127. Pink Floyd - The Division Bell

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It has been said that  The Division Bell deals with themes of communication  and the idea that  talking can solve many of
life's problems.  The album cover art looks like two heads  talking to each other and another  composed of these two and
facing the viewer.  My deviation added  four more heads,  which, taken together  with the originals,  may mean different
things to different people.  My point  was to portray  situations that make  communicating  ineffective,  futile or useless.

It has also been said that listening is the beginning of understanding. I noted that the heads have no ears.


The album cover for The Division Bell was designed by Storm Thorgerson. It depicts two metal head sculptures sculpted by John Robertson, each over three
metres tall and weighing 1500 kilograms.  These were placed in a field in Cambridgeshire  and photographed  throughout a two-week period regardless of
weather conditions.  Sometimes visual effects such as lights between the heads was used.  Ely Cathedral is visible in the background,  as are car headlights
visible through the sculptures' mouths. The sculptures are now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

No one seems to know the meaning of the album cover,  and Pink Floyd has yet to enlighten the masses.  People have been quarrelling over the meaning of
the cover ever since its release,  and although countless interpretations exist,  there has been no consensus.  While the meaning of the cover art remains a
mystery, the meaning of the album title has at least confirmed. The term "Division Bell" refers to England and Australia's parliamentary sessions.

If there is a disagreement about a matter, then a vote must be taken.  The House is said to be "divided" on the issue, and the division is rectified by a vote.
At this point,  the Division Bell is rung and parliamentarians  must immediately proceed to the House.  When the Division Bell stops,  the doors are shut and
anyone who is late misses the vote.

Thus, the Division Bell has an important role in communication and conflict resolution.  The album title was suggested by  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
author Douglas Adams. Qoura


Two heads are better than one, but not if both are stupid.

So, how many more heads do you wish to see?

No. 234, Billboard, The 300 Best-Selling Albums of All Time; No. 719, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000


Album art design by Storm Thorgerson; sculptures devised by Keith Bredeen, constructed by John Robertson; photography by Tony May, Rupert Truman &
Stephen Piotrowski. Album produced by Bob Ezrin & David Gilmour. EMI, Columbia 1994.


The Division Bell deals  with themes of communication  and the idea that talking can  solve many of  life's problems.  In the Studio  radio host Redbeard
suggested that the album offered "the very real possibility of transcending it all,  through shivering  moments of grace".  Songs such as "Poles Apart" and
"Lost for Words" have been interpreted as references to the estrangement between Pink Floyd and former band member Roger Waters,  who left in 1985;
however, Gilmour denied this. The title refers to the division bell rung in the British parliament to announce a vote.  Drummer Nick Mason said: "It does
have some meaning. It's about people making choices, yeas or nays."

Produced a few years after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc,  "A Great Day for Freedom" juxtaposes the general euphoria of, for instance, the fall of the
Berlin Wall, with the subsequent wars and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Yugoslavia.  Audio samples of Stephen Hawking,  originally recorded for a BT
television advertisement,  were used in "Keep Talking";  Gilmour was so moved by Hawking's  sentiment in the advert  that he contacted  the advertising
company for permission to use the recordings on the album.  Mason said it felt "politically incorrect to take ideas from advertising,  but it seemed a very
relevant piece."  At the end of the album  Gilmour's stepson  Charlie is heard hanging up the telephone  receiver on Pink Floyd manager Steve O'Rourke,
who had pleaded to be allowed to appear on a Pink Floyd album.

In Uncut Magazine's  2011 Pink Floyd:  The Ultimate  Music Guide,  Graeme Thomson   wrote that The Division Bell  "might just be the dark horse of the
Floyd canon.  The opening triptych of songs is a hugely impressive return to something very close to the eternal essence of Pink Floyd,  and much of the
rest retains a quiet power and a meditative quality that betrays a genuine sense of unity."

