Stikkord
No doubt, I am a fan of Dylan’s simple arrangement of music, as well as I admire his unpolished attitude and ability to present music in its most natural form (without autotune and other superficial elements). I was glad to see the front cover of his coming album «Shadows In The Night» – mirrored this simplicity and even contained some abstract shapes (see fig 1). As the content of the album consists of mostly unreleased Frank Sintatra songs, the jazz origin is emphasised by the use of BLUE colour created as distinct vertical bars which almost serve as a framing of the black white Dylan photo.
Also the yet released single of the album «Full Moon and Empty Arms» (see video 1 below) is semi abstract and has the same simplicity and blue emphasise:
So I have tried to find who is designer behind this graphics – without yet succeeding (per 09.12.2014). However, according to the Rolling Stone Magazine, there are many similarities with this previous cover design made by Reid Miles (1927-1993) (see fig 2).
Even though the design which features Dylan’s latest album cover is based on a traditional jazz record label style (the Blue Note Records), not all fans of Dylan are finding this album cover appropriate. The reason behind this reactions is possibly because Dylan have no previous history in doing jazz, this was a design his fans were unfamiliar with. Below is a screen shot of the album cover discussion found on Facebook (see fig 3).
This is what the persons behind the red lines (Red one and Red two) say:
Red (1): «Poor Bob. Great songwriter but my lord have your album covers been ugly recently».
Red (2): «That so true! Lol».
References:
Rolling Stone Magasine (2014) available online at: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-releases-frank-sinatra-cover-plans-new-album-20140513
Image sources:
Figure 1: Bob Dylan: Shadows in the night (2014/2015) [Album cover] At: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/dec/09/bob-dylan-new-album-shadows-in-the-night-frank-sinatra (Accessed on 09.12.2014).
Figure 2: Miles, R. Freddy Hubbard: Hub Tones (1962) [Album cover] At: https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/jazz/detail/-/art/Freddie-Hubbard-1938-2008-Hub-Tones/hnum/8378529
Figure 3: Facebook (December, 2014) Discussion album cover design [Screen shot from web] At: https://www.facebook.com/bobdylan/photos/a.10150291568225696.551039.11955325695/10154869387235696/?type=1&theater (Accessed on 09.12.2014).
Video sources:
Video 1: Dylan, B. Full Moon and Empty Arms [Music Video] Available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ2PHtS2bKg (Accessed on 09.12.2014).