LTEC. From my not being a designer point of view.

[David]

I'm in the design/art industry myself and I never really liked most of Kim's work tbh.

Still, I chose "Still Life…" cover over "Here Be Monsters".

[Vegard B. Havdal]

To stray off topic a bit, I think (but am not sure) this is my favourite cover of all time. Opinions?

[Johnny_Heartfield]

Quote:

I'm in the design/art industry myself and I never really liked most of Kim's work tbh.

Just shows that being in any industry wastes your taste

Personally I like most of Kim's covers (admittedly the Eggplant one is way over the top). At least he didn't come up with stuff like that:

[Author]

Posts