Flaming Lips and Pixies Reinvent Album Packaging With Fur and Monsters

For Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, the idea of wrapping his band's latest disc in fake fur seemed like a natural thing to do.

"Fur seemed perfect for the kind of imagery we associated with this collection of songs," Coyne tells Spinner about a very special edition of 'Embryonic.' "Since we have the freedom to design whatever we want, that occurred to us immediately: 'Shouldn't we get some kind of fur?' For a moment, we bandied around the idea of using human skin. We realized we couldn't do that, but we could use fake fur."

Fur is also one of dozens of design elements at play in the season's most elaborately packaged release. Two-feet tall and heavy enough to crush a house pet, the "Limited Edition" of the Pixies' 'Minotaur' box set is a real monster.

The alt-rock legends' complete works are presented in a variety of formats alongside two newly designed art books, DVDs, posters and much more. All 3,000 copies will be autographed by every band member and Vaughan Oliver, who designed 'Minotaur' as well as the original Pixies' album art.

But these are just two of the many lavish, oversize box sets comprising a new wave of collectibles that prove the digital age hasn't killed the art of music packaging.

There's also Warp Records' sleek five-CD, five-record 'Warp20' anniversary set, AC/DC's 'Backtracks' which doubles as a working guitar amp, an adults-only edition of Rammstein's new album with dildos, lube and handcuffs and Peanut Butter Wolf's '45 Live,' a set of classic hip-hop singles released on seven-inch vinyl.

In terms of sheer girth, the most impressive set is 'The Complete Miles Davis Columbia Album Collection,' containing 70 CDs and a DVD. Sony Legacy producer Richard Seidel suggests such extremes may be what it takes to get consumers excited about music purchases again. "There's less interest than ever in a plain old single CD in a jewel box," he says. "The reason people are interested in this is that it's more than a little bit of audio in a piece of plastic. It's more of a coffee-table item, or a piece of artwork."

2009 Flaming Lips - Embryonic Packages from George Salisbury on Vimeo

It's all part of a wider effort to keep fans engaged in the digital age. "I don't care really if people download music -- that's just an inevitable by-product of the technology," Coyne says. "Everybody's logical response to that is: 'Let's have things you can't download.'"

The box set format reached its commercial peak in the '80s when platinum sales for Bob Dylan's 'Biograph' and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's 'Live 1975-85' provoked a glut of lesser sets. Now it's about attracting discerning consumers willing to pay for something unique.

'Minotaur' is the most extreme example. Created by Oliver with original Pixies cover photog Simon Larbalestier and students from Oliver's creative arts design class, it qualifies as one of the most radical pieces of music packaging ever.

"I had carte-blanche," says Oliver, because he wasn't hired by the label but by Artists in Residence, a company famed for one-of-a-kind Nine Inch Nails and Sigur Ros sets. "I started by saying, 'Let's throw out all of the old artwork.' Some of these sleeves are well-regarded and have been in graphic-design annuals, but 20 years later I'd like to think that I can move it onto a different level.

"It's not viable for everyone's wallet," he admits, "but [Pixies] deserve something like this and there will be an audience out there."




But who's shelling out for sets like the Miles Davis box, the largest ever devoted to a non-classical artist -- a new Yo-Yo Ma collection runs 90 discs -- when hardcore collectors likely have the material already?

"A friend of mine who is out of work and an enormous Leonard Cohen fan told me, 'I'm going to Madison Square Garden and spend $250 on a ticket just because this is something I want to experience,'" says Seidel. "Maybe that's the same attitude people have to these box sets."

In Oliver's view, designers and consumers may both be responding to an innate desire to have not only something to collect but to touch.

"We are being denied the sensual part of our experience with music when we reduce it to a digital download," says Oliver. "I don't think the future is digital downloads with artwork printed out on your own computer. There's also a movement toward motion graphics and specifically designed animations. But if you download it, then your experience with it is still entirely through the screen. I still think there's a calling to have that piece of music in a package -- something to unfold, to have and to hold."

"I know that with some of my favourite records ever, it's not just about the music," agrees Coyne. "I'm thinking of a Beatles collection on my shelf, or Miles Davis' 'Sketches of Spain' -- the packaging made me love it even more. All of that colours the level of pleasure you get from these things.

"And I do want the audience to know that I am giving this as much love as I can, so they get just as much out of it."