I was alerted recently to somebody who took serious exception to the album cover image for my band’s second album “Lullabies for Cynics” I was somewhat surprised at this news as when we played at a local festival with a giant banner of the album onstage, the only feedback we ever got was 100% positive! Apparently, an academic scholar in semiotics thought the graphic was “sexist”. If like me semiotics is not a term that is in your everyday language and you are not immersed in the world of academia, take a look here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
Personally, I have no problem with people having opinions and have always adopted Voltaire’s position when he famously commented
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
I’m doing a survey to see how many people imagine that this image fits with one character’s view that it’s essentially little more than “a scantily clad image to sell CDs”
I appreciate that people can have strong views on all manner of subjects, but did find it truly interesting that such comments are never communicated directly to the person who has supposedly caused offense, but rather to a social media audience, usually of like minds! Again, that’s part of the world we live in these days where people seem to make all manner of public comments possibly not always thinking through such matters and when “fair comment” becomes something entirely different…
Personally, I’m a big fan of great graphics and we used this album image for some major events. I have only ever had wonderful feedback and comments on the skill of the artist who did the work. The same artist did the OUS image. The two images below show the album backdrop at the sell out album launch. The one directly below had Jen Birch aka Astraluna join us for the encore.
I may blog further on this as I think such discussion is fascinating and shows that the world is full of all manner of ideas and imaginations. In the meantime, this reminds me that I need to order some more stickers with the album artwork as they have proved to be very popular and I just sent a whole bunch of free ones out to a school recently. I have yet to receive any complaints from any teachers but will keep folks posted and hopefully, no kids will be traumatized by these stickers.
The above image is the band playing GNUF 2017. Photo by Karen Turner. Image by Max Wootton.
Album review here – https://www.ukeplanet.co.uk/ukulele-music/the-small-change-diaries-lullabies-for-cynics/
CD available here – http://www.smallchangediaries.com/buy-cds-2/
STOP PRESS – I have had a number of people contact me about this and especially when I suggested that if you know the critic please “don’t engage directly” Of course I mean that in the context of this specific discussion, rather than ceasing in all direct communications as that would be supremely daft and I am truly amazed that I even need to clarify that point. The reason for this is that the article here is about how people perceive things differently when they look at them, no more, no less. All opinions are subjective, we filter all of what we see and hear and that determines our beliefs. In my other life, I teach about this subject internationally and IMO it’s a valuable debate and not one to be ignored. Good discussion comes from respecting people’s differences and subjective opinions. I appreciate all the pms and advice on how to heal rifts of opinion, but there’s is nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree on subjects and when people get too emotionally fuelled sensible debate goes out the window!
Hopefully, that clarifies this and I welcome sensible debate and discussion as that is how we all learn, isn’t it?
