Hard-Fi band markets album without artwork -- the beginning of a trend?

If you haven't read or seen anything about the album cover the English band Hard-Fi created for their most recent album, you might be interested simply for the novelty of the approach. Once Upon a Time in the West was released last week (next week in the U.S.) with the band's name, the album title and the words "No Cover Art." larger than both as the cover image (or non-image).

The band has stated that they wished to "break the rules" of an increasingly digital market where album covers did not matter by simply not having any artwork. The accompanying artwork for the first single from the album tells the listener that an "expensive black and white photo of band" is not available in a more overt statement about the decline in importance for artwork to accompany an album. The band also told NME that "it gets harder to do something really interesting because of the size of CDs" and that they have been told that this move makes the album "the white album" for this generation. (8/18/2007, p.21) Of course, when the "white album" was released in 1968 it hardly mattered that the sleeve was white as much as it mattered that The Beatles were putting out a new album.

On the whole, the scheme seems like a fairly interesting marketing campaign. Reports indicate that Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) label executives were against the move, which has sparked harsh criticism from fans on the band's message boards. Despite these backlash, the lack of artwork and surrounding media coverage brought this potential listener to their website and clips of their songs which seems a successful ploy to bring in new listeners. It may only be a novelty bid in a saturated market but "no cover art" may just succeed and allow the band to reinsert the importance of music in selling music in the record industry.