An album cover should have a close link to the music. In short, what you see is what you get. Sometimes the cover mismatch is overwhelming. Maybe the best example is "Brain Salad Surgery" by Emerson, Lake & Palmer from 1973. The album cover was created by Swiss artist H.R. Giger (1940-2014). Giger is known for his biomechanical art, a surrealistic style of art that combines elements of machines with organics. H.R. Giger was a sought-after artist and was part of the special effects team for the visual design of the 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien, and for the creating of the xenomorph itself. How ELP got in touch and persuaded H.R. Giger to create the album cover, and the controversies around it, are covered elsewhere. ELP was much loved and hated. Grandiose, pretentious and overweening are epithets that comes to mind. ELP captured the zeitgeist. Nothing was too big in the 1970s. On tour, about 65 people were involved. Nearly 40 tons of equipment were carried around in three TIR articulated trucks. On the truck roofs, their last names in enormous fonts, only visible from above. Keith Emerson used a total of ten (10) keyboards on stage. Greg Lake had an equally impressive bass rig. Carl Palmer’s hand-made, custom-built, revolving drum set-up complete with drum synthesisers alone weighed two and half tons. Despite the heavy load, ELP sounded quite lame. Personally, I don't dislike them. Actually, I have their first five albums. I was young and influencable (which doesn't explain why I later rebought them on cd). People who bought "Brain Salad Surgery" for the album cover must have been baffled when William Blake's delicate psalm Jerusalem faded in "And did those feet in ancient time / Walk upon England's mountain green? / And was the holy Lamb of God / On England's pleasant pastures seen?". This was a mismatch if there ever was one. One thing is clear. Biomechanical art and progressive rock doesn't go well together. 

   

You may be under the impression that vinyls and cds are on the rise. It's not your fault. Media present a sanitized image of a positive trend. The vinyl revival, also known as the vinyl resurgence, is a hard-to-kill myth. I saw a funny comic strip in my social media feed the other day: "The two things that really drew me to vinyl were the expense and the inconvenience". The cd hype is even harder to understand. There's no second wave or revival. If you compare the sales of physical formats with the sales of digital albums (downloads), then there's a significant rise since the latter are definitely on the decline. There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. I follow the statistics from the Swedish branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The statistics for Sweden in 2024 has been published recently. The revenues from cd sales amounted to 2 percent of total revenues (while vinyls amounted to 3 percent). Both formats are declining in absolute and relative terms. So much for the resurgence. CD sales peaked in 2000. Thereafter, cd sales began to decline. First gradually, then rapidly. I live in the most anxious and trend-sensitive country in the world. Everybody is streaming. Very few own a high-end stereo. My rescue is that the rest of world are more slow-moving. Albums are still coming out in the cd format, albeit to a lesser extent. The gothic country genre isn't spared, on the contrary. We were the early victims. We are converging towards zero.   

If you think this read is about Phil Spector's "wall of sound", stop reading now. There's nothing for you here. This blog post is about Marshall stacks a.k.a. Marshall walls. Marshall stacks driven by 100 watt heads was the aesthetic ideal during the 1970s. Another aesthetic ideal was a deafening sound that left an indelible imprint. The louder, the better. The size of the Marshall wall became an indicator of status, even when rendered obsolete by improved PA systems. It's a long time since you needed a 6*3 stack to be heard. However, the trade mark and imagery was so strong that later bands put up fake walls of Marshall stacks just for show. Fake, empty or dummy stacks isn't an admirable standard. We can call them "vanity stacks". Back to the "play it loud" ideal. Led Zeppelin were known for playing loud, circa 100 db(A). High volume may cause hearing damage. A volume of 115 dB(A) risks permanent damage after only 30 seconds. The Guinness Book of World Records recognised Deep Purple as the "globe's loudest band" in 1972 for a concert at the London Rainbow Theatre, during which the sound reached 117 dB. The Who later reached painful 126 dB. Playing loud comes at a price. Their guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend suffered from hearing loss and tinnitus as a result of years of exposure to loud music. The Guinness Book of World Records discontinued the category for fear of encouraging hearing damage. Loudness can be measured by observation or by reputation. To complicate things further, it's hard to measure. Decibel measurement is dependent on distance from the source of the sound; if this is not given, the sound level reported is of limited use. Temporary ringing in the ears is a normal reaction to the kind of extreme noise that causes hearing loss. Back in the days, ringing in the ears was a sign of that you had been to a concert.    

