Album artwork and Flickr
We’re recording a live album on the Man (hat on) tour. Nothing fancy, just unedited live gigs in houses and offices recorded with an iPhone mic and maybe a line out of the back of my amp. Recording it is the easy bit. The difficult thing is deciding how to present it, how to publish it. It’s not really an album. Albums are industry-centric marketable products. What we’re doing is both more and less than that.
We still love albums
What does everyone love about albums? They give the listener a context in which to appreciate and enjoy the music. You know the band put the album together (track order, artwork and the recordings themselves) in a certain way, and that knowledge lets you relax and enjoy.
The thing we’re missing with online albums (I’m going to call them albums because there isn’t a better word for them yet) is the artwork. The physical presence. The exploration of the related material.
Let’s make internet-native artwork
So the plan is to use a Flickr group as the artwork. Not just to use the photos, but to integrate the album with the Flickr group in a more dynamic way. I’ve asked the Oxford Flickr Group (some of whom know my music already) to contribute meaningful photos to replace the physical album art. Why try to recreate physical artwork (booklets, sleeves, inserts) online when there are already amazing ways of presenting images online in an explorable and native way? We’re on the internet now. It’s not paper. Get over it. ;)
I’ve set up a Man (hat on) Flickr group. I’ve posted the track listing of the album we haven’t made yet, and each of the Oxford Flickr people have three weeks to submit photos to the group that match individual songs. They might just respond to the title, or they might read the lyrics, listen to the song and submit a photo that captures the vibe of the song in a deeper way. They might use photos they already have or they might use the three weeks to take new photos.
The important thing is that we use Flickr in the way it is already used rather than try to crowbar some silly competition into it. Flickr’s all about community, conversation and sharing, and the Oxford Flickr Group is a perfect example of a working Flickr community. Where it gets interesting is linking the Flickr experience to the not-an-album experience.
Flickr as album art
Here’s my thinking so far: The Flickr group pool acts as the artwork for the album. I link to it from the album. I choose one photo for each track that becomes the photo for that song. It’s embedded in the MP3 so when people listen to the track on their iPod or on their computer they see the photo. In the metadata for the MP3 I link directly to the photo on Flickr (thus inextricably linking the photographer with the recording). On the Bandcamp page for the album I embed a Flickr slideshow of all the photos I’ve chosen for songs, and on each song page I embed all the photos that were submitted for that song.
What do you think? Genius? Madness? I’m interested. It seems like a good experiment that might open up some new ways of thinking about the album package of which we’re all loathe to let go.