Print Productions Research // The Evolution of Of Montreal's Album Artwork.

Of Montreal (often stylized with a lower case 'o' as 'of Montreal') are an american indie rock band hailing from the city of Athens, Georgia. In more recent years, the band has built up a reputation for its wildly theatrical and flamboyant stage shows, with their sets incorporating flashy costumes, spoken word skits, on stage actors and extravagantly complex stage sets. one of these shows can be seen here (shame about the crowd though). Throughout their 17 year career the band has gone through a series of line-up changes, but has always been led by main songwriter and front-man Kevin Barnes whose extroverted and tortured personality has informed his duties as primary songwriter, stage producer and performer. Along with a constantly changing line-up, the band have also constantly experimented with a wide variety of different genres throughout their career, touching upon styles as varied as 60's acoustic pop, glam rock, disco, noise rock and electronica, as well as many more. This constantly changing tapestry of genres is reflected in the evolving artwork for their many releases. On this occassion however I will only be focusing on select examples of artwork for their 12 full length studio albums and, for now, ignoring the rest of their (very) prolific discography.

'Cherry Peel' (1997)

[LISTEN]

Cherry Peel is of Montreal's debut album, marking the beginning of their career as well as their sixties influenced phase. At this stage the band had only three members and a very strong independent vibe and this is reflected in the artwork. Like the album, the artwork is very simply composed, has a distinctive DIY aesthetic and clear influence by sixties artwork for bands such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys. In addition to the twee image of the cherry and the easy colours, the cover has hand drawn elements, which help it to appeal to an underground market and communicates a 'cute' and light tone.  

The Bedside Drama: A Petite tragedy (1998)

[LISTEN]

For the band's sophomore effort, a concept album following the story of a doomed romance, they followed the same rough pattern of psychedelia influenced indie-pop, though this time with a renewed production sheen. The album's comparatively higher production values are reflected in the album's artwork, a more professional and clean looking illustration and in the professionally desgned band logo. The cover is still also clearly hand drawn, reflecting still the cutesy nature of the album's indie-pop by evoking a child's illustration. The change in tone and mood of the album are also reflected by the illustration of an empty park bench, an emotive image suggesting loneliness, a key theme of the album's storyline.

'Coquelicot Asleep In the Poppies: A variety of Whimsical verse' (2001)

[LISTEN]

With the release of 'Coquelicot...', of Montreal's fourth full length, the band took on a noticeably more whimsical and psychedelic direction with their sound, calling back to classics such as The Beatle's 'Sgt. Pepper's...'  with a concept album encompassing a series of bizzarre stories and skits. The album artwork also takes on a distinctly more psychedelic vein, as seen in the surreal creatures interacting on the cover. The album artwork is also considerably more complex and intricate, mirroring the increased intricacy of the music, which experiments frequently with time signatures, song structure and other elements of musicality. 

'Aldhils Arboretum' (2002)

[LISTEN]

Now onto their fifth album, 'Aldhils Arboretum' takes a departure from their three previous concept albums to deliver an 'album of singles', with each song delivering their own individual stories. In addition to this, the songs themselves are considerably more straight forward and danceable, abandoning the experimentation seen on albums like 'Coquelicot...' in favour of straight forward pop songs. As well as marking a move towards different styles of music, this album is also remarkable as the first to have a cover designed by of Montreal's art director David Barnes, who would go on to design much of the bands artwork for the continuation of their career. The clean simple lines of the cover match the cleaner simpler musical direction of the band, also hinting at the ironic and cynical mood of the music.

'Satanic panic In the Attic' (2004)

[LISTEN]

Number 6 in the of Montreal lineage, 'Satanic Panic In the Attic' improved on the musical progression started by 'Aldhils Arboretum', incorporating Glam, electronica and many other influences into the classic of Montreal sound. It was a breakout album, finding praise for its bold experimentation and vivid musical direction, and marked Of Montreal's transition from its psychedelic pop phase into it's glam phase. The experimental, joyous and humourous nature of much of the album is shown in the complex and colourful artwork (also designed by David Barnes), itself a psychedelic parody of El Greco's 'The Burial of the Count of Orgaz' . This type of intricate and colourful artwork, with a touch of the sinister was to be replicated many times over by David Barnes, as we will see soon.

'Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?' (2007)

[LISTEN]

'Hissing Fauna...' is the band's eight album and widely considered to be the magnum opus of their musical career, giving this artwork a cult status. As the title suggests, this album embarks on a darker thematical direction than previous album, incorporating noise into the typical psychedelic glam funk noise of the band, as well as darker and more personal lyrics informed by the personal struggles of Kevin Barnes. The darkness of the album, which deals with themes such as depression and adultery among others is reflected in the oppressive block black surrounding the intricate central disc, which reflects the colourful and complicated instrumentation and mood of the songs. 

This album marked the beginning of yet another phase for the band, with the album's epic twelve minute track 'The Past is a Grotesque Album' covering the birth of Barne's Glam rock alter-ego 'Georgie Fruit' an alias he would assume for the ensuing three albums. In this phase, he continued to deal with similar themes of light and dark and continued to experiment around the genre established in this album. The artwork for these albums, False Priest, Skeletal Lamping and False priest (all also designed by David Barnes), continue to explore the aesthetic of bright colours, intricate illustrations and sinister undertones. These covers also tend to incorporate grotesque creatures with sharp teeth, reflecting the often dark and twisted nature of the albums.

'Skeletal Lamping' (2008)
[LISTEN]

'False Priest'(2010)
[LISTEN]

'Paralytic Stalks'(2012)
[LISTEN]

'Lousy With Sylvianbriar'(2013)

[Listen]

And finally, their most recent album, Lousy with Sylvianbriar. Not one to shy away from changing course, and this album incorporates yet another change in direction. Where as the previous few albums were intricate, often frantic displays of wonder, this album is decidely more laid-back, taking it's main influences from singer songwriters such as Bob Dylan and Donovan. The bike seen on the cover, may well be a reference to Bob Dylan's famous Bike accident, which would reflect the influences on the album. The clear change in art style, as well as a departure from David Barnes' art direction, reflects the clear change in musical style and the appeal of the new album. The change in musical style is important in the appeal of the album, as many critics expressed that they felt previous to this album that of Montreal was musically stagnating, and the change of art-style communicates this. 

Sources:
http://www.ofmontreal.net/discography/
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2008/11/catching-up-with-david-barnes.html