Doja Cat And Chaver Have A Fountains Of Wayne/Flamingoes Situation Happening With Their New Albums
In 1996, two albums came out a couple of weeks apart, and both of them used the exact same photo as their cover art. Both Fountains Of Wayne’s self-titled debut and the Flamingoes’ Plastic Jewels had the same photo — a little kid posing as a superhero — on their covers. Photographer Nick Waplington reportedly licensed the same image to both bands without telling them about it, and Fountains Of Wayne were pissed. Next month, something very similar will happen. This time, the two nearly-identical albums will come out on the exact same day.
Last night, Doja Cat announced her much-anticipated forthcoming album Scarlet, and she posted its cover art on Instagram. Very quickly, a whole lot of people noticed that this art looked almost exactly like the cover for Of Gloom, the forthcoming album from the German metalcore band Chaver. (Earlier this year, Doja said that she wanted her next album “to explore more of a raw, unfiltered, hardcore punk sort of thing.” This is probably not what she meant.)
Doja Cat and Chaver’s albums aren’t exactly the same, but they might as well be. Both have pinkish spiders on white backgrounds, though Chaver’s is a little less bright and more shadowy. Also, the Doja Cat spider has a teardrop floating above it, while the Chaver spider has… actually, yeah, that’s probably also a teardrop. But a slightly rounder teardrop? I’m reaching here. They’re twins.
You will not be shocked to learn that the Doja Cat and Chaver albums were both designed by the same person, Portland artist Dusty Ray. When they announced their album, Chaver wrote that Dusty Ray “has been with us since our first album” and that his cover art “serves as a captivating contrast to the album’s intense music, setting the stage for a trip to a place of pain.” Who knows? Perhaps Doja Cat’s publicist is now deleting a press release that uses those same exact words.
Someone is probably going to be upset about this double-dipping, but I don’t know, it’s pretty funny. It seems very unlikely that someone will walk into a record store to buy the new Doja Cat and get confronted with a blast of German metalcore instead. And maybe this publicity will be good for Chaver. “In The Depths” and “Eternal Night,” the two tracks that they’ve shared from Of Gloom, are pretty good! Listen below.
Doja Cat’s Scarlet is out 9/22 on Kemosabe/RCA. Chaver’s Of Gloom is out 9/22 on BDHW Records.
UPDATE: Doja Cat picked a new cover.