Pop Will Eat Itself, Age Of Chance
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| Artist | 1-7: Pop Will Eat Itself; 8-11: Age Of Chance |
| Title | 1-4:: This Is The Day… This Is The Hour… This Is This!; 5-7: Ich Bin Ein Auslander; 8-11: Kiss |
| Label | 1-7: RCA; 8-11: FON |
| Year | 1-4: 1989; 5-7: 1994; 8-11: 1986 |
| Design | The Designers Republic |
| Music | Vocal |
| Notes | These Designers Republic sleeves still sing with a brash, passionate engagement that’s downright infectious a quarter of a century after they were produced (give or take a few years at time of writing). That’s due to the brilliance of their design and also perhaps because we’re continuing to experience the sort of heightened geopolitical paranoia that is referenced in the Pop Will Eat Itself sleeves. I don’t think PWEI were necessarily exemplary, but they actively engaged with political issues including the Cold War and racism.
I wonder who’s capable now of creating graphics to highlight and protest the endemic levels of propaganda, surveillance and racism we’re now subjected to? There are significant traces of the political in Optigram/Manuel Sepulveda’s work and there’s a strong sense of isolation/disconnection captured in DJ Food’s graphics for The Search Engine, but my vote would go to Jonathan Barnbrook who’s very much politically engaged, as illustrated by his work for the Occupy movement and much else, and whose work betrays a strand or two of tDR’s DNA. That then begs the question as to whether there are any musicians out there able or willing to articulate and protest our current conditions – Mark Stewart, Laurie Anderson, Public Enemy, but who else younger, nearer to the mainstream, to Pop? Suggestions welcome. |
| Also | – Age Of Chance – One Thousand Years Of Trouble – Pop Will Eat Itself – X Y & Zee – Autechre – Quaristice |
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