January 30th 2021
Surprisingly, I am kind of in the zone to write today. It helps that at the end of the day I plan to watch a movie .^. What? I’m allowed a little reward and break okay. Stop judging me.
Well, I just learnt that 90s rave and 80s acid house is a thing. or is it 'was'? I never know. English is hard. Is 80s acid house sort of inspired by 60s psychedelia? Based off designs, it looks it, but I can’t find anything solid yet and as I’m not covering the 80s, it’s irrelevant to this essay and therefore, I will not look into it as I don’t exactly have the most time to go off right now. It would make sense if it were though as the 80s summer is considered as/called 'second summer of love" and as I have learnt, the 60s summer was the Summer of Love.
Cream's Disraeli Gears album cover has been dubbed as the best psychedelic album cover by many different sources and looking at it, it really does make so much sense. Slightly unrelated, I know one(1) song from Disraeli Gears album so that’s cool. I learnt that U2 has a trippy album too, and according to some sources I found, it was one of their more experimental albums that kind of happened on accident. Accidents really can be amazing. Finally listening to more Outkast than just their famous few songs, damn is that ATLiens album GREAT, really not a bad song on it. I swear, what I’m rambling on about makes sense, they’re all (in terms of album cover and music) are slightly inspired from the psychedelic culture/music and actually are good stuff. And to top it off, these albums are from famous bands that shaped the years/decade of their times and genre. In modern terms, THEY REPRESENT. My god pop/radio music back then was good, and they were appreciated by society, rightfully so. And well no offense to anyone but I mean all offense when I say this... Pop/radio music now is kind of annoying
U2, an Irish rock band, and Outkast, American hip hop duo, having psychedelic design influence on their album covers show that psychedelic art travelled further than just psychedelic music. It also shows that is it was used even way after the 60s. This shows to say that the psychedelic look in the 60s had a changed the music industry. They gave the people a new look that continued to live for decades after and is still appreciated and loved by the majority.
Anyways, it’s cool to learn that a lot of things have been inspired by the psychedelic culture... Which basically started due to designers. It’s nice to be reminded that sometimes you can create something so huge that lives for decades to come. Even though that’s not the case for everyone (specifically me, I’m not taking a jab at you), it’s nice to know someone out there can do great things with their life.
A Draft:
Despite music going through a lot of change, traces of psychedelia can certainly be found everywhere, including the 90s. The 80s acid house genre, connected to more psychedelics, is the predecessor of the 90s rave (TechnoStation, 2016). Although 90s rave had its unique and fresh takes in terms of design and music wise, it is clear there are a few resemblances with the 60s psychedelia designs (Mcquaid, 2016). One of the most iconic 60s psychedelic album sleeves is Cream’s ‘Disraeli Gears’ by Martin Sharp (Milano, 2020). This cover alone summarizes psychedelic art perfectly, the vivid bright opposing colours that create the feeling of movement and/or vibration, the organic form of typography and the combination of illustrations and photography (Network9, n.d). In the 90s, the album cover for ‘In Sides’ by John Greenwood for Orbital, a British electronic music duo, visually holds some similarities to ‘Disraeli Gears’ cover and psychedelic artwork in general. From the vibrant contrasting colours and curvilinear shapes to the cramped artwork, everything about it screams psychedelic. Psychedelic designs ended up travelling into other music genres as well, such as rock and hip hop. For example, the U2 ‘Zooropa’ by Works Associates of Dublin (1993) and OutKast’s ‘ATLiens' by Frank Gomez (1996), both being important albums in the different music genres. All in all, it is clear that the designers who created these psychedelic looks in the 60s had a direct impact that changed the music industry which also means they changed pop culture.
Bibliography:
https://www.technostation.tv/90s-rave-culture/ (TechnoStation, 2016)
https://mixmag.net/read/pez-blog (Ian Mcquaid, 2016)
https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/best-psychedelic-albums/ (Brett Milano, 2020)
https://network9.biz/how-the-psychedelic-60s-changed-design-forever/ (Network9, n.d.)
https://dailypsychedelicvideo.com/tag/90s-psychedelia/
Clifford, J. (2013) Graphic Icons: Visionaries Who Shaped Modern Graphic Design, 1st edn, Peachpit Press.
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/the-art-of-the-film-title-throughout-cinema-history/ (May, J., 2010)
https://es.99designs.com/blog/famous-design/saul-bass-graphic-designer-of-a-century/ (Bigman, 2012)
https://signalvnoise.com/posts/917-title-sequences-from-saul-bass-the-master-of-film-title-design (Linderman, 2008)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/arts/music/1988-acid-house-summer-of-love-oakenfold.html
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