Forthright opinion on the future of music graphics, with which I mostly disagree

Just read Music’s visual dimension: The beloved album cover by one Alice Rawsthorne in the International Herald Tribune (link via Dan Hill). After expounding upon the overly familiar ‘we all love album covers, but they’ve died because of the CD and now th MP3′ The author declares:

From a design perspective, by far the most interesting component will be the new genre of ambient image sequences, mostly digital animations, which musicians will soon start commissioning to accompany music downloads. If you want to see how these animations are likely to look, log on to the Web sites of digital artists like Daniel Brown or Yugo Nakamura. On each site you will find a selection of trippy, immersive image sequences. These digital animations will differ from music videos in that, rather than being made for television as literal interpretations of a song and its lyrics, they will be an abstract expression of the music.

Daniel Brown was a new one to me, but his uncommunicative website did little to pique my curiousity; Yugop was familiar from past visits and although I lke the work, it and the above quote seemed to generally miss the boat Do we really need more eye candy? I don’t think anyone wants more variations on the iTunes or Windows Media Player visualizers. We’ve all played with them a little and then forgotten them. What I want is design that stimulates the imagination, that makes me wonder. Of course, there’s a place for abstraction, as the love of most things Kim Hiorthoy illustrates (and which some of Yugop’s work, above, closely resembles), but the genius of the best of, for example, Saville’s work is the intellectual and emotional stimulation it provokes, not forgetting the gorgeous elegance of course. The lengthy reminiscence about the Patti Smith cover in the Tribune piece is yet one more example of this. Having said that, the author’s reference to the potential of multimedia to produce something that might even have a chance of equalling the classic album cover is welcome. See Interfacing with music in the digital age for more.