It all started when I discovered an old dusted cassette in my grandparents’ place. It was a tape of Pink Floyd’s ‘Division Bell’ and the condition in which it was still preserved genuinely surprised me. It apparently belonged to my father, which was reasonable enough to explain how I inherited my music taste but what sparked this completely unnecessary thought in me was the cover of the cassette and that is when I started digging up some resources.
I have been quite an avid fan of music for a long time and something which has always fascinated me is album covers. Album covers are often neglected in the realm of music but in reality every cover has their own narrative to explain. There is a reason why artists spend huge amounts of resources, just to come up with the perfect album cover. Today in the age of trends and digital aesthetics, it has become easier for us to access music and thus the collaboration between art and music continues to grow at an enormous rate. However, in the midst of this digital dilemma, we can’t possibly forget the age when rock and roll reigned - and especially in the age of psychedelic and metal, when the world experienced music like never before, seeing a plethora of bizarre things.
Imagine visiting a music shop in the 80s and finding a vinyl with a giant’s ear emerging from a barren field or a prism refracting light into a spectra of human emotions or a sheep resting on a sofa in the middle of a beach. Sounds nonsensical right ? Well, you are about to enter the world of Storm Thorgerson.
Storm Thorgerson was not a mere cover designer; he was an artist and every single work of his was a unique creation of its own. Thorgerson invited the audience to see music with their eyes and decipher the hidden beauties of the world. His works don’t carry any definite meaning nor any sense but somehow these nonsensical artworks have a lot to say.
Consider the above cover for example. When I first looked at it, I was more than intrigued and from what I could conclude the work displayed a sense of fear, the terrorising grasp of societal perceptions on our everyday lives. The yarn is enormous and the thread is never ending; thus no matter how much we try to break free, we will always be trapped within. However when I asked one of my friends to explain the same, he said that the yarn looked like the problems in one’s life and no matter how much one tried to run away from them, you will end up in the ocean at one point of time, ending up with no choice but to live with them.
Or, consider the cover for The Cranberries’ ‘Bury the Hatcher’ which doesn’t seem to have any apparent meaning as such either; however the omnipresent eye seems to portray the never ending judgments and opinions of society which always haunts us at every point of our lives.
Thorgerson’s works aren’t direct; they have a much deeper meaning to convey and especially when combined with music, it elevates the whole concept of the album to a whole new level. Despite being associated with several mainstream bands at the time, his iconic collaboration with Pink Floyd stands out particularly for their unique , nonpareil nature.
It is no surprise that Pink Floyd as a band has one of the most iconic and distinct album covers of all time and one of the primary reasons behind it is Thorgerson and his company Hipgnosis. Each and every single album released by Pink Floyd has a story to tell and Thorgerson’s extraordinarily creative imagination blended with abstract art is the perfect way to summarise them. When you look at the cover of ‘Animals’, you know it is about a revolution, the darkness of the modern world or when you look at ‘A momentary lapse of reason’, you know at once that Thorgerson has hit the perfect aim and brilliantly summarised the title. And not to mention, ‘Dark side of the moon’ which is by far one of the most simple and iconic album covers of all time and as David Gilmour summarises it perfectly, “It wasn’t a vague picture of four lads bouncing in the countryside. That fact wasn’t lost on us. “
Almost every work of Thorgerson’s work is as unique as the rest and it would take an eternity to discuss all of them at length. If you are interested to see some more of his works, you can visit The Guardian’s page on Storm Thorgerson.
However my intention behind writing this blog was not to provide an insight to Storm Thorgerson but rather to appreciate abstract art. In the modern age, almost everyone has become detached from the concepts of creative arts and thus the works of artists like Storm Thorgerson, who instead of being honoured, go unnoticed by the majority.
I, personally have always been a fan of art in general and as I grew up, I began to realise the beauty behind various forms of art in our day to day lives. A major chunk of my personality today has been influenced by books and movies itself. I feel that today’s generation has lost the ability to think, to imagine and despite having the most powerful tool at our disposal, we still struggle to come up with creative works. Art was the first means used by humankind to portray their emotions and ironically enough, no one cares about art. When music is blended with artwork, one gets the perfect dose of what I call “imagination adrenaline.” Take “psychedelic rock” for example. The reason why a specific genre of music is known as “psychedelic”, is because it is the sort of music which is strong enough to put you in a trance and psychedelic once used to be the mainstream music genre and a cover like Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark side of the moon’ is just the icing on the cake. Sadly, the current generation just fails to appreciate art the way it is supposed to be and that is probably one of the reasons I am this detached from the modern societal norms.
There is a reason why Storm Thorgerson works stand out for me. In a generation where you didn’t have a prompt writing engine and an image generating software, Thorgerson managed to capture the darkness in the future through his works, using whatever resource was available to him. The world has come to a point where all of us have our headphones with us always yet we repeatedly fail to find the real meaning behind the music. All of us feed on short form content all day yet we find it difficult to find a message.
I think one of Thogerson’s works which perfectly describes how the population is gradually turning into mere puppets of the digital world is his design of Scrutiny.
Very Nice