Worst looking CD/LP artwork

[MusicTurner]

Also (I think), two males are assisting a woman giving birth, in a setting that looks like a broken helicopter ...
not a particularly Shostakovichian idea.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Oh - it's not inappropriate - it's just very strange. It's a science fiction movie scene in a spaceship or something, and it's a medical ward with doctors and surgical equipment and a glowing woman holding a baby? Super weird but not adult.

Also (I think), two males are assisting a woman giving birth, in a setting that looks like a broken helicopter ...
not a particularly Shostakovichian idea.

O.k., thanks.  I haven't looked at it, but RS's reaction to it really surprised and shocked me--particularly as VS didn't strike me as the kind of person who would proactively post images that were likely to upset people.  Guess that I've become too jaded over the years.      Think that I should just let this thread be....

PD

[Madiel]

Shrug. Entirely in keeping with Gardiner's whole Bach series. What's the problem?

[SimonNZ]

Somebody on a different site took issue with the face of an African tribeswoman on the cover of one of the Gardener cantata discs.

I argued that taken together Steve McCurry's portraits of men and women young and old from a variety of cultures spoke to the universality of Bach's music's appeal. I also argued that McCurry's artistry was analogous to Bach's.

Having said that, sure, anyone who didn't know the series might well wonder what the above has to do with Easter.

[DavidW]

That album cover is not remotely "worst".  Give me a break.  The point of the covers of Gardiner's cycle is to demonstrate that people of all corners of the world love Bach, that Bach transcends the limitations of the traditional settings in which his music has historically been performed.

The photograph is well taken and consistent with the theme of the covers for the cycle.

[MusicTurner]

Back in the 70s I think, there was a filmmaker, who let Karl Richter's complete recording of The Messiah (the English DG one, a favourite of mine) be accompanied by sequences of everyday life and other scenes from different parts of the globe, trying to illustrate a universal quality in the work and the Biblical message.

They'd broadcast it on national TV here, and back then at least (where we had access to only one TV channel in the main), it was quite an experience. But it seems to have been quite forgotten, and it's difficult to trace on the web, apparently.

The Gardiner series might be inspired by it too.

[SimonNZ]

I'm sorry that member felt they had to delete their post.

Taken on its own the photo is an odd disconnect with the work and it is legitimate to question the decision to use it.

[Wanderer]

Also (I think), two males are assisting a woman giving birth, in a setting that looks like a broken helicopter ...
not a particularly Shostakovichian idea.

Regardless, I'm fairly positive that we are going to see this in a Regie-production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk within the next decade or so. 🤨😁

[T. D.]

Regardless, I'm fairly positive that we are going to see this in a Regie-production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk within the next decade or so. 🤨😁

Speaking of Regietheater, this (Blu-Ray DVD, apologies for off-topic) cover is merely silly-looking,

,

but I found the 2019 Bayreuth Tannhäuser to be absolute dreck (and I'm generally sympathetic to avant-garde productions).
If you don't believe me, it's not hard to find online video: https://www.operaonvideo.com/tannhauser-bayreuth-2019-gould-davidsen-milling-eiche-gergiev/

[Peter Power Pop]

Speaking of Regietheater, this (Blu-Ray DVD, apologies for off-topic) cover is merely silly-looking,

,

[snip]

Wonderfully silly.

[Wanderer]

Speaking of Regietheater, this (Blu-Ray DVD, apologies for off-topic) cover is merely silly-looking,

,

but I found the 2019 Bayreuth Tannhäuser to be absolute dreck (and I'm generally sympathetic to avant-garde productions).
If you don't believe me, it's not hard to find online video: https://www.operaonvideo.com/tannhauser-bayreuth-2019-gould-davidsen-milling-eiche-gergiev/

It looks like Canio and Anna Nicole are escaping from the director of whatever this is in Arthur Weasley's enchanted car. I assume Tannhäuser is playing on the radio. 😁

[Brian]

Groovy, baby.

[VonStupp]

Groovy, baby.

Fun with Word Art, I guess.

[Madiel]

Fun with Word Art, I guess.

I'm surprised anyone still has access to Word Art. The main computer system must have been down, but there was an old PC in the storeroom.

[VonStupp]

After a cursory glance at recordings available of Mauricio Kagel, I came across this. Perhaps a visual foretaste of his musical style? Color me doubly intrigued.

Weird choral music.

Color me intrigued!

[T. D.]

After a cursory glance at recordings available of Mauricio Kagel, I came across this. Perhaps a visual foretaste of his musical style? Color me doubly intrigued.

That is an ugly cover, and I think it's Kagel himself in the photo.
His music spans a wide spectrum from slightly quirky to extremely avant-garde/weird. Exotica is very much on the latter end of the spectrum.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

After a cursory glance at recordings available of Mauricio Kagel, I came across this. Perhaps a visual foretaste of his musical style? Color me doubly intrigued.

When is that cover from?

[T. D.]

https://www.discogs.com/Kagel-Exotica/release/934272

1972?

[Pohjolas Daughter]

https://www.discogs.com/Kagel-Exotica/release/934272

1972?

Is there some special cultural significance of his face painting?

PD

[T. D.]

Not to be rude, but Google is a wonderful thing, much quicker than a bulletin board:

https://www.yellowbarn.org/page/mauricio-kagel-exotica

Scored for "non-European instruments", Exotica was a commission for the 20th Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. The first performance took place under the direction of Mauricio Kagel himself, and the instrumentalists included such well-known new music personalities as Vinko Globokar, Siegfried Palm, Christoph Caskel, and Michel Portal. The six participants had to "manhandle" around 200 wind, string and percussion instruments wholly unknown in Europe. In Exotica, Kagel strove to question "the dominance of Western music or 'culture'" and "go back to the primeval origins of music-making, when singing was still at one with making sound out of simple, everyday objects."