Welsh Rich Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 An interesting read... Becks cover can be seen: http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2139741,00.html Johnny Borrell, singer with Razorlight, likes books by "depressing alcoholics", Ryan Adams is a huge fan of vampires, while Beck finds himself drawn to an enigmatic French tale about magical adventures and lost innocence.Inspired by their favourite novels, six musicians have illustrated the books with their own artwork for a "design your own cover series" project for the publisher Penguin. Borrell has chosen F Scott Fitzgerald's classic The Great Gatsby, set in decadent 1920s America. He has customised the cover with a betting slip scribbled on a piece of notepaper from the Westin Miyako Hotel in Kyoto, Japan. "I was running a book on the Grand National in Tokyo and I was writing out a betting slip for everyone, and decided that my bookie's name was going to be Gatsby. So the cover of the book is a betting slip." Beck's illustration, of the French novel Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain Fournier, follows his DIY art project for his latest album, The Information.His book effort takes the form of a line drawing of two boys, perhaps the book's two main characters, Le Grand Meaulnes and Francois Seurel. The title is picked out in magazine photograph cutouts of the faces of young men. Beck said of the Penguin project, in which each paperback will come with a blank cover for readers to customise: "The idea is to provide something that calls for interactivity. Cover art and all the paraphernalia that comes with albums have always been really important to me. I'm one of the people who need a visual crutch for music." Adams, who chose Dracula, by Bram Stoker, used oil paints to create "a weird outline or silhouette juxtaposed with the idea of the castle - you know, Dracula's headquarters, his hang". His take on the novel is that it is about "how suffocating the Victorian times were. The bonus is, you get vampires! I can't reveal my secrets but I can reveal no garlic was harmed in the making of this cover." Siddhartha Khosla, from Goldspot, has designed a collage for Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf. "I chose this book because Steppenwolf is such a great band. I mean, Born to be Wild is such a great song. In all seriousness, I like how Hermann Hesse defines a hero. Several of Hesse's novels depict the protagonist's journey into their inner self and these 'heroes' often spend their existence trying to save themselves. I think that's cool." Up and coming bands Dragonette and Mr Hudson and the Library chose Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, and Animal Farm, by George Orwell. Martina Sorbara of Dragonette illustrated hers as a "fantastic and frightening acid-trip" playing card where Alice is innocent and demure on one side, wild and dishevelled on the other, while Ben Hudson has chosen graphic design as his artform with three cartoon pigs. "It should remind the reader that behind the farmyard there are very dark historical events being satirised," he said. The six books, plus Aesop's The Complete Fables, are available from today. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aeglos Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 loved Nabokov's liner notes for Highway 61 Revisited still waiting for the reissue of Graham Greene's woodblock version of the 1812 Overture... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Hi my name is Lee Posted August 4, 2007 Share Posted August 4, 2007 Dracula is the most unintentionally hilarious book I have ever read. I dare anyone to read that book today and take it seriously. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
W(TF) Posted August 4, 2007 Share Posted August 4, 2007 Beck never fails to impress me. Nice idea too. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.