Uncut reviewed the album once again in 2014 to celebrate the 20th anniversary reissue,  and in their review praised the album for its production,  citing
that the  album  sounded much  "more like a classic  Pink Floyd  album  than  1983's  The Final Cut"  and throughout  the album  noted  the empathy and
connection between Wright and Gilmour, stating that these moments were "at the album's musical heart." wikipedia


(A) Cluster One - What Do You Want from Me? - Poles Apart - Marooned - A Great Day for Freedom - Wearing the Inside Out

(B) Take It Out - Coming Back to Life - Keep Talking - Lost for Words - High Hopes



"A Great Day for Freedom" live from David Gilmour on YouTube

    


www.pinkfloyd.com

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125. Nino Rota - The Godfather

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The base of power has to be preserved.  The methods to be employed can vary from one family to another depending on the adversary.
They might include displays of wealth and opulence,  superior manners  assented to by subservient behaviour,  violent instincts coupled
with the will to kill, and even acts of generosity, fairness, belligerence and intimidation. The main purpose is to let the opposite party
know or  realise  that this  family  has all it takes  to be  respected,  obeyed,  served  -  and died for (or against).  The core  of it all is
manipulation.  This is the central  theme of the simple trick above.

Say something like, "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."  

Above: the film poster art; below: the soundtrack album cover art.

Film poster art by Laurent Durieux, soundtrack album produced by Tom Mack.
Paramount 1972.

It has been  successfully  argued that no film  has had as much  impact on cinema as  Francis Ford Coppola's  The Godfather.  The 1972
powerhouse  not  only  defined  the  entire  subsequent  genre  of  mob-related  films,  but  remains a brutally  memorable  exhibit  of
dramatic  storytelling  at its most  compelling.  The adaptation  of Mario Puzo's  best-selling and  controversial novel,  accomplished by
Coppola and the  author himself,  was so encapsulating  that it warranted  every minute of its nearly three-hour running time,  leaving
enough room for the longer plot of the second film to expand even further upon the same characters. 

The story of the now famous  trilogy of films follows the progression of the original  New York mafia  families in their efforts to survive
and adapt in the times  from the 1900's to the 1990's,  the first  two films  tackling  the initial threat  posed by the  introduction  of the
drug trade into the traditional operations of these bases of power. The trilogy ultimately defines itself as the story of Michael Corleone,
desperate to retain the Sicilian traditions of his father while moving the family forward into these new, more global avenues of wealth.

His ultimate failure, foreshadowed in his ascension in The Godfather and progressively more shocking in the endings of the two sequels,
guides  the music  of these  films  to a similarly  depressing  end.  Like the films,  the work  of Nino Rota  and Carmine Coppola  for the
soundtracks  is engrained  in the memory of the  mainstream,  defining the  sound of mafia music much  like the  characters.  If you boil
down the plot  elements of The Godfather to their  most basic ingredients,  they would be tradition, love, and fear.  Rota's score for the
film perfectly embodies these three aspects of the story. 

Rota's themes  for the first film are the lasting sounds of the franchise,  played longingly on street corners  around Europe for decades to
follow.  The role of original score in  The Godfather  was held to a minimum by the director,  limiting  the amount of  development that
Rota could explore with his themes.

The  style of  Rota's  work  was  important  in  merging  the  sonic  sensibilities  of Sicily  and  America,  incorporating  the  flair  of solo
instrumentation  native to the  former region  with the larger,  symphonic tone of the latter.  The scenes  directly  connecting the plot to
Sicily are served with a mandolin, accordion, and acoustic bass, sometimes aided by sentimental strings.  Solo trumpet performances are
the bridge between the folk elements of the past and that choral and orchestral development that  dominates the score by its conclusion.


There  are  fewer  fully  symphonic  expressions  of  grandeur in  The Godfather  than The Godfather Part II,  the  latter  addressing  the
romanticism of Vito Corleone's immigration and ascension with a more verbose orchestral heart. Rota uses the entirety of The Godfather
to slowly add layers to his themes  until the final cue,  reflecting the fearful  discovery by  Michael Corleone's wife,  Kay, of her husband's
own ascension, reprises all three of the score's major themes with fully realized, almost religious gravity. Filmtracks, The Godfather

(A) Main Title (The Godfather Waltz) - I Have But One Heart - The Pickup - Connie's Wedding - The Halls of Fear - Sicilian Pastorale

(B) Love Theme from The Godfather - The Godfather Waltz - Apollonia - The New Godfather - The Baptism - The Godfather Finale

"Love Theme from The Godfather" movie clip from googlisme on YouTube.


