The Vapours

Trick Daddy - www.thug.com (1998)

This may not be in the classical style of early-Photoshop era rap albums, but i feel that taken as a whole it presents a distillation of what was going on during this new, exciting movement. People were beginning to have regular access to the internet, and with a few right clicks, drags and drops an album cover, nay, an entire album concept could be created.




Juvenile - 400 Degreez (1998)

Everything you need to know about the artform is here. The layout, the literal representation of the album's title, the font effects, the
bizarre posturing, some fire. Consider this one the blueprint.







Master P - MP Da Last Don (1998)



Master P's No Limit label, often referred to as No Talent, is considered by scholars to be THE major player in the Photoshop album cover game, with memorable efforts for Soulja Slim, The Hot Boys, C-Murder, and some of the albums pictured below. Particularly noteworthy here is the strong work on the 'large hand/foreground' effect.






Silkk Tha Shocker - Charge It 2 Da Game (1998)

More vintage 'large hand/foreground' creativity from No Limit.






Capone N Noreaga - The War Report (1998)

The east coast gets involved here, as the ever-present sinister undertones conveyed by fire, smoke, and in this case waves of heat continue. For me, this is classic in it's close resemblance to the SNES game; Probotechtor - Alien Rebels.







Snoop Dogg - Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told (1998)

Whereas pre-'98 Snoop album covers featured cartoon drawings of dogs and pimps, the PS-era Snoop album (for which he briefly signed to No Limit) carbon copied this style directly to the Photoshop format, paradoxically resulting in an image even more reminiscent of a comic book.




Dr Dooom/Kool Keith - First Come, First Served (1999)

Although this album dropped a year outside of '98, Keith expertly apes the genre with all the giant hand/font/posture techniques pitched alongside a couple of different species of simian, a cockroach, and a burger with a mouse in it. The sad conflict of this work is that it stands as both a death toll to 1998's Hip-Hop Photoshop creative outburst, and a final classic example of the artform in it's own right.

Posted by Wexfordian Proportions at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments

The Cubans are coming! A 'Revolutionary Communist Group*' have organised a speaking tour of various Cuban Administration people around the country. It hits Newcastle's Star and Shadow Cinema tonight. Appears not everyone is quite so gleeful about it (click the photos for larger versions):








*Source: Star and Shadow Email Newsletter

Posted by Fiend's Brave Victim at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments

Own-brand competitors to the popular DIY adhesive "No More Nails":

Wickes: "Forget Nails"

B&Q: "Sticks Like Nails"

Screwfix: "I Can't Believe It's Not Nails"

Wilkinson: "Nails? Balls."

Posted by Fiend's Brave Victim at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments

In the wake of society's decision to finally retire The Music Review from its Pantheon of Unusually Weak Ideas We're Going to Stick With For Just A Little While Longer, I thought I'd post up Exhibit A.

This afternoon I made my fortnightly trip out to Borders and bought a CD of Wagner's opera 'Tristan und Isolde'. I've lingered over this purchase for years after hearing a good chunk of it on the better-than-ok film Ivan's XTC. (One of the first feature films made with a digital camera. At the time of its release, the director announced he'd changed film-making forever. Which was a little like D.H. Lawrence claiming to have reinvented Contemporary Fiction when he switched from a pencil to a biro). The spiralling climax to this opera is definitely famous, and was used to excellent effect at the end of the film when Ivan died horribly alone in a hospital bed. It was a powerful scene and I was moved to the point of wishing I could cry more easily at films. Had it been captured digitally, I'm sure this off-screen viewing would have trumped the on-screen dying in the gruelling tragedy stakes.

What happened next?













On the way home I bought a big Aero from Wilkinson's to eat during the playback. And then, shortly before 6pm, the foundations of what I'd considered Reasonably Tragic Experience were shaken violently. Massive tears plopped onto the rubble and dust, and kept on plopping, until the final note fell away.
And then I woke up, and realised it was all a dream.

Posted by Operate at 6:23 PM | Permalink | Comments

Dear readers- pour yourself a tall Dooley's and have a look at this vid...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Lv8irN66U

Nice one mate

Posted by Operate at 8:10 PM | Permalink | Comments

Posted by Operate at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments

Person a- What a bad song that is.

Person b- What's that you said? That's a bad song? But it's not a bad song. It's just that you don't like pop. That's just good honest pop. Listen to it. There's nothing pretentious about it- it's pop through and through, nothing else. That's the difference between you and me- I can appreciate a good pop track and you've never understood pop. If you put that pop song on a stereo, I'd enjoy it, because it's pop and I've always liked pop. Pop music has always been successful because it's never been anything other than pop. You don't like enough pop, so get off your high horse, get your feet on the pop moral high ground, and start listening to honest pop. And don't turn your nose up at pop, because you don't have a nose for pop. I've always understood pop- great honest pop, it forms the basic of any good pop song. You say "bad song", but I say "pop", just keep the pop coming. All the great composers would like pop you know, if Schubert had been around now he wouldn't like your music, he'd like pop, because pop can be clever, but not so clever that it stops being pop. Pop composers are the smartest people there are, just like classical music was pop back in the old days, they're both the same. It's all great pop. In a lot of ways Steps are better than Mozart, it's more honest, it's all pop and nothing else and Mozart would probably be the first to hold his hands up and say "I admit it, they've made a better pop song". He'd have a lot of time for good pop. The sooner you like good pop, the sooner we can have a chat about pop, even though you've never understood the genius of a pop song. But I agree it's quite difficult to appreciate the genius of a pop song, but I can definitely do that.

Posted by Operate at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments