ALBUM 21: Big Music | 2014 | designer: Peacock
Caroline | UK | CD | SMBM03
Back cover
When Simple Minds dropped the first preview images of their latest album, “Big Music,” many could not help but think of Depeche Mode’s iconic cover to their album “Music For The Masses.” It was certainly the first notion to come to my mind. Here, there were some differences, but the notion of communicating widely via electronic loudspeaker was the underlying visual metaphor for both covers. The Simple Minds take was certainly of its time, and all the poorer for it. The Depeche Mode cover was one of their many excellent covers, and superior in every way to the cheap Simple Minds cover.
Mute Records | UK | CD | CD STUMM 47
The Depeche Mode album has absolutely beautiful cover photography and design by Martyn Atkins’ Town + Country Planning firm. The loudhorn construction was actually placed in a real environment and photographed for the artwork, and the key lighting on the foreground against that dramatic sunset was a vivid example as any as to the power of photography during that brief magic window in the immediate pre-dawn, post-dusk hour where the landscape comes alive in a way that simply doesn’t happen under other lighting conditions. That cover photo is worth a million dollars. The logo and typography above it only adds to the overall value of the cover.
Contrast that to the cheap, nasty 3D graphic adorning the Simple Minds album! Not only is it derivative of the earlier cover but it is endlessly inferior on both technical and emotional levels. The only thing clever about it was the fact that the four largest loudhorns, as seen from above, form a variation on the Maltese Cross, which had long been part of Simple Minds’ iconography since appearing on the cover to “Promised You A Miracle.” Apart from that, there isn’t much to write home about. The font is adequate, and its placement dead center above [just like Depeche Mode] smacked of complacency. If they were going to use the same idea, the least that they could have done was to minimize the layout similarities.
The back cover of the Simple Minds CD was very different from the Depeche Mode model, with a staged shot of the band about to enter an arena of light as seen from the back. It’s miles more interesting than the cover and they might have used that instead. Even so, it’s been retouched to within an inch of its life, and at the size I’m looking at in my Record Cell, I can’t say with 100% certainty that this image was not also the product of a 3D rendering program and heavy Photoshop abuse. The work necessary to set up and take that back cover shot belies the cheapness in evidence elsewhere on this packaging, so this is where my suspicion comes from. Also, the last album cover that Peacock did for Simple Minds [“Celebrate: The Greatest Hits”] was completely reliant on CGI to render the “Colonel” from the cover of “Empires + Dance” overwritten with lyrics, that was much more interesting a concept than this in any case.
The cover is not the only aspect of the packaging that is Mode-reliant. The actual disc label printing is also redolent of the earlier disc.
The disc itself
Music For The Masses CD label
And the Depeche Mode disc has the great type and logo treatment completely lacking on the Simple Minds disc. Shameless.
Next: …We’re not done here by a long shot…
![Chris Cross: 1952-2024 [part 2]](https://postpunkmonk.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/ultravox-cross.jpg?w=200&h=200&crop=1)
Post-Punk Monk 
Each of the 12″singles, variant import 12″ singles, and 7″ singles from the Music for the Masses era featured additional unique photos of the loudspeaker array, all shot in different landscapes (or in close-up for the Strangelove singles). Coupled with a motif of maps as background images, this was a strong, consistent, and cohesive design that branded that entire era of DM’s career. When I purged my comprehensive and complete collection of DM’s vinyl output (1981 to 1990), the MftM-era was the hardest to let go, just because it looked so damned good as a set.
LikeLike
JT – Yeah, that was the end of the golden era of great DM art. The [unending] Anton Corbijn epoch got old pretty fast for me, even though I terminated my interest when the “Violator” cycle concluded for no really good reason. SOFAD was released right when I was moving and buying my first Mac [Quadra 840AV 16/500 – you do the 1993 math] so I sort of curtailed music purchases until some time in 1994. I was not moved by the first video for “Walking In My Shoes” and when I moved, I stopped watching TV in about three months. No MTV. No more DM video, so it all ended there. I just noticed last month that I still have the JPN “Strange Too” laserdisc that I need to sell of! Like the rest of my DM single collection. Memo to self.
I sort of felt the same way you did when I sold off my DD “Notorious” era rarities. That period was a clean minimal look that I liked, even though I didn’t “need’ the music on the records that I had elsewhere. I had to think more than twice about making the Malcolm Garret era the cut-off point where I kept my DD collection. Given that I find “Notorious” to be one of my favorite albums by them, the sell-off was not lightly undertaken.
LikeLike
Any chance of a Revo rip of Strange Too (coupled with Strange, perhaps) before you dump it? I’ve never actually seen it…
Also, yeah, Notorious was heavily derided upon release, but in the fullness of time, I deem it second only to Rio… even if the mix is so incredibly dated (it reeks of 1986 now and forever). But I’m sure you covered this in a GPA. I’ll have to go review that one!