  

    

www.ninorota.com

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123. Crowded House - Woodface

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On this work,  the original  album  cover art  design is at centre  with the lights  shining through the
holes and the band's name removed.  The right half was then flipped and  pasted at left and the left
half was flipped  and pasted at right.  These were darkened to give a hint  that the image at centre
is up front.  The pasted images  where then  pushed at bit off centre  and their doubles were pasted
over so that  part of  the image  behind them show  through  which  creates an illusion of  thickness.
The whole image  was then processed  in Craquelure  and Crosshatch  and converted to monochrome
and tinted to make it look like it has been made of very old wood.


Here's the original album cover art design.

No. 80, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.


Cover painting by Nick Seymour, letter construction by Timothy Eames, design by Stephen Walker,
art direction by Nick Seymour  & Tommy Steele.  Album produced by Mitchell Fromm & Neil Finn.
Capitol 1991. 

New Zealand’s Crowded House made one of the best, and most enduring, pop/rock albums of the
1990s.  Released in the  latter part of 1991,  Woodface is a  masterpiece of emotive songwriting,
evocative  singing  and exceptional  playing.  Singer/songwriter  Neil Finn had  moved way out in
front of 1986’s  “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” the biggest hit Crowded House  ever landed in America.

It had an  awkward  gestation.  The album,  the trio’s third,  was close  to being  mastered when
Capitol  Records  president  Hale  Milgrim  told Finn  and his  bandmates,  and  Crowded House’s 
producer  Mitchell Froom,  that it simply  wasn’t good  enough to put out.  He suggested  they go
back into the studio.

At the same time,  Finn and his  older  brother Tim  (both of them  had been  cornerstones of the
Kiwi new  wave group  Split Enz)  were  writing  together  for a side  project.  Neil asked  Tim if 
Crowded House  could have these new  songs for the revised Woodface;  Tim agreed  but insisted
he become a full-fledged member of the band.

“The lines  between  what was going to be a  Finn Brothers  record and a  Crowded House  record
became very blurred,” Neil Finn told me in 1993. “And in the end we decided it was better to try
and make one good album than try and split yourself between two, and not do justice to either.”

That’s how  “Weather  With You,”  “It’s Only  Natural,”  “Four Seasons in One Day,”  “There Goes
God,”  “How Will  You Go”  and  three  others  came to be  on what  should  have been  Crowded 
House’s breakthrough  album – featuring stellar,  Everly-esque brotherly harmonies  from Neil and
Tim, Woodface  is absolutely brimming with first-class, catchy songs, with gorgeous melodies and
that unmistakable Finn melancholy. Bill DeYoung for Something Else Reviews


(A) Chocolate Cake - It's Only Natural - Fall at Your Feet - Tall Trees - Weather With You - Whispers and Moans - Four Seasons in One Day

(B) There Goes God - Fame Is - All I Ask - As Sure as I Am - Italian Plastic - She Goes On - How Will You Go



"Weather With You" live from markk70 on YouTube.





    

www.crowdedhouse.com

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120. The Moody Blues - A Question of Balance

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This work is based on the painting by Phil Travers and I expanded it to the right to make
a great screensaver. I don't want to put a description on the original painting or my own
 deviation, but it really makes for a great album cover,  which is a bit detached from the 
album title.  After 120 deviations  within a year  and a half of deviating,  I've found that
the symbolism expands when the title is detached from the art.

And then the viewer  enters somewhere in between  and goes down to the music within.


My deviation is based on the front album cover.

And that's not all. The symbolism expands to the art below it.

The gatefold is different. It opens from top to bottom instead of left to right.


