FRANK BLACK: FRANK BLACK

Frank Black: Frank Black (1993)

I have to say: I love the artwork that goes along with Frank Black's solo debut from 1993. I think it's some of the best work that v23 did ever. I love the cover, the colors, and the crisp images of the portrait photography is striking too. My favorite thing is the way that they painted variations of the album cover using different colors and reversed the image.

Here at RJ Battles I've already told the story about how I came across The Pixies but I don't think I ever mentioned my first experience with FB's music.

There used to be a record store in downtown Northampton called Main St. Records. They had tapes and CDs upstairs and then a downstairs with records and posters. This is where I bought most of my Pixies tapes in the spring of 1994.

One day I was looking at the racks of tapes and I saw one with the 4Ad logo and it said Frank Black: Frank Black. At this point I hadn't bought Bossanova yet so I didn't even know what Black Francis looked like and all I knew about the Pixies was that they were broken up and Kim Deal was making music with The Breeders. But I figured that this must be Black Francis- the song titles looked like Pixies song titles. There's no way I would've asked a clerk for information, too shy, so I didn't get the tape that day.

About a week later I was looking through Details magazine and there was a review for Teenager Of The Year, which hadn't been released yet. The review said that it was the second solo album from Black Francis, who had inverted his stage name, so it turned out that I was right. I've gotta say, I was a little freaked out by the album cover which they posted above the review. Like I said, I had no idea what any of the band members looked like, except Kim Deal, and not only was the make-up a little creepy, it just wasn't what I imagined Black Francis to look like at all.

I thought the lettering and the colors were awesome though, and over time I started to think that the album cover was pretty cool, in a grotesque kind of way.

Anyway, I bought Teenager the day it came out and I loved it and I probably bought the first album a couple weeks later (and loved it almost as much).

I've probably worn out both of those tapes and it would be hard for me to listen to either album now because I played them so much over the next year.

Frank Black made some amazing songs in the years after that but the sleeve design was never anywhere near as good as those first two records.

Here are some of my favorite images from ther CD book.

Design: Vaughan Oliver (Pixies, Breeders) and Chris Bigg (Belly).
Portrait Photography: Michael Halsband (who also shot the photos for Teenager).
Artwork Photography: Simon Larbalestier (Pixies)