LikeLike
JT – Well, I have the first version of “Depeche Mode The Videos 1986>98” DVD as well as the “Best Of Depeche Mode CD/DVD” combo from 2006. The latter was the first DM I’d bought since the “World In My Eyes” single in 1990! Looks like “Strange Too” has a few unique clips; “Clean” and “Halo,” my favorite song from that album. Hmmm. Do I have a tape of “Strange?” [checks] Yes! One of the few VHS in the video cabinet that has not been opened in over a decade. Could happen, but don’t hold your breath. I need a new hard drive to digitize video as well as the time to do it. Not likely any time soon.
Yeah, “Notorious” is second to “Rio” and on some days, it smokes it for lunch. “Rio” is great, but “Notorious” is the most cohesive album that they ever made and mix or not, there’s not an ounce of fat on it to my ears. the deep cuts are amazing. Almost as amazing as the deep cuts on “Big Thing,” but “Notorious” has no blunders like the latter’s egregious title track.
LikeLike
I have to agree, there were so many other directions that the Big Music cover art could have taken. As the album is filled with a lot of aural forward motion, harkening back to SAF/SFC and E&D, I would have been much more satisfied with a visual/photographic representation of that musical motion. The “official” video for Blindfolded by Damien Reeves captured EVERYTHING I’m getting out. This is where they should have taken their cue. The cover as it is just too literal and, as you point out Monk, derivative.
LikeLike
Echorich – Welcome back! Ironically, the booklet inner images take exactly the direction that you speak of. So close, and yet so far…
LikeLike
That figures…oh, and that band photo on the back of the cd looks more like they are entering a Mixed Martial Arts arena rather than a music arena…
LikeLike
PPM, thanks mate!
Ps I think that may be the finest album cover and associated campaign with single sleeves, posters, ads etc we ever created. Anton took over pretty much everything after this album.
Cheers, Martyn Atkins
LikeLike
Martyn Atkins – Welcome to the comments! It’s an honor to have Post-Punk graphic design royalty stop by and comment. Yes, the full campaign for “Music For The Masses” was just so well considered, but the thread of T+CP design running from “A Broken Frame” through to “Music For The Masses” was assured and powerful. But you’re right. Everything did mature and plateau by the “Music For The Masses” era. Where could it go from there but something utterly different. You worked with Brian Griffin on “A Broken Frame” and “Construction Time Again,” and the only design credit for “Speak + Spell” was for Griffin’s photography. Were you also the designer for that album as well? The single design credits were all over the place with Neville Brody (!) and several anonymous sleeves figuring at that time.
LikeLike
Mr Monk how are you mate? I had nothing to do with the Speak and Spell cover. That was Brian’s concept. I met Daniel and the band after its release, at that time I was doing work for Factory, Joy Division, A Certain Ratio etc and Zoo, Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes etc I loved typography, creating logo ideas and coming up with the photo concepts, they were looking for somebody who had strong ideas for graphics and images that could be translated from the record covers across all the advertising and marketing to give Depeche a powerful, cohesive identity. At that time remix’s and special 12″s along with merchandising were becoming very important for marketing a band. It was a fantastic time, I loved it. Leave In Silence, the first work that I was responsible for came out before the album and was supposed to give a taste of the forthcoming album. We had already come up with an idea for the cover image, I art directed the shoot with Brian on a location near Duxford in Cambridgeshire that I had found. The project worked pretty well and cemented a direction that their first album lacked, Daniel and the lads were chuffed. I think if you compare A Broken Frame with Speak and Spell it really helped give the band visual credibility.
I was lucky had the right haircut, wore the right leather pants and rode a motorcycle all at the right time, I was in! Cheers, Martyn Atkins x
LikeLike
Martyn Atkins – Well, I’m trying to get the heads cleaned on my disc printer… and failing. I was turning my attentions back to the near defunct vanity/hobbyist “label” I sometimes go on about and the year of neglect takes its toll on the printing hardware.
I see the difference now. It looks like you designed the “remix” of the “Speak +Spell” art for the 1988 German CD that I own but the [US] vinyl I bought in 1981 [itself with a different type treatment from the UK edition] is long gone. I first noticed your name on the Teardrops’ “Colours Fly Away” 7” I bought. The design campaign for “A Broken Frame” [the transitional AtaTak covers aside] was a huge step forward that matched the quantum leap in the music. The first album campaign didn’t cohere at all and lacked any overriding aesthetic. Martin Gore may have his doubts, but I didn’t. I was not sure about Depeche Mode on the evidence of “ A Broken Frame,” but the second album sealed the deal for me. And in the rock music biz, let it not be said that in the end it can all come down to a pair of trousers and a haircut!
LikeLike
PS PPM….just saw your old post Re DM and CASH.
Coincidence…..I was responsible for the CASH logo and creating the photos on most of the Rick Rubin/Cash album covers etc
I first met Rick in ’90, he loved the MFTM visuals, that was one of the reasons he wanted to work with me. After John died I gave MLG one of the photos I took of Johnny’s hand on the lyrics of Personal Jesus as he was recording the song!
Mx
LikeLike
Martyn Atkins – MFTM is a world class calling card. No wonder Rubin bit. Giving the photo of Cash with the lyrics to Mr. Gore is a real powerful notion. Good thing you had a camera ready.
LikeLike