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Topic: Music Of The Spheres artwork< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
Blue Dolphin Offline




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Posted: Aug. 06 2007, 09:18

Mmmmmmmh, don't know what to think of it. It's something totally different, so that's good I guess. :) What did strike me the most was that it repeats the circular "bell" logo which was also on the Light & Shade cover. There was someone who suggested this could possibly be the new bell logo.

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AlexS Offline




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Posted: Aug. 06 2007, 10:48

It looks like a modern album cover. Something different and unusual for a classical sleeve.

Don't forget what you are looking at is the digital artwork - this might not include special finishes or card such as silver etc. It might be the kind of packaging it is printed on that makes all the difference.

Even if it doesn't, and it's as simple as it is, I still think it is eyecatching and interesting. He's done much worse... Hergest Ridge... Heaven's Open... The Millennium Bell, etc!!


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tubular_trekkie Offline




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Posted: Aug. 06 2007, 11:08

Looks pretty good to me. Fairly simple, but somewhat enigmatic all the same. I can't wait for the album now!! Is it November yet?  :p

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hairy old hippy Offline




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Posted: Aug. 06 2007, 11:48

Hergest Ridge a bad album cover? I reckon it's his best one, so apt.

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TOBY Offline




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Posted: Aug. 06 2007, 12:38

Hergest Ridge and Heaven's Open are two classic Trevor Key images by a very celebrated photographer known for great album covers. I'd be interested to know who's behind this new one. I wouldn't be surprised if its one of Mike's own creations, it wouldn't be out of place in one of the MVR games or, as someone pointed out earlier, in the Wind Chimes video.
Its a very simple image to construct its just a Photoshop radial filter with the spheres constructed in any number of 3D rendering programs (you can even use Photoshop for this sort of thing too)

I've seen far better digital art and I've seen far far better album covers but then again I've seen far worse. Personally I would have liked to see something much less literal and a bit more subtle.
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Bill Bobaggins Offline




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Posted: Aug. 06 2007, 21:17

As much as I like this cover, I must admit I'd like to see his face instead.

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Tubularman Offline




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Posted: Aug. 06 2007, 21:55

i guess we will see his face, but inside the cover instead...
I like the cover very much and like some said; i can't stop looking at it. It do facinates me. I think it is better than Light&shade cover becuase i never liked the "jail" look on it.
But the blue cover was best. (anyway, i loved the other artwork on l&s, just not the front cover)


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Blue Dolphin Offline




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Posted: Aug. 07 2007, 02:25

It just struck me that the album cover somewhat resembles the "Planets" of Holst. Not that this classical piece has any standard artwork, but the spheres resemble the planets I think.

But I secretly hope there will be some other cover artwork of Music of the Spheres in the near future.


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ImAFoolAndImLaughing Offline




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Posted: Aug. 07 2007, 03:39

Quote (TOBY @ Aug. 06 2007, 12:38)
I've seen far better digital art and I've seen far far better album covers but then again I've seen far worse. Personally I would have liked to see something much less literal and a bit more subtle.

Agreed!

I'm afraid I don't like it at all! :( It looks a bit too mathematical for me - I hope that isn't reflected within the music itself. After all, that's what a lot of us disliked about L&S, wasn't it? That there was something a bit cold and "mechanical" about it?

I'd like to see a cover that reflects the kind of "organised chaos" that is so inherent in his earlier, greater works :D


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larstangmark Offline




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Posted: Aug. 07 2007, 04:38

Quote (AlexS @ Aug. 06 2007, 10:48)
He's done much worse... Hergest Ridge... Heaven's Open... The Millennium Bell, etc!!

Oh man I forgot about the Millenium Bell. All is forgiven. Anything is better. Much better.

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Trinidad Offline




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Posted: Aug. 07 2007, 08:44

I don't like it either. It gives me an unpleasant amateur impression, something not really suitable for an album of somebody who's been in the music world for around 40 years.

It looks as if, once the idea took shape, they did the artwork in one day. I don't like the concept, but I'm sure something more could have been done in that direction with some more time.

Or maybe it's just that I'm seeing right now the Pink Floyd's Pulse DVD booklet...

Anyway, well done, tubular.net.
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Korgscrew Offline




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Posted: Aug. 07 2007, 09:34

All this has got me thinking about how I might have approached the task of producing the album artwork. Certainly I'd have come up with something very different, but then that's mostly due to the fact that I don't work with 3D modelling software these days. I don't think I would have come up with anything that would have been liked by more people than this one - I think it's more likely it would have been liked by less!

