What effect do album aesthetics have on listening?

I find it all has a huge effect on my impressions, music videos, photo shoots in magazines, interviews, lyrical presentation in the booklet and most of all, cover art. It has a massive effect on my prejudices, preconceptions etc if I listen to it after having seen or read anything about it, and can change my initial  reaction if I see/hear/read things like that afterward.

I thought Master Of Puppets was a completely different record before I saw the photos inside the booklet.

It doesn't matter to me whether the album art "reflects" the music or not. But I do need a strong image (or images) with lots of character, to help me successfully assign the aural experience to a visual experience. That's important if you listen to a lot of music, it helps you remember better how "that album" was. 

^^ I wouldnt bother with Winds of Plague because that "Font" is being overused .

This type of Metal should have a new genre, "Generic Death Metal" .

cannon wrote:   This also applies to watching concert footage for me as well. I watched the Never Say Die video by Sabbath when it came out on video tape, I'm guessing about 25 years ago on Beta as that time we had a Beta machine. It totally detracted my imagination from what I had previously invisioned Sabbath to be in concert. Ozzy was overwieght and didn't look into it. Iommi was a statue. Bill Ward looked green. Geezer was the only one that had any energy. Til this day that video is etched in my memory when I think of Sabbath live. Since then I've hardly watched any concert footage as I prefer to look at pictures and let my mind place me at the concert.

. . . but,
You would have thought that if you went to SEE a Sabbath show wouldn't you?

Being at a show is TOTALLY different than watching it on Video, unless youre really into a Band. In my
experience of being at a Concert is the crowd, their reaction, the Band feeding off of it and just "seeing"
them play the Instruments/Songs.  Many are just "Guys playing" and I dont mind that at all.  If the
"Show" is really good (i.e. Lights, Stage, Stage Presence, etc.), then its icing on the cake.
I like to "see" bands play and all the aural sensations I get from it, though I wont judge a bands
musicianship "Live", some are awful (not many I can think of - I've been a bit disappointed with
Paradise Lost and Sentenced Live on video), but I prefer to judge them in the Studio.

Sabbath have always played the way you describe though, Dio was energetic as well-with them, when
Ian Gillan sang with them, it was the 1st time I saw someone "Headbang" and at the time was strange
for some reason (I was 19 I think), but a bit scary too  (Never got to go to a show though ).
Tony Martin was as dramatic as Dio as well (The "Cross Purposes" Video).

I'll have to write more about why for me, Album Art and Music go hand in hand, and the bands I
discovered with TERRIBLE cover art  -that turned out to be really awesome with their music .

At the OP:

I tend to listen to music like that but honestly, I shouldn't. Oftentimes the feel I get looking at an album cover varies greatly from the feel I get listening to an album. It just works like that.

Now when both are in sync with each other, it's kind of cool but that rarely happens.

topofsm wrote: ^I've always felt that Dream Theater has mostly had very generic looking cover art, even in their classic era! I never liked the Dramatic Turn of Events Anyway. That being said, I feel DT's latest coming out is a good example for this thread too. I'm already thinking of it as light and bright and airy, even thought I haven't heard it yet!

Well . . .

Heres something that kind of pisses me off, I'm sure it would have "come to me" after I owned the album and
would have said, "Wait a minute!" . . .

http://www.metalsucks.net/2011/08/08/dream-theater-used-clip-art-for-their-album-cover/

I wrote a comment under the column.  Needless to say how important album art is to me, having done 5 now
and all the great memories of when I 1st saw many a cover from fave bands.

One of many great memories is Rush's "Moving Pictures".  To the tone that was set by the (Hugh Syme) Cover
Graphics and the inside Sleeve pics of the band in "motion".  It was their darkest album and it was reflected on
the cover.

This is 1 of many .

But Hugh! Where did you go wrong with DT (but hey, everyone makes mistakes).

By the way, checkout this old thread at PrOgulus.com:
http://progulus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=98&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0



Edited by MAVIIIVAM - 13 Aug 2011 at 1:25am

Album art is key.

I like it when the cover art fits the theme and style of the album, it somehow manages to make the package feel 'more complete' if you know what I mean.

Look at this:


This is The Grimmrobe Demos by Sunn O))).  It really stands for every single piece of music that Sunn O))) has made.  The core feeling makes me feel like I'm a different dimension that's the same as the one we're in now except that the clouds are overcast and gray (not raining), the grass and most other vegetation is dead, all man-made structures are abandoned and in disrepair, and there isn't another human being to be seen.

I've tried re-interpreting this feeling with other albums they did:

The Black One makes me feel like I'm in a dark, abandoned building that has been buried underground.  I stumble around in the darkness trying to find a way out until I finally run out of oxygen at "Bathory Erzebet".

Yes, cover artwork is extremely important and contributes to the overall experience of an album. The colours, the shapes, the perspectives - all those details - do have an influence on how I perceive the music itself. Actually, in this day and age of digital releases, I think that the experience of listening to music lacks something, and that may well be the visual aspect (fortunately, it is still there, to some extent, in the option of including artwork on your iPod) as well as the tactile experience of leafing through the booklet and touching the disc and all that.

While I am not a vinyl collector, I really miss the vinyl format when it comes to the cover art, because it allowed for so many details. I mean the only way to really appreciate the cover art of, say, "Somewhere in Time" and "Powerslave" is in vinyl cover sleeve format.