the wu-note project
This guy first came to my attention a while ago, but the further he’s gotten in this project, the more fascinating it’s become. His name is Logan Walters, and he’s an artist/designer. In addition to his regular, paying work, Walters has taken up a little hobby project on the side: redesigning all of the Wu-Tang album covers so that they resemble classic Blue Note releases. Called the “Wu Note Project,” Walters work creates a kind of unity between the hundreds of disparate Wu releases, significantly changing the feel of each album in an intriguing way. I’m genuinely considering replacing the official album art in my player with Walters’ updates.
You can easily browse all of his Wu covers on his Flickr page. My favorites so far are GZA’s Liquid Swords and Beneath the Surface and the original Enter the Wu-Tang. Here’s hoping Walters rides it all the way out to Cuban Linx 2
On a related note, check out Hua Hsu’s eMusic Icons: Wu-Tang Clan hub, for an annotated guide to (most of) the Wu records on eMusic, and Chris Weingarten’s Six Degrees of Enter the Wu-Tang, which presents the Wu’s classic debut alongside the sources of some of its most famous samples.
I love this notion. Album art is an important piece of the experience, for me. Most of the time, I stick with whatever the artist/label have selected, since it maintains the integrity of their overall project. However, if there’s an alternate cover (say, the European version of the disc) that I prefer, I’ll replace the US official album art. And, in rare cases, when I absolutely hate the cover, I’ll choose something else I like to replace it.
And I sort of hate some of the Wu-Tang covers. So this is tempting.
This is great. I remember seeing this a while back. I’ve also really thought about changing some of the album art on my Wu albums, but I probably won’t. Regardless, it makes sense for the remaking of the covers to be related to Blue Note, which, unknown to itself for a while, is a hip-hop institution all on its own.