Music posters – imagined music poster art

I’m part of that very first generation that was brought up with a computer – a BBC B 32K, followed by a 512K Commodore Amiga, then an Apricot PC running Windows 3.1. I’ve therefore always programmed, sequenced and composed music digitally using a combination of a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and midi keyboard. When I began programming music on a computer the internet and World Wide Web didn’t exist, but soon that too would dominate how I worked and shared my tracks.

As a music producer and digital creative everything I’ve ever composed and designed has been digital, and as a result, intangible. It only exists on screen, in the cloud, or as a download. It can be enjoyed, but it has no real presence.

I can watch TV shows, films and videos featuring music that I’ve written. I can see my albums in download stores and streaming sites such as Amazon, Apple Music and Soundcloud. I can analyse the stats, charts, locations and preferences of the people who download and stream my music. I can create videos and share them on social media and YouTube, but all this only exists in the electronic ether that is the web. Kill the power and it’s all gone.

I’m a writer/producer and not a performer, so I’ve never had the need for printed media such as tickets, flyers or music posters. I’ve created album artwork but it never needed to be printed as CDs were dying out when I published my first albums as digital downloads, and with all marketing done online there was no need for music poster art either.

This lack of physical presence made me wonder what it would look like if my albums had been promoted with traditional printed media. Something that renders the intangible into a form which appears existent; branded music posters splashed on wall, a promotional billboard on an everyday street, fly posters littering an underpass. What would Scambler music poster artwork look like if it were real…