Is it just me or does anyone stare at the BN logo on covers?

[CJ Shearn]

I've always done this since I was a kid, the BN logo is one of my favorites and I love just looking at the different colors it is depending on the album, adds so much to the look. Am I weird or do other people do this?

[sonnymax]

Yes, and yes.

[CJ Shearn]

LOL, ok!

[mikelz777]

Yes and I'm doubtful.

[paul secor]

I guess it's not just you, but it ain't me.

[Big Beat Steve]

Me neither. Can't say it has done that much for me beyond the fact that it's easy to recognize.

There are lots of labels (mostly other indies) that have a much more lively impact on me and tell me (based on my own tastes and not on "what everybody says") that "if it's on that label you can't go wrong", for example.

[CJ Shearn]

I don't know, its just a weird habit I have, I stare at the Pablo logo on album covers too. Used to watch the label spin on the turntable.

[CJ Shearn]

hehe

[Teasing the Korean]

Slightly off topic, but related:

One of my pet peeves is getting a later pressing of an LP, with a later label design that does not match the aesthetics of the music.

For example, I mentioned elsewhere spinning a copy of Mancini's "Mr. Lucky" with the orange 70s Dynaflex RCA label. It happens to be a great pressing so I held onto it, but it's offputting.

With Blue Notes, I prefer to see the older white and blue label with music from that era, but beggars can't bee choosy.

The way Blue Note vinyl has skyrocketed in recent decades, I'm mostly hearing Blue Note on CD now.

But, yes, I love the Blue Note logo on ablum covers - an unusual design compared to other labels.

[sonnymax]

Personally, I consider the BN logo to be rather boring and unimaginative compared to other labels of the day. The music is another story.

[JSngry]

Edited July 3, 2010 by JSngry

[Quincy]

I was that way as a kid with the Columbia Records logo.

Is it an "R"? Is it an eye with legs? Is it the CBS logo's sister walking away? (It looked a little like my 3rd grade teacher so I pegged it a feminine.) I've caught myself a few times starting to stare at the Blue Note logo, but I'm careful to avoid "eye contact." Given the behavior of many here, I figure it has hypnotizing powers. "You must seek out all Connoisseurs." "Don't you want a complete RVG series?" "Oh, to have all of me in cardboard LP replicas." Don't look at the logo. Put your hand up to block it and just admire the rest of the cover.

[JSngry]

I was that way as a kid with the Columbia Records logo.

Is it an "R"? Is it an eye with legs? Is it the CBS logo's sister walking away? (It looked a little like my 3rd grade teacher so I pegged it a feminine.) I've caught myself a few times starting to stare at the Blue Note logo, but I'm careful to avoid "eye contact." Given the behavior of many here, I figure it has hypnotizing powers. "You must seek out all Connoisseurs." "Don't you want a complete RVG series?" "Oh, to have all of me in cardboard LP replicas." Don't look at the logo. Put your hand up to block it and just admire the rest of the cover.

I used to work as an aide at a facility for the mentally challenged. There was one guy there who was a HUGE Marty Robbins fan. He always referred to Robbins as "Mister Spotlight". Nobody on the staff could figure out why. This guy was obsessed with "Mister Spotlight" in a way that only a mentally cahllenged person could be, if you get my drift. Finally, one day, he had pulled me into his room and been going on about "Mister Spotlight" for about five minutes non-stop, so I had to stop him and ask him, "Rufus, what the hell is this 'Mister Spotlight' thing all about?"

Wellsir, Rufus didn't hesitate one second, He walked over to his stack of Marty Robbins records & one by one showed me the Columbia logo one each - front cover, back cover, even on the lables, every onw of the accompanied by an excited, "LOOK! SEE? MISTER SPOTLIGHT!!!!!!". Rufus was genuinely delighted that somebody had taken the time to actually give him an opportunity to explain himself, and as the years passed, I came to better appreciate how he felt.

So as far as I'm concerned, it's a spotlight. Rufus made a believer out of me.

[colinmce]

Slightly off topic, but related:

One of my pet peeves is getting a later pressing of an LP, with a later label design that does not match the aesthetics of the music.

For example, I mentioned elsewhere spinning a copy of Mancini's "Mr. Lucky" with the orange 70s Dynaflex RCA label. It happens to be a great pressing so I held onto it, but it's offputting.

With Blue Notes, I prefer to see the older white and blue label with music from that era, but beggars can't bee choosy.

The way Blue Note vinyl has skyrocketed in recent decades, I'm mostly hearing Blue Note on CD now.

But, yes, I love the Blue Note logo on ablum covers - an unusual design compared to other labels.

Marginally related to this is my absolute #1 pet peeve: anachronistic photographs on reissue jackets. Those Prestige two-fers from the 70s are egregious offenders (i.e. 70s Miles on a package of 1956 Quintet tracks) but there are others. This also bugs me in books. You're talking about Sonny Rollins' 50s heyday, yet the picture you have of him is from some cheesy festival in 1982. Yuck.

