I was a huge fan of Melinda Doolittle’s amazing vocals and actual ability to interpret songs, instead of just karaoke them, during the 2007 season of American Idol. So how awesome is it that she eschewed the normal Idol album-cover route of a bad senior-day picture and paid tribute to Bob Dylan for her new record, which is finally coming out early next year? [The Set List]
December 17th, 2008 // 6 Comments
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While it’s pretty exciting that an American Idol singer is going the “old school” route (though, come on, they said the same about Taylor Hicks), it seems silly to me that they’re copying “Freewheelin” of all albums. Why not any one of hundreds of great old soul albums? Why not one of any handful of other Dylan albums that have less clunky covers? If anyone sees that who doesn’t know the Dylan reference, won’t they just think it’s a cheap hack-job cover? And if they’re going to go so far to make her cover like Freewheelin’s, whey is the photo black and white? I don’t know… it just seems a little ill-conceived to me. (See also: Scott Weiland’s “12 Bar Blues”.)
That’s a beautiful cover. There really is something about the fonts and layout in several 1960s CBS/Columbia/Epic releases that just draws me to them, and I would argue that attempts to emulate them have resulted in some of the most striking cover art of recent years. For ex:
I didn’t know the Dylan reference, I’ve never paid any attention to him, and I thought it was a pretty cool cover that evoked classic R&B. I will buy this.
Plus, how could you not be intrigued by the two Robert Johnson songs as done by Melinda?
Even if I didn’t like (which I do very much), I’d be tempted to buy this based on the cover alone.
Had no clue of the Dylan reference either… It makes for a smooth track though.