Album cover Art Doco... best watch for 2023 music fans.

[kiwilistener]

For those of us who love music but also love photography this documentary is an enthralling watch (well to me at least) and probably just as intriguing for the average listener as well.

 

My first job after finishing college in 1972 was working for a pro photography studio. I'd been given a camera for my 11th birthday and haven't stopped taking photos since, including running my photography Blog " Akiwiretrospective" since 2010.

Coupled with photography was a huge love of modern music from around the mid 1960's up to the present day.

 

As a young man one of my favorite past times was picking up an album or two each week. They were generally played on a KD 550 turntable (the faux marble Kenwood), the amp was the KA3500 a real sleeper amp IMHO and output through a pair of venerable AWA Monitor 4 Studio speakers.  Part of the enjoyment of all this was slapping the album on the turntable sitting back, listening to the music and perusing the cover of the LP front to back and soaking in the artwork. Some of the covers were rather spartan, like Floyd's DSM or the Wishbone Ash cover for "Argus".

It was a given that artwork for the covers was as important as the music itself, something that comes through in the documentary.

These guys along with some well-known music concert photographers were and still are some of the most influential photographers of my generation. It's a living history of music in photos. Nowadays there's too much control of images of bands performing live and the essence of the performances doesn't come across as it used to simply because the large majority of bands aren't as interested in producing really top-class artwork for their albums.

There is a small piece with Noel Gallagher talking about trying to make his daughter understand the relevance of the artwork and what an album cover actually is and what it means. Kinda sums up what we lose not having physical media at the forefront of a bands output today.

So, for all you music fans you can see the doco on Netflix, amazon or apple music, just search for the title "Squaring the circle."

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by kiwilistener

[Ian McP]

On 20/12/2023 at 2:42 PM, kiwilistener said:

For those of us who love music but also love photography this documentary is an enthralling watch (well to me at least) and probably just as intriguing for the average listener as well.

 

My first job after finishing college in 1972 was working for a pro photography studio. I'd been given a camera for my 11th birthday and haven't stopped taking photos since, including running my photography Blog " Akiwiretrospective" since 2010.

Coupled with photography was a huge love of modern music from around the mid 1960's up to the present day.

 

As a young man one of my favorite past times was picking up an album or two each week. They were generally played on a KD 550 turntable (the faux marble Kenwood), the amp was the KA3500 a real sleeper amp IMHO and output through a pair of venerable AWA Monitor 4 Studio speakers.  Part of the enjoyment of all this was slapping the album on the turntable sitting back, listening to the music and perusing the cover of the LP front to back and soaking in the artwork. Some of the covers were rather spartan, like Floyd's DSM or the Wishbone Ash cover for "Argus".

It was a given that artwork for the covers was as important as the music itself, something that comes through in the documentary.

These guys along with some well-known music concert photographers were and still are some of the most influential photographers of my generation. It's a living history of music in photos. Nowadays there's too much control of images of bands performing live and the essence of the performances doesn't come across as it used to simply because the large majority of bands aren't as interested in producing really top-class artwork for their albums.

There is a small piece with Noel Gallagher talking about trying to make his daughter understand the relevance of the artwork and what an album cover actually is and what it means. Kinda sums up what we lose not having physical media at the forefront of a bands output today.

So, for all you music fans you can see the doco on Netflix, amazon or apple music, just search for the title "Squaring the circle."

 

It's a great doco! Directed by Anton Corbjin who also made the excellent Control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_(2007_film)

< Control is a 2007 British biographical film about the life of Ian Curtis, singer of the late-1970s English post-punk band Joy Division. It is the first feature film directed by Anton Corbijn, who had worked with Joy Division as a photographer. >

Anton was famed for his photography as well.

https://www.artnet.com/artists/anton-corbijn/2