Cash vs. Zeppelin

A Heartbeat and a Guitar designed by Shepard Fairey
When Giants Walked the Earth designed by Orion Books

I don't do snarky very well, but on the way to see the new Shepard Fairey-designed book about Johnny Cash, I saw this new clearly-not-designed-by-Shepard Fairey book about Led Zeppelin. You get what you pay for.




UPDATE: Orion Creative Director Lucie Stericker was nice enough to point out that images of all four members have been produced as posters; here's everyone else:

A Cultural Dictionary of Punk

Design by Sarah Rainwater
Buy this book from Amazon.com

Punk means different things to different people, which in a way is very punk. The cover of Nicholas Rombes' A Cultural Dictionary of Punk gestures away from politics and class and instead settles on the DIY aesthetic which for many is its defining characteristic. (Whether or not punk is dead was hotly debated over at the Jacket Copy blog a few weeks ago; check out their interview with Rombes and (especially) the comments.) I love the straightforward handbill look of this, and that there's no pink to be seen anywhere on this cover is a major plus in my book.



I don't discuss the interiors of books nearly enough as I'd like to or should (here's a notable exception), but I will note Rombes' book reproduces some pretty cool graphic design artifacts from the era, such as Linder Sterling's Buzzcocks poster:


W/R/T the above, Linder said of collage: "For a short period I'd found a perfect mode of articulation. Punk was cutting out the question, 'Can I do this?'"

The answer, of course, was (and still is) yes.

This Is Your Brain on Music

Designer names to come

The US version gets the academic treatment (ugh), while the UK book nails it, if by "nails it" one means "this is what my brain looks like when I listen to Daydream Nation and Loveless back-to-back." And that's a good place for your brain to be.

Musicophilia

Both designed by Chip Kidd

UK cover is first, US cover is below it.



I don't know that I'm in love with the music notes and staff approach to the text (although it is growing on me), but I do know this: that picture of Sacks on the US cover is creeping me out and it's making me think of what surely is history's greatest t-shirt:

Keep Your Eyes Open

Designer, photographer names to come

It's not often that a book cover makes me a little sad. But as a music fan who really likes Fugazi and who never saw them play live, I can't help but look at this and think "Haitus my butt...that's a tombstone. They're done." :-(
Buy this book from Amazon.com

UPDATE: 14 photos from the book are online here.

Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life

Designer name to come.

I'm really anxious to see this in the bookstore; I'm hoping that the cover itself looks and feels like the silkscreen gig poster it seems to be referencing.

Shout, Sister, Shout

Unbelievably fun photo and great colors; sometimes red just *has* to be used.

Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music, US and UK versions

The US version is on top; the UK version on the bottom.

For a book that's about "the ways performers chose, in the course of a song, to comment on themselves" and the ways in which performers are "inordinately interested in proving how real they are," the US version seems far too limited. Kurt Cobain (I think) on the cover, the all-too-predictable punk rock pink -- this just doesn't say "75 years of music history" to me. The UK version is trying much harder to reach into music history and to portray the artifice that is the subject of the book -- the flat figures are propped up and the cover as a whole looks like a diorama or sorts.



Buy the US version at Amazon.com

Babylon's Burning

It's not often that a book review will mention the cover so explicitly:

We are not party to the publishing decisions that require the book to extend from punk to grunge. Maybe it's just an excuse to get two icons - iconoclast Johnny Rotten and martyr Kurt Cobain - on to a cover that shamelessly echoes Peter Biskind's wonderful Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. The jacket designs are the only thing these two volumes have in common.

Buy Babylon's Burning from Amazon.com

Where You're At

So what says hip-hop better: some old-school kicks or stencil grafitti?

Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer

While at first I really liked the photo on the first jacket -- it seems sufficiently iconic for the leader of "the only band that mattered" -- it's the photo on the second that's got me hooked. It's fun to think that's Mick Jones' hand, hectoring Strummer about something.