Cassette cover art

Envelopes full of little pictures

A few years ago I wrote that I had successfully digitised my precious collection of music tapes. Most tapes got thrown out, and that was supposed to have been the end of the story.

The same announcement also mentioned a collection of ready-to-use pictures to use for cover art.

And then there was the artwork, consisting mostly of magazine cut-outs and every other conceivable printed source of imagery. I have memories of going through stacks and stacks of Family, Radio & TV, Huisgenoot, Fairlady, and Scope magazines, cutting out and hoarding a vast gallery of small pictures, usually no larger than 2x2cm, later even butchering my precious old Top 40 magazines, and whatever came my way.

Well, my stash of envelopes full of small pictures turned up again a few days ago.

So I emptied out their contents over the scanner.

(Bands with) female vocalists_colour_unlabelled

The results were kinda cool — in an artistic sort of way.

(Bands with) male vocalists_colour_unlabelled

How many faces do you recognise? How many are still around?

I shudder to realise that some of these magazine cut-outs are well over thirty years old by now, patiently waiting to be used on “mixtapes” that will never be made.

Some of those acts on the pictures also never made it beyond one hit single while other groups have long disbanded; sadder still is that since the pictures were cut out from their respective magazines many of the very subjects have since passed on: David Bowie, Pete Burns, Joe Cocker, Kurt Cobain, Leonard Cohen, Lucky Dube, Falco, George Harrison, Michael Hutchence, Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, Gary Moore, George Michael, Robert Palmer, Prince and Donna Summer are but a small number of names to drop.

The older you get the more people seem to die. C’est la vie!

All photos and scans via hmvh DOT net

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