BRANDING METALLICA
Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 9:45am by Vince Neilstein
MS reader Michael Cobra sent us a really interesting read about the graphic design company (Turner Duckworth) that put together the visual elements of Death Magnetic. An interview with the designers focuses on the Metallica brand, the concept behind the artwork and the band members’ acknowledgment of the waning CD format and subsequent forced irrelevance of packaging.
Surprisingly, no mention is made of the striking similarity between the artwork and a hairy vagina.
In other news, Death Magnetic managed to sell nearly 500,000 physical units of said packaging in just 5 days (because of the oddly-timed Friday album release)
-VN
It needs mentioning that while the two dimensional photo may look like an oddly shaped hairy vagina, the actual CD cover is three dimensional and looks like an open grave.
“Surprisingly, no mention is made of the striking similarity between the artwork and a hairy vagina.”
Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that: “For instance James saw the coffin shape as more of a door than a coffin. So we deliberately made it simple so you could read it as just an opening.” Sounds like hairy vagina wasn’t too far from their minds.
It also looks surprisingly similar to metal filings subjected to a magnetic field.
dthrasher – because that’s what it is.
I bought the cd and I still like buying cd’s. I haven’t really been into downloading a lot of music. I even had problems with the last two NIN downloads. They downloaded to my computer fine but wouldn’t play back on my mp3 player after transferring. Load a cd, transfer it, no problems.
Anyway, I do like and appreciate more effort put into packaging and design. 10,000 Days still has to be probably the coolest one made. DM looks good from the outside, giving some actual depth to the design. The problem I have with it is that they cut the coffin shape through the lyrics once you open it up. I’m not going to sit there and pour over all the lyrics and meanings, etc. but you’d think that if they put the effort into coming up with the images and printing the lyrics on top of it that they wouldn’t proceed to then cut whatever % of that content out to make the coffin design. How hard would it have been to design the lyric layout around the coffin shape after it had been cut. Seems lazy to me.
Overall, I like the album. I’m not going to fret over how Lars is playing, the audio mix, etc. More prominent bass would be nice though. There are some dull parts of the album, but overall I think it is a good album.
Seagoat – I think dthrasher was going for meta humor by saying that he knows what it actually is, knows what metalsucks.net made fun of it as, and then reiterated as if he were aloof, that resembles metal filings etc.
Now that my head exploded i’ll try a figure out space time contiuum.
i should invest in spell checker. blargh.
I think it is a vagina with a coffin in it. Meaning when you are born you start to die.
DEATH MAGNETIC!!!
ya, I was really annoyed that many lyrics are missing due to the packaging. Like, put Suicide & Redemption on the page with the most missing, not in the middle.
‘tards.
oh well. Poor twisted me.
@ SeaGoat
I have Agreements and Disagreements (more of the former than the latter):
While I haven’t been a Metallica fan for the longest time (things started falling apart before “Load”/”Reload” but really kicked in after the “Garage Inc.” Double-CD) I was a ‘moderate’ fan for a short time (personally, if anything, I was really more of a Slayer/Megadeth fan during that time). Since then, I really haven’t been that concerned with Metallica or any of those ‘Big-4′ thrash bands.
…I suppose that’s the only thing I don’t agree with you on (liking Metallica)…Here’s everything I do agree with which you stated in your earlier post:
(i) “I still like buying cd’s.”
Me too! And now that nobody (fewer and fewer) people are buying CD’s, I can usually get most Black/Death/Power/Progressive-Metal records for $4 or thereabouts (usually less, but sometimes more). So everybody downloading via iTunes (or illegally) might be missing out on more than just a little (including lower prices – contrary to popular belief).
(ii) “I even had problems [...] They downloaded to my computer fine but wouldn’t play back on my mp3 player after transferring.”
Been there, done that. If you use something other than an iPod (Creative Zen?) try using .wma (and be sure to use CBR, none of that VBR bullshit) either 128kpbs or 192kbps. I’ve never had problems with .wma on a portable audio player, but I might have once or twice with .mp3 audio files (which – admittedly – were encoded in VBR as opposed to Constant-Bit-Rate).
(iii) “Load a cd, transfer it, no problems.”
Totally agree, especially if you use .wma (at least that’s my experience). Plus, with buying the actual CD and ripping it, you can choose which formats and Bit-Rates you want to encode the file in…And change it anytime. You can’t do that with iTunes, unless you either want to lose quality by converting it to .aac from an already ‘lossy’ .mp3 or you’ll have to pay to download it again.
(iv) “I do like and appreciate more effort put into packaging and design. 10,000 Days still has to be probably the coolest one made.”
Shortly after May 4th, 2006 (around the time I got Tool’s record, or was it the 2nd?) I asked myself whether I was the only one who appreciated it the packaging. I now know I wasn’t. I did have two complaints with the record (keep reading).
(v) “The problem I have with it is that they cut [...] the lyrics [...]”
I know!!! Don’t you just hate it when bands don’t print their goddamn lyrics?! One of my complaints with Tool’s “10,000 Days” was the fact that they didn’t print their lyrics – and still haven’t released ALL of the lyrics to that record even today in late 2008. Then again, that’s standard practice for them…But I’d like to have the lyrics PRINTED with the CD. Or else, I probably wouldn’t care much about buying the Disc – and just download it illegally instead. However, the saving grace for “10,000 Days” (other than the music) were the awesome Stereoscopic-Glasses and the neat 3D-Pictures, and that strange ‘Puzzle’ they mentioned on the website (I wonder if it has been solved yet?) Regardless, even that was barely enough because in my opinion, there’s too many ‘filler/segue’ tracks to merit a whole record. As far as the record is concerned, I only listen to:
(01) “Vicarious”
(02) “Jambi”
(05) “The Pot”
(08) “Rosetta Stoned”
(10) “Right In Two”
The two ‘epic-suite’ tracks (”Wings” Parts 1 & 2) I don’t listen to that often (although I loved the ‘raining’ surround-sound effect on Part 1) and the rest of the record is pretty much ‘filler’ (even though the lead-in track before “Right In Two” could merit a ’song’ since it has some discernible lyrics – but “Intension” still seems like it could have been elaborated a bit more, perhaps with better drumming like on some “La-Te-Ra-Lus” tracks: “The Grudge”, “Ticks And Leeches” and “Reflection”…Frankly, I think I’m biased towards “La-Te-Ra-Lus”; I’d wish they’d make a “La-Te-Ra-Lus – Part 2″ record, even though “Forty Six & 2″ has to be their ‘catchiest’ song, I think “La-Te-Ra-Lus” showcases the band at their best…It must be Danny Carey’s drumming)…Albeit, even the ‘filler’ tracks on “10,000 Days” are pretty cool.
***
I don’t know, I’m not into passing laws and stuff, and I’m totally for “Free and Unregulated Expression”, but maybe it should be standard practice (perhaps even ‘law’?) for all bands to release ‘full-lyrics’ printed (or perhaps even digitally record on the CD – like Trent Reznor did the .pdf files, for “With Teeth” and “Year Zero”) at the very least.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) that’s just my opinion at the end of the day.