I have to say, those two covers are not the worst I've seen. The worst would probably be a 'cello CD I had a while ago. A woman was lying down holding her 'cello, with an "emotional" expression on her face. It looked as though she was about to pass out and she was afraid the 'cello would crush her to death!

I found one that really made me laugh!

http://www.copenhagenclassic.dk/

It looks as though they were playing in a wind tunnel and someone unexpectedly turned the fan on!
What ever happened to more modest ( and normal ) pictures? I geuss one could ask the same about most facets of modern music

I rather enjoy looking at pics of Anne-Sophie Mutter!
Oh, and I love her playing as well.

look at the covers of Laura St. John. She's definitely flaunting it. Same thing goes for the Eroica Trio and the pseudo-classical musical group Bond. But this is nothing new. I'm sure contemporary adverts for early romantic operas had salacious depictions of the famous bel canto divas on them to attract more than their potential audiences' ears. That's just good business practice.

First thing I would like to note is that the art and/or photography on any CD cover is not the product of the performer but of an art department employed by the record label. I have no problem with attempting to market the work to a broader audience as long as it does not affect the quality of the work involved (can you say Charlotte Church?). I have seen some rather schmatzy covers for recordings by Andreas Scholl and Yo Yo Ma and yet have no doubt as to their seriousness as artists. Indeed one of the dumbest marketting jobs I ever saw was that of Gardiner's recordings of Beethoven's symphonies. Symphony 3 and 5, and 9 were packaged as Beethoven "The Revolutionary" and came packaged in rather rock music looking packages complete with time lines that followed other "revolutionaries" in music, including Janice Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix. Nevertheless... the recordings are fabulous... especially the 3rd.

By the way... Dennis Brain's great recording of Mozart's horn concertos must certainly rank among the weird covers. It looks more apt for some B sci-fi film: The Brain that Ate Mozart.

I like album covers that have something to do with nature... Here is a great example:

I agree, it suites romantic music especially well. Another good example:



I find simple covers are overall the best. A little bit from the autograph, simple photograph of a solo instrument, simple abstract artwork that suites the piece, or just something that shows that the CD is about it's music, not it's performer:

So this thread started out about violinists - what IS it about violinists and these poses?
Back when I started at the other radio station I was at a few years ago, I was diggin through the Cds and found one that had been labelled by a non-classical music director: the Linda Brava CD, which has some truly mediocre playing, but a very voluptuous blond on the cover.

The person checking it in had marked it "Sexpot plays the classics".

Nuff said.



CMB

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Hmmm... "dumb" and "stupid" are synonyms, so I don't think there is an appreciable difference in the choices. Nevertheless, I voted "stupid" because it seems to be the stronger of the two words.

I generally don't care what the performer looks like, and I'm bound to be overly critical if a "pop star" appears on the cover.