Cartography, land surveying and the general geography nerd aesthetic in 80s record art

i am a sucker for things like this:

https://progrography.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/flatearth.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/717F9k0l48L._AC_SL1246_.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/FqLcM8g/sideways.jpg https://beatopolis.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/crackdown.jpg

where did it all come from? and why?

https://i.discogs.com/v5m3CWTC0vdwJJU57sa0FZZbInmonH2selG8dgKq9Y4/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:368/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE4NDU3/My0xMTU1NTg3Nzkz/LmpwZWc.jpeg

https://i.discogs.com/gYC6kzrK6_DSScx9eyxAAAExBiopl7rduyk_Q6y25Qk/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:363/w:480/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE4NDU3/My0xMjA4NDA1ODM3/LmpwZWc.jpeg

as far as where it came from, maybe here?

https://i.discogs.com/XuX8LOckCXo8-eRslxmisYSQ6aJxHoCoc90m39wPOZI/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:596/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTkxMTE0/NS0xNTc0NDY2MTU5/LTM0MjAuanBlZw.jpeg

the brian eno ambient records are the immediate thing that comes to mind

oh yah totally, good call

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K-OqtXoCq_Q/TWB83NAx8mI/AAAAAAAABgE/MYEf6U-R68s/s1600/Martha.jpg

oh good calls! always thought that there was a kafka thing going on too maybe?

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0566/5105/5295/products/460323_852x851.jpg

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zsye5ibdy3Q/TWB7259zmKI/AAAAAAAABf8/JsceWEWmfi4/s1600/nilerodgers.jpg

there was also a strand of indiana jones-esque explorer nonsense too:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41D9X4AW23L._AC_.jpg

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ZTTJ0XSXL._AC_.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/37/Negativland_-_A_Big_10-8_Place.jpg

xp ha yes, see also Kid Creole album covers

Uh

https://images.recordsale.de/600/600/xtc_nonsuch_1.jpg

https://www.xyht.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Joy-division-unknown-pleasures-768x768.jpg

xpost also a map inside XTC's Go2 album

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/No_Borders_Here_%28Jane_Siberry_album_-_cover_art%29.jpg

never knew that about Go2

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Uu4AAOSwfxRjBw61/s-l1600.jpg

Unknown Pleasures is an interesting one that i hadn't thought of! discovered it as a young teenager at the same time as i was reading tolkein and initially associated it with the maps in Lord of the Rings. would've made a great prog rock album cover tbh

https://brightonmusicblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/words-and-music-comp.jpg

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51oeJSb4HIL._SY580_.jpg

https://www.saga.works/wpimages/af677283a417.jpg

https://turnupthatvolume.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/swell2.jpg

I always mess up images, but a couple of Factory ones: ACR Force - compass logo and OS map on the rear and inner sleeves. Section 25 From the Hip

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3456179402_10.jpg

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/WEBP_402378-T1/images/I/518+sE3p++L.jpg

Section 25 From the Hip

oh that's a good shout!

https://cdn.myshoptet.com/usr/www.cd-hudba.cz/user/shop/big/1830115_section-25-from-the-hip--cd-.jpg

If we're counting globes then Yes- Fragile

Unknown Pleasures is, like, a graph of a pulsar's waves iirc, but same aesthetic for sure

Fragile disqualified due to lack of 80's release date

well, the question was asked "Where did this come from?" Bands getting yessed out, obviously.

Not record art, but R.E.M.'s "Stand" video has all this stuff – globes, compasses (both kinds), map imagery, midcentury-style space and Earth science diagrams, etc.

(I feel like there was a certain geography-nerd quality to the R.E.M./TMBG/10kManiacs aesthetic – as part of a "civic duty"-type focus on education-oriented topics, etc. – but can't really think of other examples, other than R.E.M. having a song called "Maps and Legends.")

IPR too

https://i.discogs.com/iLueP8HiTQCb49k5Zuv4lAbHHZ4KlzOiuP_whWpATDo/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEwNzUy/NDItMTQzNzA4MzEx/MS0xMzM4LmpwZWc.jpeg

I'll just fuck up the pic if I try to link, but I was thinking of Force by ACR

allow me to fuck up that pic for you:

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0017/6685/0633/products/acrforcevinyl_grande.jpg

Comsat Angels, "Land". Yes? No?

https://cdn.albumoftheyear.org/album/21139-land.jpg

oh yes definitely!

geology nerds also acceptable btw:

https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/difjux_front.jpg

for a record from 1973, this is very 80s geography nerd:

https://img.cdandlp.com/2012/08/imgL/115495577.jpg

There must be a bunch of Ultravox record covers that qualify here.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5PDl7K0WRaM/Vzf2dTMy_8I/AAAAAAAAAuc/_r6M7L3WjOk-FnEAFjfl8FmusWPCo98ggCKgB/s1600/brianeno-haroldbudd-laraaji%2B_ambient1234.jpg

🖼

(that should have been the Trip to Marineville backcover Pres Keyes posted)

pretty big deal in 70s 80s conceptual art, so if any of these people were art or art history majors and reading october …

hal foster called it “the artist as ethnographer” which definitely brings to mind eno circa ambient 1-4 and my life in the bush of ghosts. idk how much that applies to wang chung and factory records but can see it also being relevant to can’s interest in “tribal” drumming, maybe also negativland

the Metro Music album cover was designed by Peter Saville whose work feels like it could have influenced a lot of this, although I can't think of any other covers by him that specifically feature maps or cartography, but that whole thing of repurposed industrial and functional design, and a cool, cold inhuman aesthetic.

a lot of new wave stuff had this exotic, orientalist vibe, stuff like Japan's Still Life In Mobile Homes or Taking Islands In Africa suggest languid aristocratic colonisers travelling through exotic landscapes, I think that's part of it as well

the orientalist thing was maybe part of the fact that the UK new wave rejected American aesthetics, pretending to American feels very old wave, trying to imagine a rock/pop music that's not about American imagery and landscapes, so you get europhilia and also orientalism

inner sleeve of Dazzle Ships by OMD

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1f15cBZn0dU/WpT8jKfhgNI/AAAAAAAAecI/UVGONuejrxQNRm3d3dCqQcjAFzSbvKMagCEwYBhgL/s1600/OMD_Dazzle%2BShips_Styrous_5016.jpg

This aesthetic also spills over into Peter Greenaway and Terry Gilliam movies, and is probably partly inspired by the general 80s appreciation of grids, which shows up in kitchen tiles and garment fabrics and so on.

