Wednesday, January 21, 2009

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.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i dont understand the problem here no rock. if "both covers feature a photograph by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto", then why is dupree angry? that bono steals his ideas from the same place as him? its not like he created the album cover himself...

also, what with the whole coldplay/satriani thing, isnt accusing big acts of plaigarism so very vogue at the moment?

Anonymous said...

Hey anony - read Dupree's post about it - I think he's a bit annoyed about is the fact that it's not a that 'creative'to produce something so similar and it sullies his art a bit coz that was a project with the photographer rather than just the front cover of what will be a crap album. To me the new u2 cover looks very 1988/90s. No problem, it's just boring.

Anonymous said...

looks like Brothomstates cd on Warp from 2001!

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-13511-1163708286.jpeg

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