[CJ Shearn]

Slightly off topic, but related:

One of my pet peeves is getting a later pressing of an LP, with a later label design that does not match the aesthetics of the music.

For example, I mentioned elsewhere spinning a copy of Mancini's "Mr. Lucky" with the orange 70s Dynaflex RCA label. It happens to be a great pressing so I held onto it, but it's offputting.

With Blue Notes, I prefer to see the older white and blue label with music from that era, but beggars can't bee choosy.

The way Blue Note vinyl has skyrocketed in recent decades, I'm mostly hearing Blue Note on CD now.

But, yes, I love the Blue Note logo on ablum covers - an unusual design compared to other labels.

Marginally related to this is my absolute #1 pet peeve: anachronistic photographs on reissue jackets. Those Prestige two-fers from the 70s are egregious offenders (i.e. 70s Miles on a package of 1956 Quintet tracks) but there are others. This also bugs me in books. You're talking about Sonny Rollins' 50s heyday, yet the picture you have of him is from some cheesy festival in 1982. Yuck.

The mammoth Coltrane 16 disc Prestige set had this problem.

[Big Beat Steve]

Marginally related to this is my absolute #1 pet peeve: anachronistic photographs on reissue jackets. Those Prestige two-fers from the 70s are egregious offenders (i.e. 70s Miles on a package of 1956 Quintet tracks) but there are others. This also bugs me in books. You're talking about Sonny Rollins' 50s heyday, yet the picture you have of him is from some cheesy festival in 1982. Yuck.

:tup :tup :tup :tup

... although those Prestige twofers are far from the worst. There have been LOTS of really, really BAD ones in the blues and R&B field. Talk about some late 40s, early 50s biting, ass-kicking' smoking small-group R&B, and on the cover you get a pic of some elderly character attired in the worst, bell-bottom trousered, striped, garishly cut mid-70s out-and-out disco garb and outlandish Afro haircut that would have made Shaft look subdued and restrained, might perhaps have fitted some pimp on the wrong side of the track but looked just oddly out of place on somebody approaching retirement age (and looking the part). Sometimes all this almost resembled some widespread "Let's shove some photographer credits over to Norbert Hess" (who must have taken a zillion stage photos of those elderly gentlemen at the sunset of their careers) trust effort.

And then there were those reissue covers with nondescript, awkwardly modernized "art"work that bore no relationship to the (earlier) music whatsoever.

Correction: The photographer's name I gave in my first version of my post above was wrong. confusion on my part. Hereby corrected.

Edited July 3, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[clifford_thornton]

I was that way as a kid with the Columbia Records logo.

Is it an "R"? Is it an eye with legs? Is it the CBS logo's sister walking away? (It looked a little like my 3rd grade teacher so I pegged it a feminine.) I've caught myself a few times starting to stare at the Blue Note logo, but I'm careful to avoid "eye contact." Given the behavior of many here, I figure it has hypnotizing powers. "You must seek out all Connoisseurs." "Don't you want a complete RVG series?" "Oh, to have all of me in cardboard LP replicas." Don't look at the logo. Put your hand up to block it and just admire the rest of the cover.

I used to work as an aide at a facility for the mentally challenged. There was one guy there who was a HUGE Marty Robbins fan. He always referred to Robbins as "Mister Spotlight". Nobody on the staff could figure out why. This guy was obsessed with "Mister Spotlight" in a way that only a mentally cahllenged person could be, if you get my drift. Finally, one day, he had pulled me into his room and been going on about "Mister Spotlight" for about five minutes non-stop, so I had to stop him and ask him, "Rufus, what the hell is this 'Mister Spotlight' thing all about?"

Wellsir, Rufus didn't hesitate one second, He walked over to his stack of Marty Robbins records & one by one showed me the Columbia logo one each - front cover, back cover, even on the lables, every onw of the accompanied by an excited, "LOOK! SEE? MISTER SPOTLIGHT!!!!!!". Rufus was genuinely delighted that somebody had taken the time to actually give him an opportunity to explain himself, and as the years passed, I came to better appreciate how he felt.

So as far as I'm concerned, it's a spotlight. Rufus made a believer out of me.

Dig that story.

[Adam]

Marginally related to this is my absolute #1 pet peeve: anachronistic photographs on reissue jackets. Those Prestige two-fers from the 70s are egregious offenders (i.e. 70s Miles on a package of 1956 Quintet tracks) but there are others. This also bugs me in books. You're talking about Sonny Rollins' 50s heyday, yet the picture you have of him is from some cheesy festival in 1982. Yuck.

