Bill Smith's 80:10 (pt 1) (The Jam, The Cure, Genesis, Thomas Dolby, Now That's What I Call Music)

From the audio to the visual, we delve into the wondrous world of
the album sleeve with Bill Smith, of Bill Smith Studios,
responsible for some wonderful images in the 80s.





 1. THE JAM (1977-1981)


 After getting his foot in the door at Polydor in the 70s,
Bill has a breakthrough with The Jam. He is responsible for the
artwork for all their albums up to and including Sound Affects as
well as a number of single sleeves. More importantly, he has one
shot at the iconic The Jam logo. RIP Rick.





 2. THE CURE (1979-80)


From mod to goth, Bill moves from the immediacy of The Jam to the
more surreal, indie world of The Cure. Bill discusses working on
their first three  LP's. One a bit of an outlier in their
back catalogue,  the other more typical.


But which household appliance WAS Robert Smith??





3. GENESIS (1980-83)
  
Another contrast, this time the prog-rockers entering their 80s
pop period with some truly iconic sleeves for Duke, Abacab and
Genesis. Fortuitious accidentslead to the iconic Abacab sleeve.
AI won't/can't do that shit.


Discussion moves onto discussing copyright and who owns the
rights to artwork; the artist or the designer. Then talk on the
general LP artwork package; sleeve, back sleeve, inner sleeve,
disc labels, etc ending on why he didn’t do the cover to
Invisible Touch.





4. THOMAS DOLBY (1981-82)


A very special collaboration with former guest, Thomas Dolby,
leads to uniquely brilliant artwork for The Golden Age of
Wireless and related singles.





5. NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC (1983)


Nowt more iconic in the UK than the Now series and Bill was there
from Vol 1.








billsmithstudios.com


80sography@gmail.com


Twitter @80sography


Blue Sky @80sography








Send us a text