Phil Travers originally  included a small  painting of a man named  Blashford Snell  within the collage of A Question of Balance (AqoB). Snell
was a well-known  British  explorer  and  children's advocate,  and the  painting on  AQoB was  inspired by a photograph, which appeared in
National Geographic.  The original album  image was of Snell  wearing a pith helmet,  holding a pistol and pointing it at an elephant. After
the album was released, Snell sued Decca Records and the Moodies over the image,  which he said was "a source of constant embarrassment
over being on the cover." rainblow.glo on Travelling Eternity Road at yuku.com


Painting by Phil Travers, photos by David Rohl,  photo montage by Mike Goss & David Rohl.  Album produced by Tony Clarke. Threshold 1970.


The Moody Blues' first real attempt at a harder  rock sound still has  some psychedelic elements,  but they're  achieved with an overall leaner
studio sound.  The group was trying to take  stock of itself at this time,  and came up with some  surprisingly strong,  lean numbers (Michael
Pinder's Mellotron is surprisingly restrained until the final number, "The Balance"),  which also embraced politics for the first time ("Question"
seemed to display the dislocation that a lot of younger listeners were feeling during Vietnam).

The surprisingly jagged opening track,  "Question,"  recorded several months earlier,  became a popular concert  number as well as a number
one single.  Graeme Edge's  "Don't You Feel Small"  and Justin Hayward's  "It's Up to You"  both had a great beat,  but the real highlight here is
John Lodge's "Tortoise and the Hare,"  a fast-paced  number that  the band  used to rip  through in  concert with  some searing guitar solos by
Hayward.

Ray Thomas'  "And the Tide Rushes In"  (written in the wake of a fight with his wife)  is one of the prettiest  psychedelic songs ever written, a
sweetly languid  piece with some gorgeous  shimmering  instrumental effects.  The 1997 remastered edition  brings out the guitar sound with
amazing force and clarity, and the notes tell a lot about the turmoil the band was starting to feel after three years of whirlwind success.
The only loss is the absence of the lyrics included in earlier editions. Bruce Eder for AllMusic


(A) Question - How Is It (We Are Here) - And the Tide Rushes In - Don't You Feel Small - Tortoise and the Hare

(2) It's Up to You - Minstrel's Song - Dawning is the Day - Melancholy Man - The Balance

"Melancholy Man" live from Borys W. on YouTube.

    

www.moodybluestoday.com

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118. Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story

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I haven't counted the number of copies of the album front sleeve design I used in filling the space above because I was preoccupied with creating the patterns of
insertions left and right. I did start at bottom centre moving upwards and sideways. The decisions I made were spontaneous with the creative effort and
once the patterns were established it was only a matter of measurements and, of course, some mathematics.

The fan pattern  (or the rays,  as you may love to call it)  on the album art did give me the seminal idea and the direction from which to progress.
The horizontal bars  (and more rays)  at the top and the  bottom of  the design  also gave me a sense of  balance and  structure. That may
sound like much analyses, but really, I was amazed at my own work.

Every picture tells a story. The album title aptly describes the work itself.  

No. 172, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time;
No. 236, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.

Art direction by Des Strobel, design & illustration by John Craig, photo by Lisa Margolis. 
Album produced by Rod Stewart. Mercury 1971.


Radio overplay of “Maggie May” at the time of this album’s release proved that familiarity can breed contempt (at least when it comes to music). As a result, I
never got “into” early  Rod Stewart  solo material  at the time it was released.  But with the  passage of time, exposure and  perhaps a bit of nostalgia, I
started listening to his early albums. (The same thing happened with Elton John but that’s another story and a different article).

Rod had already proven his mettle as a blues wailer on Truth (a Jeff Beck Group album),  and had a couple  interesting albums on Vertigo (Records)
while also working with the Faces (the English rock band that was formed by members of The Small Faces after Steve Marriott left the group
to form Humble Pie). This, his third album, really carried the ball forward for Stewart as a brand name talent. Despite its commercial
success, it is a very good album, perhaps even better with the passage of time. I now regard it as a classic. Why?

