As you would expect, when Yeah Yeah Yeahs announced their new album Mosquito earlier this week it created a lot of excitement. Rather than all the talk being about the return of one of the best bands of the past decade, though, all the attention was on the mental artwork – a neon image depicting a screaming baby being grabbed by a huge mosquito.
Phrases like ‘worst album cover of 2013’ have already been banded about, and now the artist responsible has spoken out about the artwork. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Beomsik Shimbe Shim explained the artwork was designed to correlate with the promo videos for the album, and that the inspiration for the cover came from Karen O:
All elements are designed to be animated for upcoming videos… Since Karen wanted the mosquito to be a sexy and beautifully gross female, I considered the mosquito as Karen O herself, the female warrior-like rock star.
In his defence Shimbe (as he likes to be called) cited an email he has received from Karen O in response to the album cover backlash, which apparently reads:
We don’t have fans because we do what they want us to do, we have fans because we do whatever we want and that’s really what they want the most.
So there you have it, if Karen O likes it who are we to judge!?
What are your thoughts on the album cover? Love it? Hate it? Let me know in the comments below…
