Vampire Weekend no longer in Contra case

You'll remember a few months back the model from the cover of Vampire Weekend's Contra turned up, claiming she'd never released the image to be used? The legal action against XL and the band which resulted has been settled and dismissed.

The action against the photographer Tod Brody - who, it has been claimed faked a release from Ann Kirsten Kennis - continues. Brody has apparently been cut free by his lawyers, who say he has neither co-operated with them, nor paid them.

Billy Corgan tries whimsy, gets found out, shot down

Billy Corgan tweeted a couple of days ago that new Smashing Pumpkins bassist Nicole Fiorentino is one of the girls on the cover of Siamese Dreams:

Just found out the weirdest news: our bass player Nicole (@xocoleyf) just admitted she is one of the girls on the cover of Siamese Dream

That would be an amazing coincidence, right?

The only problem is it isn't true, as Ali Laenger, the other girl on the sleeve, says so:

-- Nicole's age doesn't match. Doing the math, Nicole would have been about 14 when the pic was shot ... the girl on the album is clearly around 7.
-- Ali says the photo was shot specifically for the album, and not a candid pic as Nicole has claimed.

You could understand why Nicole might have wanted to be the girl on the sleeve. It'd be the only chance she's got of appearing on a half-decent Smashing Pumpkins record.

The spaceman sues Dido

Dido stuck a NASA picture on the cover of her 2008 record, Safe Trip Home. It features a tiny little astronaut floating in space.

Trouble is, the astronaut, Bruce McCandless (no, I hadn't, either) is suing claiming that the use violates his privacy rights.

Sure, you go floating in space you don't expect to be papped, but... seriously?

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As Techdirt observes:

[I]t's difficult to see how much of a claim he has. It's not as if he's identifiable in the image, or that anyone will see it and think: "Hey, I'll buy this album because I know astronaut Bruce McCandless endorsed it." That's ridiculous. Most people will have no idea who the astronaut is, nor will they even care.

To be frank, the hardest thing for McCandless to do is to prove that anyone knows who he is before he can start to claim people are trading on his image. Surely this is just a shot of an unnamed guy at work?

Also: why has it taken him two years to file this claim? Has he been on Mars or something?

Vickers and arts: RCA caught like litter in the wind of public opinion

Who knew that anyone would have been waiting for Diana Vickers to release an album? And that, once it came within shouting distance, those people's reactions would not be one of stunned gratitude, but discontent?

James P takes up the story:

Diana Vickers, an X Factor reject from a couple of years back, is releasing an album soon. As is often the way, the record company thought that a good way to pique fan interest would be to tease them with a preview of the album cover artwork.

Unfortunately, the fans hated it.

The messageboards are awash with gripes. Some people hate the font, some hate the photo, some hate the colours. Interestingly though, RCA have taken these complaints on board and started to tweak the image. In what appears to be a depressing collision between pop music and focus groups, they've changed the colours used in the artwork and, as the fans are still grumbling, this may not be the last amendment they make.

It does make me grateful that the internet wasn't around forty years ago, album covers would've been rubbish. "The flowers are nice and I like the different-coloured suits, but it's too cluttered and I don't recognise most of the people. Couldn't they just use a photo of the band leaning over a bannister or something?" "What's a cake got to do with bleeding?" "Why isn't Paul wearing shoes? They should put some on him, otherwise people will think he's dead or something"

(It does make me wonder if it would be possible to organise a Facebook campaign demanding that the next Kasabian album features a photo of the band being mauled by bears, however)

It's interesting to see that RCA is responding to consumer demand so minutely. Almost as if they think they need every sale they can muster. Perhaps they should try a print-on-demand cover?

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Cover-up

Gennaro Castaldo has already enjoyed himself with the story of the Manics album sleeve, taking the opportunity to sniff at supermarkets selling music. Now, with the Manics coming second in some sort of limited poll for 'best album cover of 2009', he's able to have another go:

HMV’s pop guru Gennaro Castaldo said: “It shows that when someone tries to ban something that you attract even more interest.

“That has happened throughout entertainment history; just think of the Sex Pistols and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It’s good that despite their attempts to block this album it’s done so well.”