But yeah, in the context of music, it seems very much a reaction to prog and funk fantasy dreamscapes. We are giving you the facts!

Technically outside the scope since it's from 1978, the back cover of More Songs About Buildings and Food:

https://i.redd.it/k9hdeyhmzrj01.jpg

Vaughan Oliver's designs are also connected I think, especially the sleeves for the Cocteau Twins, although they're obviously ambiguous in their scale. But they're at least suggestive of landcapes, but as a sensual, almost dreamt thing, a quasi-mystical contrast to the scientific imagery of gridlines, theodolites, measurements and calculation in a lot of the sleeves above.

Thanks for your posts late great, I think you're definitely on to something there. What is October?

Yeah, I thought of the Cocteaus' covers. They have this aesthetic, even though none of them are maps/cartography.

And soref yes, there is that hint of nostalgia for the days of empire in some of this stuff

Inside sleeve for Armed Forces by Elvis Costello and the Attractions

https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8672/30209060610_8ffbaf4ee9_z.jpg

maybe also negativland

(back cover of Escape From Noise)

https://i.discogs.com/z6SKgZv9ZJzLs6b0J2IKihmNd4zEeRmgKtm9HA3W9ig/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:599/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTc5MTcz/LTEzMzM4NjE4MjQu/anBlZw.jpeg

Fragile disqualified due to lack of 80's release date

Inner sleeve of Tormato (1978 though) a better fit anyway.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0287/0434/2095/products/1329918-435507456204b771dc2dc6204b771dc2dd16444762736204b771dc2e1.jpg

https://i.discogs.com/KEbVXN-pKzfZfy29IpuqplQvBQUWjz4VzmXbMG2g3AU/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:544/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTk3MTg0/MzEtMTQ4NTI3NTI3/My0yNjQ0LmpwZWc.jpeg

https://i.discogs.com/2jTDH-e9zw5NSF_hXTxDZ_W72MX6y_x6HfLg0ScIHs4/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:553/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTk3MTg0/MzEtMTQ4NTI3NTI4/Mi02MDU5LmpwZWc.jpeg

ooh yes that 1978 Yes sleeve is it, they always adapted well

Pink Floyd 1987 tour merch got into this

https://tshirtslayer.com/files-tshirt/styles/shirtview/public/user-1211/PinkFloyd_Tour87_M_01.JPG

https://i.discogs.com/999SjD9LvQFh-nU6a5MWWjoV7xmmRP_Pwh0ZDgBY-lo/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:584/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTExNTE2/MzQtMTU5NTIwNjc0/OC0xOTA2LmpwZWc.jpeg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jJ54vcqlzsc/VOb2TosikcI/AAAAAAAAJFU/qAbxBY4yOJY/s1600/COVER%2BBACK.jpg

https://images.45worlds.com/f/ab/various-artists-fix-planet-3-ab.jpg

Fix Planet!, an international (so yeah) compilation on German electronic experimentalists Der Plan’s Ata Tak label, released in 1981

Thanks for your posts late great, I think you're definitely on to something there. What is October?

― o shit the sheriff (NickB)

the big art theory journal of the day

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_(journal)

thanks! pretty sure the likes of peter saville and neville brody wouldve been keeping up with that stuff, so that makes a good deal of sense.

brody did the cabaret voltaire 'crackdown' sleeve in the first post, but he also did this one in 1979 which seems relevant:

https://i.ibb.co/YBm63c9/brody1.jpg

https://thevinylfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Danzindan%E2%80%8B-%E2%80%8BPojidon-Inoyamaland-vinyl.jpg

^ that's a Hosono record from 1983, Inoyama Land – Danzindan-Pojidon

http://i.discogs.com/QhUSJbc10y5_Ize7DUE6bmpg4_CD5OvzktTH4lh-C4g/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:598/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTExMjY4/NTUtMTE5NDE5Nzc4/Ny5qcGVn.jpeg

Colin Newman, "A-Z"

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0238/8053/products/COLIN_NEWMAN_A-Z.jpg

My favorite album from 1999 was

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61ND3bWEd5L.jpg

Cool thread!

I want to claim, without even close to enough thought about it, that it has something to do with the popularity of Foucault (particularly *The Order of Things*) and, particularly, Deleuze & Guattari - *Anti-Oedipus* and especially *A Thousand Plateaus*.

More title than cover art, but I feel like "Demolition Plot J-7" belongs in this thread somewhere? https://www.dragcity.com/uploads/products/284/images/258/large_DC2.jpg

?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu-O-qYYNvM

http://i.discogs.com/M2ADlmPP3MELMJyIn8QzYtI2h9-NtVUYHInP47dvO_U/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:596/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEzMzQ4/My0xMzc5MTgzNDAw/LTk3NzQuanBlZw.jpeg

https://www.harmonies.com/releases/cover/14018.jpg