Soiled Work
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The artwork for Soilwork's new album, Sworn to A Great Divide (Nuclear Blast, 2007), is a complete rip-off of Stephen Kasner. At first, I thought he did the cover, but I emailed him and found out this was not so. It straight-up bites Kasner's artwork for Himsa's Hail Horror (Prosthetic, 2006), down to the serpentine theme. This isn't homage, it's theft. Why haven't more people flagged this? In other venues, plagiarism is grounds for expulsion, decertification, etc.
Maybe this is karmic "payback" for having been ripped off before. Delphian's Unravel (Lion Music, 2007) steals the stream of butterflies of 2002's Natural Born Chaos. Who OK's these decisions??? What self-respecting artist would want to take another's style? What band would want their album to look like another's? Absolutely shameful.
8 Comments:
Unoriginal bands stealing original artwork?! Who would've thought?!
There's always Baizley from Baroness if you don't want to pay Pushead to do an illo for you as well.
(Not that I'm not a fan of "his" art or band)...
Nice to see you back blogging, Jason! While the Pushead influence is obvious, I really think Baizley takes it to a different level...Pushead is more on the skate/street level, while Baizley is doing floral/conceptual stuff that Pushead would never touch.
I have to echo the original comment. The same way an unoriginal band like Soilwork can claim to be 'inspired' by At the Gates or whomever, their cover artist can claim to have been 'inspired' by Kasner.
Here's something potentially more scary. More people will see the Soilwork cover than the Himsa one, and therefore the few that realise the connection will claim the naturally smaller band has stolen the concept from Soilwork. In a way Soilwork are bringing Kasner's nice cover-concept to the masses! Go Soilwork!
I'll argue that Soilwork (around Predator's Portrait and Natural Born Chaos) isn't/wasn't as unoriginal as detractors claim (NBC has some very un-ATG-like moments), while this artwork in question is more plagiarism than inspiration...Like the difference between Demiricous and The Haunted.
It's karmic retribution for ripping off the title of Sigh's "Hail Horror Hail" album.
It's not plagiarism. This has been happening for years - no, centuries. Let's say the artist did see and "bite" Himsa's album cover. It's called appropriation and there is nothing illegal about it. As long as the artwork is at least 30% different from the original, it's okay. If you don't believe me, sift through the copyright law. Also, look at artists like Duchamp.
As for being unoriginal, I can't think of a single band that sounds exactly like Soilwork. There are plenty of other bands that you should rip on before criticizing Soilwork.
Legality isn't the issue. Himsa or Stephen Kasner isn't going to sue Soilwork or Seth Siro Anton. There's no money or time for such a thing.
The issue is validity as art. Why do you choose to express yourself using only what others have done? "Appropriation" is only the first step. The next is actually doing something with it. In this case, I'm not convinced there's more done to it to move the appropriation beyond theft. It's the difference between P. Diddy and DJ Shadow with sampling in hip-hop.
I agree about the originality of Soilwork themselves, though. THAT is skilled appropriation. Taking the Gothenburg sound and adding and subtracting elements so that you know a Soilwork song immediately when you hear it. This album cover, though - if you see it and immediately think it's someone else, it isn't original.
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