"This is the person we have to work with on our next album artwork"

May 18, 2009 7:51 PM

"How did the contact with Keane come about? / Completely randomly. A friend of the band's, bought one of my prints from a mutual friend's shop. The band saw the print in his house and said 'this is the person we have to work with on our next album artwork'." Sanna Annukka (previously on MeFi) discusses how she came to illustrate Keane's album, Under the Iron Sea, and singles, the artwork of which is playful, lonely, and folklore-like in feel.

A blogger shares her visit to the Playful New Finnish Design Shipping Container, part of Meatpacking District Design Week, held May 15-18, 2009 in New York. The industrial container displayed Annukka's latest work, a Kaneleen kutsu pattern for Marimekko. It is based on the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala (previously).

posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (20 comments total)

Everything sounds like Coldplay now.
posted by jonp72 at 7:59 PM on May 18 [2 favorites]

Was hoping this was going to be an FPP about Bil Keane.
posted by not_on_display at 8:20 PM on May 18

I have never heard Keane. Please tell me whether they are any good
posted by dydecker at 8:32 PM on May 18

I also was hoping against hope that the Family Circus dude had taken to illustrating rock band album covers. As it is, huh?
posted by Burhanistan at 8:36 PM on May 18

Okay i listened now. Sorry to be a cynical old duffer, but Wallpaper art suits wallpaper music eh
posted by dydecker at 8:41 PM on May 18 [1 favorite]

dydecker: "I have never heard Keane. Please tell me whether they are any good"

I've heard some of their songs and um, I can't remember anything about them. I'm sure they were unobjectionable.
posted by octothorpe at 8:44 PM on May 18

I listened, they sound like everyone else these days. Pretty voice, but nothing spectacular.
posted by Malice at 8:48 PM on May 18

How did the contact with Keane come about?
For a moment I thought the answer was going to be, "knee-high and with malice aforethought."
posted by Abiezer at 9:02 PM on May 18 [2 favorites]

If Picasso had done album artwork for Keane, Picasso would've sucked my balls.
posted by bardic at 9:07 PM on May 18

Your favorite bands sucks etc. etc. etc., but I saw Keane playing a song on some British TV show a few weeks back - I'd never heard of them before that - and just felt so sad at the very idea that musicians have be reduced to ripping off Coldplay.
posted by Jimbob at 9:27 PM on May 18

Your favorite bands sucks etc. etc. etc., but I saw Keane playing a song on some British TV show a few weeks back - I'd never heard of them before that - and just felt so sad at the very idea that musicians have be reduced to ripping off Coldplay.

You're not getting it. I used to think the same way. Then I realized, that anything in art, taken to extremes, becomes a new artwork, transcending its roots. And so, take this - Coldplay is already super weak sauce - music connoisseurs are outraged. Then you dilute it further, to become super extra weak sauce - music connoisseurs' outrage becomes ultrafrothy. Then you take the diluted Coldplay super extra weak sauce and dilute it further. Now it becomes super ultra extra weak sauce - music connoisseurs' outrage transforms into a new form of matter. Then you take that super ultra extra weak sauce and dilute it further. Now suddenly, it becomes a potent cure-all. That's how homeopathy works. Critics and music connoisseur lavish praise. A new art direction is born. Or so I imagine after 3 stiff gin and tonics.
posted by VikingSword at 9:37 PM on May 18 [6 favorites]

Band has cool album cover. Film at 11.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:53 PM on May 18

I wish you could link directly to her portfolio peices. I just wanted to say I loved These crying skulls.

Oh yeah, and Keane suck.
posted by delmoi at 11:15 PM on May 18

I like Coldplay.
posted by Corduroy at 11:46 PM on May 18

"Everything sounds like Coldplay now."
posted by jonp72 at 10:59 PM on May 18

Except that video. The flanger-type filter on the singer's voice is 100 times more grating than any Coldplay I've heard.
posted by self at 12:40 AM on May 19

Pretty. But this isn't really completely random:
Friend of band buys art in mutual friend's shop.
Band see art on friend's wall.

Isn't that actually completely non-random?

It would be random if, say, someone completely unnassociated with band or artist found art in skip in Bratislava, hung it on wall of squat and band member saw art in a documentary about the subsequent clearance of tower block containing art's new owner's home - then band scoured the world to find the creator of this SINGLE MOST RELEVANT visual representation of band's raison d'etre. For example.

Gah. Sorry to be cynical but it illustrates (mind the pun) that whole incredulous wonderment attached to the really very normal. Aka Keane. Who are very nice blokes I'm sure, but - really?
posted by freya_lamb at 1:50 AM on May 19

Sorry - for 'normal' I actually mean 'ordinary'.
posted by freya_lamb at 1:52 AM on May 19

Is this worthy of an FPP? Linking to Amazon pages?

Like too many posts here lately, this looks like an attempt by a twenty-something publicist to go viral with what is really just an advertisement for a shitty band.
posted by inoculatedcities at 9:19 AM on May 19

FWIW: I can vouch that the OP isn't a "twenty-something publicist".

(mutter mutter your-favorite-band-sucks threadshitters mutter mutter)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 10:19 AM on May 19

For what it's worth: Keane is at least as old, if not older than Coldplay, and as far as I know have always been one of those English bands who really want to make another The Bends, of which Coldplay is the most well-known.
posted by sparkletone at 8:07 PM on May 19