My thoughts turned to the covers of albums on the ECM label. I always like the feel of those and they make me want to try the album (yes, I do buy albums at random sometimes...). They're usually black and white photographs (often tinted), sometimes quite indistinct and ethereal. I particularly like those that are pictures of the sea.

Thinking more about the concept of music of the spheres, I though of the cover of Wings's 'Venus and Mars' album, which I always thought was rather clever - I find the idea of the two planets being represented by the yellow and red snooker balls rather fun. It's not an image that makes me go "Ooh, that's beautiful" but I like the idea.

I rather like the idea of taking a globe down to the sea and doing some things with that. Getting one of those that light up and doing the shoot at night, with the waves turning to an ethereal mist as they lap around it during a long exposure could be rather beautiful (though of course the globe would have to be re-wired to make it safe under those conditions...and indeed, to balance the light level so it doesn't over expose. It would need to be anchored down too so that it doesn't move and become blurred). I imagine that would work best as an untinted black and white, though I often rather like the look of a blue tint on things shot at night.

Some kind of Andy Goldsworthy type sculpture could also be interesting.

There's a beautiful scene in Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) where the character Homer (not Simpson...rather an ageing storyteller, played by Curt Bois) is sat surrounded by globes in Berlin's Staatsbibliothek, watching the planets on an orrery slowly whir round. Doing an homage to that somehow would be fun.

Anyway, I'm doing nothing more than throwing around thoughts to keep myself entertained...who knows, perhaps I'll do something with them. If you see anyone skulking around on the beach with a huge camera and a bag full of glowing globes, you'll know who it is.
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TOBY Offline




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Posted: Aug. 07 2007, 11:05

Quote (Trinidad @ Aug. 07 2007, 08:44)
Or maybe it's just that I'm seeing right now the Pink Floyd's Pulse DVD booklet...

You see there's a band that take the visual representation of their music seriously and look where it go them. Pink Floyd are a good example of why the packaging and artwork surrounding an albums release IS important and makes a difference to the listeners experience. I've often argued that had Mike developed a strong visual style to go along to his often quite visual music (beyond the sold to death Tubular Bells logo) he may well be taken as seriously and revered as Pink Floyd are today. Of course the best album cover art in the world isn't going help bad music within but it can do nothing but help matters.

AS Korgscrew alludes to in his post there are any number of potentially interesting visual ideas to explore in a title like Music of the Spheres. I don't think that what he's going ahead with does it much justice to be honest and if the music is a return to form (as we hope) then the cover does it even less justice.
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HuanCry Offline




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Posted: Aug. 07 2007, 17:28

SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT COVER PIC  I.E MORE DETAIL HERE :-

www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Spheres-Mike-Oldfield/dp/B000T6K8KW/ref=pd_rhf_p_1/202-6409535-6503000

Regards

Neil
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Korgscrew Offline




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Posted: Aug. 07 2007, 17:57

I think it's actually the opposite of more detail. I imagine what they've done is taken our JPEG image and recompressed it. They've certainly been known to take covers from fan sites in the past - there has been at least one case where a fan's suggestion for a cover that had been posted to one site got mistaken for the actual artwork and ended up on Amazon, until the creator informed them of their mistake (I think it was with Tubular Bells 2003, and if I'm right, it was taken from oldfield.de).

I already compressed that image fairly hard (it was sent to us as a much larger JPEG file) - it was just at the point where the compression artefacts weren't really noticeable. Them compressing it again more aggressively - making it a total of three times that the image has been compressed - has merely made the artefacts noticeable, reducing the subtle tonal gradations in the image to those flat bands of colour. It's also eaten away at the fine detail on the spheres.
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theweightless Offline




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Posted: Aug. 07 2007, 18:02

that amazon pic looks bad  :/  i hope that's not right

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HuanCry Offline




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Posted: Aug. 07 2007, 18:04

BLIMEY ! KORGSCREW !

I must admit it doesn't seem to be an improvement to me !

You may be right Korgscrew !

Neil  :cool:
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AlexS Offline




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Posted: Aug. 08 2007, 08:48

Yeah, its obviously suffered compression and perhaps reformatting as a gif or something.

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jeremyroberts Offline




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Posted: Aug. 08 2007, 18:34

Quote (HuanCry @ Aug. 07 2007, 17:28)
SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT COVER PIC  I.E MORE DETAIL HERE :-

www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Spheres-Mike-Oldfield/dp/B000T6K8KW/ref=pd_rhf_p_1/202-6409535-6503000

Regards

Neil

more detail? LOL ! oh man... it looks worse still...  :/
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raven4x4x Offline




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Posted: Aug. 11 2007, 09:52

That Amazon cover is a textbook example of (extremely bad) posterization caused by nasty image compression. I wouldn't worry; the real one won't look like that!

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