It’s a combination of some  good songs and a few great ones;  some impressive stringed instrument playing that adds layers of
texture and interesting details,  but at bottom, it just rocks– Rod is in prime form,  and the power of the songs, top-tier
playing and  a driving  beat gets your  head  bobbing.  One of  the things  I like  about this era  of rock  is that the
recordings typically  are not over-produced.  There is a lot going on here,  but it isn’t  “slick” sounding. The
fact that some of these  songs are so familiar is no  longer a negative to me;  I guess that’s where the
nostalgia  part kicks in.  It’s a hell  of an album,  and if you  haven’t  listened  to it in years, be 
prepared to enjoy yourself. Immensely. The Vinyl Press


(A) Every Picture Tells a Story - Seems Like a Long Time - That's Alright - Amazing Grace - Tomorrow is a Long Time

(B) Henry - Maggie May - Mandolin Wind - I Know (I'm Losing You) - Reason to Believe

"Reason to Believe" live from diegol3d on YouTube.

                

      

  www.rodstewart.com

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116. ABBA - The Album

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On this work the  album's front and back  covers are placed  side by side with  each other and part of the white  background  has been  converted to black.

ABBA The Album  was released in Scandinavia  on 12 December 1977  through Polar Music,  but due to the massive  pre-orders the  UK pressing plants were

not able to press sufficient copies  before Christmas 1977  and so it was not released in the UK until January 1978.  The album was released in conjunction

with ABBA: The Movie, with several of the songs featured in the film.

Polar's official cover featured an entirely white background,  and is the basis for current CD versions.  However,  Epic Records'  original UK release of the LP
featured a blue background on the front cover, fading to white at the bottom. It also featured a gatefold sleeve. The back cover was altered, incorporating
a similar photo of ABBA to that used  elsewhere in the world for the inner sleeve,  and referencing tracks included in  ABBA: The Movie.  The inner gatefold
was designed to look like an air mail envelope,  similar to the style later used for  Gracias Por La Música  and even had a photo of ABBA incorporated into a
stamp in the corner. wikipedia


We had a vinyl copy of this album as part of our family's record collection in 1978.

Photo by Barry Levine/Mirage, album design by Rune Soderqvist, illustrations by Rune Soderqvist and Bjorn Andersson.
Album produced by Bjorn Andersson & Benny Ulvaeus. Polar, Epic (UK), Atltantic (US) 1977. 


ABBA's fifth album was a marked step forward for the group, having evolved out of Europop music into a world-class rock act over their previous
two albums,  they now proceeded  to absorb and assimilate  some of the influences  around them,  particularly the laid-back California sound of
Fleetwood Mac  (curiously,  like ABBA,  then a band with two couples at its center),  as well as some of the attributes  of progressive rock.  That
they did this without  compromising their  essential virtues  as a pop ensemble  makes this album seem even  more extraordinary,  though at the
time nobody bothered to analyze it -  The Album was simply an incredibly popular release, yielding two British number one singles in "The Name
of the Game" and "Take a Chance on Me" (which made the Top Five in America, their second-best showing after "Dancing Queen"),  and achieving
the quartet's highest-ever showing on the U.S. LP charts, reaching the Top 20 and selling a million copies in six months.
AllMusic review by William Ruhlmann

ABBA: The Album  reached number 1 in many territories.  In the UK it debuted at the top and remained  there for seven weeks,  ending up as the
third biggest selling album of the year  (behind the movie soundtrack LPs of  Saturday Night Fever and Grease).  In the US it became their highest
charting album,  where during 1978 ABBA undertook a big  promotional campaign.  Due to the Cold War,  Western music was actively discouraged
throughout Eastern  Europe at the time.  Despite this,  ABBA: The Album sold an unprecedented one million copies in Poland in 1977,  exhausting
the country's entire  allocation of foreign currency.  In Russia,  only 200,000  copies  were permitted to be pressed;  however,  demand within the
USSR indicated they could have sold 40 million copies. wikipedia

(A) Eagle - Take a Chance on Me - One Man, One Woman, The Name of the Game

(B) Move On - Hole in Your Soul - The Girl with the Golden Hair: Three Scenes from a Mini-Musical: Thank You for the Music - I Wonder (Departure) - I'm a Marionette



"Eagle" live from Superstellina2012 on YouTube.


               

     

www.abbasite.com

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