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The first Futurama reviewed in 1979 by NME 's Ian Punman and Andy Gill (RIP) F2 = the ground zero for Goth in many ways The second F... -
An interesting post from John Coulthart at feuilleton about Hawkwind , whose whole thing exists at that intersection of science fiction an...
Haha a courageous attempt to make Ian Gillan look modern and glamorous! That was at the peak of his New Wave phase, when he had the vaguely punk-credible guitar player Bernie Torme in the band.
ReplyDeleteThat airbrushed glossy artwork was everywhere for a while in the late 70s / early 80s. Echoes of Roxy album covers and the Chris Foss school of sci-fi book jacket art, obviously. But I feel like there was a more respectable Pop Art progenitor of that style, and I can't think who it was. Richard Hamilton, maybe?
Borag Thungg
ReplyDeleteJust to note at this juncture that there was a series of stories in 2000AD comic in the late 70s entitled Tharg's Future Shocks.
Unwisely I played the Gillan whole album clip and was taken aback by how bad it was - and how little it deserved the title 'future shock'. It sounds like Deep Purple (unsurprisingly i spose) but less so.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of Pop Art progenitors there was this whole 70s school of airbrush art - Fine Art painters using airbrush, the results had that hi-gloss hyper-real quality. I think it was LA based and picking on the man-made environment, billboards... the lurid sunsets caused by smog.
May I take a punt and suggest the originator of 70s airbrush futurism was A Clockwork Orange?
DeleteYou mean the David Pelham cover for the Penguin paperback?
DeleteHis covers for Penguin science fiction often have that look - especially the ones for J.G. Ballard, also Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Frederick Pohl's A Plague of Pythons - https://speakertoanimals.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/the-art-of-penguin-science-fiction-david-pelham/
DeleteYeah he was the king of the airbrush https://penguinseriesdesign.com/2023/06/19/david-pelhams-airbrushed-sci-fi/
DeleteI was more thinking of the film poster and artwork, by the airbrush artist Philip Castle: https://clockworkorangeart.co.uk/
DeleteBut it's not as if what we're saying is mutually exclusive.