:tup :tup :tup :tup

... although those Prestige twofers are far from the worst. There have been LOTS of really, really BAD ones in the blues and R&B field. Talk about some late 40s, early 50s biting, ass-kicking' smoking small-group R&B, and on the cover you get a pic of some elderly character attired in the worst, bell-bottom trousered, striped, garishly cut mid-70s out-and-out disco garb and outlandish Afro haircut that would have made Shaft look subdued and restrained, might perhaps have fitted some pimp on the wrong side of the track but looked just oddly out of place on somebody approaching retirement age (and looking the part). Sometimes all this almost resembled some widespread "Let's shove some photographer credits over to Kurt Mohr" (who must have taken a zillion stage photos of those elderly gentlemen at the sunset of their careers) trust effort.

And then there were those reissue covers with nondescript, awkwardly modernized "art"work that bore no relationship to the (earlier) music whatsoever.

Lack of photos from the days of the original recordings.

[Big Beat Steve]

@Adam:

This I doubt. Period photo archives cannot have gone totally out the window in the 70s (only a good 20 years after the period when they would have been current) only to resurface BIG TIME in the 80s/90s with more material than ever being available (and judging by what has appeared in print availability has never stopped since).

I put it more down to:

1) An awkward attempt at modernizing and updating the album through its cover artwork (though I'd guess it failed big time according to most tastes)

2) Further to 1), maybe a lack of trust in that the fans of those older styles would buy enough copies of the album (if it had totaly retro cover artwork) so they figured they'd try to get buyers with more contemporary tastes (who'd jump on more modern cover artwork, especially in the wild 70s) on boat as well? Maybe they figured some Bitches Brew buyers would buy Miles' old Blue note 10-inchers as well if they repackaged them 70s style?

3) A policy of using EASILY available in-house or contracted photographers' material instead of digging around a bit (only a bit!) in archives of older, more fitting material or maybe actually a lame attempt at throwing this or that contemporary photographer a bone (maybe because the compilers thought they owed him a favor or some behind the scenes "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" policy at work? I've seen it happen in other printed media sectors when it came to selecting illustrations why not there as well?

4) Sheer carelessness and lack of taste

Just speculation after all, but I really cannot see lack of availability would explain it all.

Edited July 3, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[porcy62]

Side A is the way to go with Vertigo pressing...

[rostasi]

Yeah, I thought of that,

but wasn't sure if anyone

would recognize it on it's own.

another eyecatcher from the 70's:

[Chuck Nessa]

Yeah, I thought of that,

but wasn't sure if anyone

would recognize it on it's own.

another eyecatcher from the 70's:

Always fun to slip that one on the changer.

[sidewinder]

and on the cover you get a pic of some elderly character attired in the worst, bell-bottom trousered, striped, garishly cut mid-70s out-and-out disco garb and outlandish Afro haircut that would have made Shaft look subdued and restrained, might perhaps have fitted some pimp on the wrong side of the track but looked just oddly out of place on somebody approaching retirement age (and looking the part). Sometimes all this almost resembled some widespread "Let's shove some photographer credits over to Norbert Hess" (who must have taken a zillion stage photos of those elderly gentlemen at the sunset of their careers) trust effort.

Papa John Creach albums are bad for that..

Edited July 3, 2010 by sidewinder

[7/4]

The Blue Note logo always seems to be looking at me.

[Alexander]

I was that way as a kid with the Columbia Records logo.

Is it an "R"? Is it an eye with legs? Is it the CBS logo's sister walking away? (It looked a little like my 3rd grade teacher so I pegged it a feminine.) I've caught myself a few times starting to stare at the Blue Note logo, but I'm careful to avoid "eye contact." Given the behavior of many here, I figure it has hypnotizing powers. "You must seek out all Connoisseurs." "Don't you want a complete RVG series?" "Oh, to have all of me in cardboard LP replicas." Don't look at the logo. Put your hand up to block it and just admire the rest of the cover.

I used to work as an aide at a facility for the mentally challenged. There was one guy there who was a HUGE Marty Robbins fan. He always referred to Robbins as "Mister Spotlight". Nobody on the staff could figure out why. This guy was obsessed with "Mister Spotlight" in a way that only a mentally cahllenged person could be, if you get my drift. Finally, one day, he had pulled me into his room and been going on about "Mister Spotlight" for about five minutes non-stop, so I had to stop him and ask him, "Rufus, what the hell is this 'Mister Spotlight' thing all about?"

Wellsir, Rufus didn't hesitate one second, He walked over to his stack of Marty Robbins records & one by one showed me the Columbia logo one each - front cover, back cover, even on the lables, every onw of the accompanied by an excited, "LOOK! SEE? MISTER SPOTLIGHT!!!!!!". Rufus was genuinely delighted that somebody had taken the time to actually give him an opportunity to explain himself, and as the years passed, I came to better appreciate how he felt.

So as far as I'm concerned, it's a spotlight. Rufus made a believer out of me.

It is a great story. However, I should point out that Marty Robbins had a syndicated TV show in the '70s called "Marty Robbins Spotlight," which might also have something to do with Rufus' nickname for him...