There’s always a shade of intrigue surrounding Joanna Newsom’s album cover art. Perhaps that’s because she’s cultivated such a marketable image these past few years. Take the halcyon Ys era: Some of you balked at the authenticity of its cover when we first posted. After it was confirmed, you threw darts at it anyway. And then found out your criticisms sorta pissed her off via her interview with Venus mag:
Some have found artist Benjamin Vierling’s painting cheesy. In a representative comment by one Stereogum poster calling himself Pierro [sic] Della Francesca, “The picture looks like it was done by the guy who paints the unicorns on Trapper Keeper covers attempting to mimic the style of Botticelli’s portrait of Simonetta Vespucci.” Newsom bristles at this sort of criticism. “I’m used to people making fun of me,” she said, “but it bums me out that anyone would ignore the fact that he’s a really good painter.”
You guys. Well this time the doubt was well placed. Have One‘s teaser track “’81” came stacked with a colorful press photo and seemingly not-so-colorful album cover art. And it turns out it was not-so-colorful for a reason: That image was just a placeholder, to be filled in with an image of Joanna sprawled out in a room decorated by a zoologist. According to Drag City, that is it, and it is final. Whew. Glad that’s settled. Have One On Me is out 2/23. It’s a triple-LP. Which, whoa.
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suck it up princess…the truth hurts. If you don’t like the comments, don’t use shit for album covers.
To be honest the album cover could have just been a photo of a toilet bowl after someone had used it, I’d still be desperate for this album to come out. Roll on 23rd Feb!
no one care Chuck
Your comment makes me weep, it really does.
figures
I like it, it reminds me of one of those “I Spy” book pages.
Forget to close your html tags much? Even if they were closed right, though, the copy doesn’t really make sense. Threw darts at it?
Who cares about the cover, indeed! That precious voice, free of all nauseating pretension!
I can handle the art. It’s the Microsoft Word circa 1995 font that chaps my ass.
Um– what?
I LOVE JOANNA AND THE ART! I am a proud preorderer. I hope Joanna really does read this and if she does…COME TO UTAH!
dat ass
dear joanna,
i have loved you forever. and i always will. but your cover art is terrible and it always has been. i’m sorry that i have to be the one to break this to you. it hurts me more than it hurts you.
sincerely,
your fan.
If Newsom’s aesthetic sensibility didn’t lie outside the norm, she would not be the outstanding composer and artist that she is. She pushes the boundaries to realms previously unheard of, and to the common ear (or the common eye) her artistry would seem bizarre. But to those of us becoming deaf to the mass formulaic untrained same-old-shit, she is a godsend.
she thinks hes a great painter. so she’s probably having sex with him. or hes got a smaller nose than her boyfriend’s
You’d think Joanna Newsom fans would be more open minded about her cover art. With a voice like her’s, you’ve got to be a little more tolerant of something not of the norm.
Excellent cover art. Everyone else can go back to your “Catcher in the Rye” minimalism while those who dare to explore color and figures can bask in what you are missing.