The small but steady resurgence of the vinyl format testifies to how physical product remains important when it comes to experiencing music. Album covers are the original canvas of rock’n’roll art, and metal, like every other genre, has spawned classics for each generation, like the disheveled and blood-covered Finntroll’s Henri Sorvali Explains H&M’s Metal Mistake and the Controversial Hoax It Created
Martos’ essays also touch on album covers that have been considered controversial, like Metallica‘s Load, which features a splatter of bovine blood and semen. Martos notes that he doesn’t like the term “controversial” because “that depends on the viewer’s interpretation and how each piece of art is judged within a specific socio-cultural context … For example, I’m standing next to someone looking at the book and they see [Cattle Decapitation‘s Humanure album cover], which features a cow excreting human remains, and they get very upset. However, when they start reading about it, about the band’s aesthetics and the obvious social commentary going on in the art, those people usually change their attitude toward it. They start to understand that there’s a proper message that deserves attention and that it isn’t something gratuitously shocking.”
Martos hopes … And Justice for Art preserves such stories for generations to come. “This can only happen if each of us contributes to keep all this information alive, passing it along,” he says. “Metal fans are a unique breed of music fans, and together, we can make it happen.”