I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the raw power that certain cheap, unfinished-looking, ugly art has. Now, when I talk about powerful, cheap art, I’m not just talking about any old shitty art piece – I’m actually talking about a kind of style that’s very difficult to achieve correctly.
Take the piece above – it’s an album cover of a band I’ve been listening to a lot lately. At first glance it just looks like some cheap shit made in the 80s for some Russian punk band or something. Of course, that’s not the case at all. The following song is by the band, the album is from this year (received significant critical praise), the artwork was made by the singer:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5H-YlcMSbc[/youtube]
I don’t know why, but over the course of the last couple months listening to this album, I’ve grown to really love the cover and appreciate the truly subtle touch it took to make that. I don’t really know how to explain what I’m thinking or why I’m thinking it – all I can say is that this sort of cheapy look, if done right, has a lot of power. And it’s often harder to do this kind of thing right than it is to make standardly pretty, normally aesthetically pleasing stuff.
