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Using dead people as album covers
https://forum.metal-archives.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=128292		 Page 4 of 4
Author:  Tired [ Sat Jul 18, 2020 4:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Using dead people as album covers
The scariest thing I could see or hear about Fluids as I checked them out right now was the morbidly obese hipsters playing in the band, I wouldn't want those shitsacks to fall on me on a dark street...

As to the actual question, this doesn't bother me personally, but I very well can understand that it can be harmful to the family members and such of the deceased. Gore pictures don't really hold their shock value for that long anyway. The psychological aspects of death and torture (when done well, not like performed by "Fluids") are far scarier. Overall it's just a cheap tactic done by crap bands like the aforementioned, and even in shock value they have been topped by chart-toppers like Scorpions' Virgin Killer...
Author:  Inkshooter [ Sat Jul 18, 2020 7:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Using dead people as album covers
droneriot wrote:
Actually I think A Serbian Film is really good on paper and people only complain about the lack of emotional weight because the actors as so Z-movie level godawful.


I'll admit there's an interesting meta-fiction narrative going on with the movie in which you can interpret Vukmir, the porn director, as being a stand-in for Srdjan Spasojevic, the movie's real-life director. Vukmir directs these horrific snuff-films with pedophilic, rapey imagery and you ask "who would watch this?"

Then you realize "oh... I would. I sought this film out on purpose."
Author:  droneriot [ Sat Jul 18, 2020 7:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Using dead people as album covers
A former legend is down on his luck and has to do one last gig to make ends meet, and he is pushed to go a little further on that one. That's actually a classic movie theme. Like basically any Western or Die Hard or Stallone movie. With capable actors, combining that classic movie theme with the exploitation movie genre could have turned out really good, but the actors in A Serbian Film were just fucking terrible.
Author:  ~Guest 282118 [ Sat Jul 18, 2020 7:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Using dead people as album covers
doomicus wrote:
I actually really love the aesthetic of bog bodies, mummies, and skeletal remains as album covers. The type of stuff you'd find in history books. The shock gore and guts car accident / murder / suicide variety isn't my thing, and especially if that said dead person has living relatives and or family it's a rather abhorrent act to display.

Pretty much exactly what I came here to say. Shocking images for their own sake I find to be tasteless and childish, but I don't mind skeletons, mummies, or the like. It's not even about the absence of mulchy gore, really, but moreso the fact that an album cover with a real splattered corpse on it is usually a harbinger for rather vapid musical contents.

That, and the fact that, having once seen a man swandive under a bus to commit suicide, well... yeah. I don't like reliving that.
Author:  Sepulchrave [ Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Using dead people as album covers
droneriot wrote:
A former legend is down on his luck and has to do one last gig to make ends meet, and he is pushed to go a little further on that one. That's actually a classic movie theme. Like basically any Western or Die Hard or Stallone movie. With capable actors, combining that classic movie theme with the exploitation movie genre could have turned out really good, but the actors in A Serbian Film were just fucking terrible.


I wouldn't say they were terrible per se. Srđan Todorović (the guy who plays the main character) is a well-respected actor. However the roles were deeply unsuitable for him and the script had the satirical nuance of a total brick. It's the unfortunate pseudo-nihilistic genre of dark film that plagued Serbian cinema for a while.

To go back on-topic, I think stuff like actual gore as a result of murder/accident/suicide is quite exploitative, no exceptions. I think to justify the artistic value of some goregrind album covers like that involves some serious mental gymnastics, and I think the portrayal of genuine death in visual arts requires more thought put into it. I would say Pungent Stench's early album covers fit the bill (outside the context of the lyrics anyway). In the realm of film, too, there is the documentary Honeyland (2019) which portrays an actual death with a tactful combination of realism and and respect.

I think in general, art with sensitive subjects requires a serious consideration of the approach towards them. Mindless taboo-breaking more often than not leads to thoughtless reactions of either "ew that's disgusting" or "hellyeah fuck taboos". I would say goregrind, like quite a lof of punk, is mostly just taboo-breaking for the sake of it. I would love to hear how a goregrind album made anyone here genuinely rethink death. :lol:

But there are cases like Mortuary Drape's debut, which is apparently a result of grave desecration. Though it's unlikely any family member would recognise the body and though it seems that it probably didn't result in any harm, I would still say it's a wrong thing to do on principle, and is no different than vandalizing public space.
Author:  Anmeggz [ Sat Jul 25, 2020 8:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Using dead people as album covers
I don't really care but maybe that just because I've been desensitized.
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