In 1990, I ditched all my vinyl records and went all in for cd, which at the time was considered to be "the everlasting format". The market for used cds were emerging and a long process of restoring my record collection had begun. Before the vinyl purge, "Framed", "Next", "The Impossible Dream" and "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" were all records in my collection. One of the first cds I bought was "The Sensational Alex Harvey Band Collection" which was released in 1986 (the repulsive album cover can be seen down to the right in the image). This was out of character. I don't like compilations. And, it didn't make them justice so I quickly got rid of it. Instead, I bought six of their albums in three 2-for-1 sets. This was also out of character. I dont like sets, read more here (opens in a new window). To my defense, no bundle packages. The sets consisted of separate albums with the original artwork included. I played the sets the other day: "Framed", "Next", "The Impossible Dream" and "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" stand out. So many great original songs and clever cover songs. "Hammer Song", "Isobel Goudie", "Boston Tea Party", "Midnight Moses", "Swampsnake", "The Faith Healer", "Next", "Vambo Marble Eye", "The Last of the Teenage Idols", "Tomahawk Kid", "Anthem", "Action Strasse", "Shake That Thing", "Give My Compliments To The Chef", "Tomorrow Belongs to Me", "Delilah" and "The Tale of the Giant Stoneater". The Sensational Alex Harvey Band (SAHB) were a scottish glam rock band formed in Glasgow 1972. Their stage performances incorporated theatrical elements and they wore distinctive stage costumes. Glam rock doesn't age well. This is not a real problem in this case. In my opinion, SAHB were definitely more rock than glam and never became a novelty act. The classic lineup consisted of Alex Harvey (vocals), Zal Cleminson (guitar), Chris Glen (bass), Hugh McKenna (keyboard) and Ted McKenna (drums). Frontfigure Alex Harvey left the group in 1976 and re-joined the group in 1978, and then left again. Relentless touring and the pressure to make money took the best of him. "If you haven't been ripped off, you haven't been in the music business". He struggled with alcoholism, which led to health problems. Alex Harvey died of a heart attack in 1982 waiting for the Zeebrugge ferry (in Belgium) to take him home, the day before his forty-seventh birthday. But the SAHB legacy lives on. "And - underneath a million tons of cold lava a brontasaurus lies wrong way up." Yes, it does. And always will.  

Music journalist Liz Pelly has in her book "Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist" gone under the hood. It's not a pretty sight. It's scorched-earth tactics taken to an unprecedented level. The book has been described as "the definitive investigation into Spotify, weaving interviews with incisive cultural criticism, and illuminating how streaming has reshaped music for listeners and artists alike." Over a hundred industry insiders, former employees, and musicians have been interviewed. Spotify has transformed music into mood. And this is not very surprising. We live in a world of real time artificial mood-tracking and health monitoring. The silliest job of all must be mood manager. I can't take the job description seriously. Your job is to run around the workplace and create and maintain a happy, positive, and productive atmosphere. Back to the terrible playlists. On the surface, the playlists are seemingly personalized. But, nobody asked you what you like. Instead, the playlists are created through passive algorithm-driven data. The terminal point is moody music without an originator. This has been made possible by users who pay with their money and personal data, and the artists and bands who provide the raw material powering it all. Well, we brought this on ourselves. Actually, there was a time when you sat in the driver's seat. In fact, it was part of the listening experience to choose. Shorter attention span has changed how we listen to music. Not from A to Z as the artist intended, but randomly and abruptly. Maybe I'm old, bitter and technophobic. Nevertheless, I'm perfectly right. I'm not in a good mood. No moody playlist in the world can change that. Death comes as a liberator, eventually. Until then, I suffer. Not in silence - as is proper - but actively, consistently and loudly. To paraphrase the old CCR-hit: "I see the bad mood a-rising. I see trouble on the way. I see earthquakes and lightning. I see bad times today."