Post
by synthjunkie » 01 Sep 2013, 21:40
I grew up with anime during my teens during the 90's. I totally love anything by Studio Ghibili as well, but I still think that it has no place in Eurobeat, since Eurobeat is a product of Italo-disco and HI-NRG. Making covers in anime style would only please anime fans, and that leaves out alot of the people who are NOT into anime who do love their eurobeat.
What I think is that the covers need to be more creative, like the crazy covers we had in the beginning of SEB and later on too, with crazy models doing freaky things, and art wasn't just about some pretty girl on the cover, but about experimental art. For example, look at covers during SEB vol. 35-40, or vol. 81-90, vol.151, vol.162, vol.168, vol.184. Now I find those to be more controversial, mysterious, and alluring and out of the norm, which to me, kinda sums up what eurobeat is about.
I think that these covers have more in common with what Eurobeat is about: experimentation, with a sort of non-main stream style. Yes, you can argue that Avex is far from mainstream, and that eurobeat was once king of electronic music in Japan for a while, but the fact that eurobeat is not very well known around the world, comparing it to anything in today's music world, I still wouldn't consider it mainstream in the least. In addition, even though alot of eurobeat might sound the same to the average listener, there has been alot of shifts and changes to eurobeat over the years, and always new things popping in and out, part of the experimental thing I'm talking about.
So yeah, I think we should go back to having weird SEB covers, instead of just putting a good looking model on the cover, and nothing else. Why not use some experimental art stock photo shoots, Avex? Where it isn't just about "look how sexy i am with no brain." Heck, even some creepy drag queen or drag king photo shots with weird, crazy make-up and hair might even fit in better than what we have today! Some of the earlier time records had some weird vinyl sleeves that are better than anything we get today on SEB covers.