I like the "stencils-like" things.

not an immediate fan of it if its really the official cover, but maybe it will grow on me...

open letter to anyone else who thinks i had anything to do with the rather ripped album cover:

no fucking way! i hate this cover for a hundred reasons. i just saw it and threw up a little in my mouth.

primarily, it's bogus when people fake stencils. it's total fucking lazy bullshit and someone got paid for it... a couple of fucking canned stencil fonts? on a sonic youth record? WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! stencils as a means of print-making are so central to REAL underground culture (politically and culturally) that if yr gonna do it... you'd better fucking **do it**

i'd have done it for real. a huge part of my work is stencil based and i often spend days cutting out a single stencil. i also almost always draw my own typefaces whenever they're used on t-shirts or album covers AND ESPECIALLY STENCILS.

canned artwork is the death of design.

i'm really disappointed that they did that.
awful cover and i'm sad that anyone would associate me with it.

hater of phoney baloney stencils,
chris habib

i hope the inside artwork makes up for the shitty cover...

...i can't believe they are really using it, it looks very fucking lazy

and habib's stencil work is pretty great. check the "post yr art or die" thread to see for yourselves

whenever i do a referential design, i redraw the whole fucking thing BY HAND and am certain to significantly change the whole context of the thing down to the last detail while adding elements of my own invention.

comme ca

the cover for ripped is a referential design that alludes to christopher wool's work. it should have been done properly...

does this look like the wall of someone who would condone such a travesty?
i have enough of these to fill all of the walls of my studio...

i seriously wish i could muster up a tear.

I agree with both Chris and AssBlaster. It's pretty half-assed, and the whole industrial style fake stencil font looks like a lame neo-punk band logo. I'm disappointed that SY haven't stuck to the old way of using artists they like to do covers.

EDIT, since Chris and I posted at the same time. Your wall, and work is awesome, top notch, five star stuff.

I saw them yesterday in Paris and believe me, they are really ugly.

red and black man! The anarchist flag colours!!!!

red and black are the nazi party colors

the anarchist flag is all black

Red and Black are grot topic colors. Fuck Grot Topic.

didn't you read my post?

nazi colors man!!

grot topic=nazi

There just isn't anything to it. I liked the compact one too....ha.

come on see the silver album line ing. The pretty intricate patterns like pretty nice. And i guess the black and red are really smbols of "Anarcho-syndicalism"

It must be true.

YOUR nazi comment is like saying the swazstikaa symbol is evol. Which really it is not. there is no such thing as bad cooinsaadince

well, i take back the nazi reference, even if i don't understand the "swastika" comment above this.

so are sonic youth on strike or something? or maybe just the graphic designer of rather ripped's cover was on strike?

every thing happens for a reason. What is the reason "mystical message from the rapture cover"??? I don't know

The message is clear: Sonic Youth are satanic nazis.

kungfunation has a different image:

Well, so this is the LP cover
Don't know if they're making them different

That would be great, this one is so much better.

or asleep. when i find out who did it... i'm issuing a fatwah. odinarily, i wouldn't give a shit. it just bugs the hell out of me that people would associate me with something that i detest so completely.

That was only one person. I didn't think it was you, simply because I like all of things that you have posted in the 'post your art or die' thread. And I think the majority of us are that way.

Yes, it is a bit....hmmm. Don't really like it but I think I could if it was in a different colour maybe. The kungfunation image looks nicer but it justs looks like some kind of preliminary thing.

Also, the fact that the record is called Rather Ripped and the cover looks....ripped....is, well, shit.

Ahh it looks to produced or something,

I don't have a problem with the artwork. I like it better than Nurse.

I can stare at the covers for BMR, DDN, and ATL while listening to the music and just feel this weird thing in it. It was really cool, but this cover is way to simplistic and just straight forward, it doesnt have those eerie feelings like others. I would much rather have the woman putting on make-up - ITS NOT A FUCKING TOILET!!!!! - then this.

thanks for calling my attention to that image, stirling...

modern art was the first type of painting where one could use a lot of black on the canvas. before modern art, using too much black was essentially making a hole in the canvas. abstract expressionism as a school originated in nyc...it's an american art form.
in the picture for the rather ripped vinyl we see a large area of art brut abstract expressionist style black over what appears to be a persian rug type of pattern. of course persia is now iran & the middle east. The juxtaposition of the ornamented, symmetrical style against the large area of the black that is almost invading & besmirching it is very powerful.
As an aesthetic, I personally enjoy this more than a picture of a persian rug. now if i were laying down an actual rug on the floor, i would prefer not to have a big "stain" on it. Ah, the mysteries of art.

sadly it's not that complex. it's just a referential christopher wool piece. the repeating pattern presented an opportunity to do something more clever with. an actually spraypainted stencil would have given the cover more dimension and complemented the texture. there were a lot of missed opportunities with it. it also would have been much better in just black and white. in this case, the red just screams of a manner in which to not get lost in the racks.

I agree w/ chabib. I like the look of the black & white alot more than the red saturated cover.