That's the South Wales Echo dubbing Castaldo "pop guru", by the way.

I'm not sure that comparing 'not having your record in some shops' is quite on a par with having Mike Read condemn you live on the Breakfast Show; nor, indeed, that coming second (to Muse) in a year-end poll is quite on a par with actual success, but it's to HMV's credit that they kept the record on their shelves.

Adam Lambert: This is not an accident

This is the cover of Adam Lambert's album cover.

This tweet might come as a surprise:

Thank you to those who appreciate and understand that the album cover is deliberately campy. It's an omage to the past. It IS ridiculous.

The surprise not that the sleeve is meant to look like that, but that there are apparently people who think the picture might have accidentally turned out looking kinda campy. How would you think that? Are there people who assume he's wearing a pair of dungarees or was fixing an engine but it got cropped out the final shot leaving the image looking a bit fey?

Bono takes the sleeve

Perhaps understandably, Taylor Deupree is a bit annoyed that U2's No Line On The Horizon album sleeve looks a bit (i.e. exactly, except with a superimposed equals sign) like one of his records:

for those who don’t know what i’m ranting about, U2’s forthcoming album “no line on the horizon” is nearly an exact rip-off of mine and richard chartier’s “specification.fifteen” which came out a couple of years ago. both covers feature a photograph by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. “specification.fifteen” was created directly in conjunction with Sugimoto and his retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC. so.. before you let people run off about how “cool” the new U2 cover is.. show them ours first…

Of course, he's now been besieged by U2 fans who seem desperate to somehow prove that U2 haven't produced an album sleeve using an idea that had not only occurred to someone else, but had even been put into action. Deupree has grown tired of pointing out he wasn't suggesting anyone had breached copyright, and so sealed his blog post to new comments.

Shotter's Paradise

The story, boiled down, is this: with Kate Moss and Pete Doherty split, and Doherty busy cleaning himself up and uncontactable, management panicked about the use of an image of Moss on the Shotter's Nation sleeve and instead stuck a random photo of a woman in knickers on the cover instead.

Victoria Newton's starting something, mind:

KATE MOSS could go KP Nuts when she sees the cover of BABYSHAMBLES’ new album.

KP Nuts? Eh? We know what Newton's getting at, but it took us a couple of minutes to make the connection.

About six paragraphs later, Newton explains the reference:

I’m sure Kate — who sung duets with Pete under the name KP NUTS before their split — will be gutted to learn her face isn’t on the album after helping with those four tracks.

Will she, though? She's dumped him and moved on. Isn't it a bit more likely that either she'll be either relieved that he's not trying to flog albums with her picture, or annoyed that they've chosen a lookalike body double to try and imply her endorsement without getting into choppy copyright problems?

The decision to rip the head off the photo of the lookalike model is disturbing, though - taking a catalogue shot and making it pornographic (in the strict sense of the word) by removing the face and head of the model, leaving her a featureless and depersonalised 'body'. This is exactly the same thing that got Rain into trouble twenty-something years ago; you'd have hoped that a supposedly smart band like Babyshambles would have spotted that objectifying women might be a slightly more shameful outcome than falling into an argument with a knicker company over the copyright of an underwear advert.

Head on the coffee table

Coming this autumn: Dead Children Playing, a collection of the artwork produced for Radiohead by "Stanley Donwood" and "Doctor Tchock, giving a chance for their work to breathe set free of the limitations of iPod screens and CD booklet inserts. Interesting that the arch-anti-consumerists Radiohead have come up with a way to make you rebuy the art you already have - only in a visible form this time. Neat.

PJ Harvey: Whistler in the dark?

It's a nice idea, but we're far from convinced by Spinner's assertion that the new album art for PJ Harvey's White Chalk is inspired by Whistler:

Exhibit A: The dress. Exhibit B: The curly mane. Exhibit C: The titles of each project -- Harvey's 'White Chalk' vs. Whistler's 'The White Girl.'

So, yes, they both have a white dress, and some curly hair, but... erm, one is sitting with hands in lap, and one is standing with hands at the side; putting a woman in a simple white dress isn't an idea that Whistler can lay sole rights to.

On the other hand, if he were alive today, he'd probably be launching a lawsuit.