Original Cover Design
- Sleeve 016/100: Madman Across The Water (1971)
- Studio Album by Elton John
- Label: Uni Records / DJM Records
- Genre: Pop Rock
- Original cover design by David Larkham with embroidery by Janis Larkham
Sleeve #16 for my project #100albumsleeves.
I’m a relatively new fan of Elton John. Growing up I only knew of his work in Lion King and his 2001 album “Songs From the West Coast“. It wasn’t until I watched “Rocketman” in 2019 that I realized I knew more songs by him than what I was aware of. Songs like “Tiny Dancer“, “Your Song” and “Don’t go breaking my heart” I knew from 70s playlists, but I never pinpoint Elton John as the singer.
After watching the movie, I got obsessed with him, listening to his wide discography for months. I was impressed by his voice and style changes, and I believe his fame is well-deserved. His 70s era is my favorite. I’m pretty amazed by the amount of music he released during that time. As of lately, I’ve been listening to “Madman Across The Water” a lot, and I chose it for this week.
The first cover redesign I made.
I originally added “Madman Across the Water” as the title, but once I decided not to use this, I changed it to “Tiny Dancer”.
I had a hard time visualizing what I wanted for this cover at first. I used “Tiny Dancer” as an excuse to draw a ballerina, but I wasn’t really that committed to the idea. I numbed during the process, watching videos or procrastinating on my phone. The images above were what I had upon my self-imposed deadline and I wasn’t satisfied.
After some reflection on how I approached the piece, I asked myself “Do you want to commit to your deadline, like in the past, or do you want to satisfy yourself this time?”. I noticed I did this not to have fun, but to have something done. I showed up, but not with my whole heart. So I decided to give myself another day to try something new with my whole attention put into the process.
Something I felt right in the first piece was the color palette (and the typeface). The music gave me Blue and Yellow. So I decided to focus on what the music was giving me.
Album Cover Redesign by franzmori. This is fan art, no copyright infringement intended.
My favorite song in the album is “Indian Sunset“, a fictional tale of a Native American warrior on the verge of defeat from the white man. He dreams of reuniting with his ancestors and the yellow moon. I took that as my inspiration. Also, the music on “Madman Across The Water” going from calm to intense to calm and intense again, made me think of the ocean and a white column dividing the space.
I liked this result much better and ironically it took me less time. From this piece I gained more understanding of how my investment in the process affects the result and how I feel. It’s not the amount of time, but the quality of it.
I started this project to gain experience designing album covers, but ultimately I’m learning a lot much more about myself as an artist and my relationship to my art. To create from a space of authentic connection with myself. I feel like every new cover is harder to make, mentally speaking, but so far it has been so worthy.
Would you like your own Album Cover design?
I’m available for commissions!
Listen to the art! I’ll be adding a new album each week to this Spotify playlist HERE.
To know more about my personal project and see the rest of the cover designs in this series, go HERE.