The Vinyl Experience - A Review of Five Hundred 45s

Many mourn the day the compact disc was born.  Some because of the quality of the music as opposed to  it on vinyl (Neil Young, for one), some because of the shrinking of what used to be great cover art.  Bands had frequently spent much time seeking the best use of the visual arts to comment (or deliberately not comment) on their music.  The point of the their efforts was to evoke a response in their audience. Spencer Drate and Judith Salavetz, visual artists themselves, released the book Five Hundred 45's at The Morrison Hotel in New York to much acclaim. A study, or happy flip through, of this book brought me back to various places and times, also stirring up remembrances of running out and buying a great many of the singles selected for this volume. It was so much fun to flip through the racks of Sam Goody or the like nabbing 45s that covers struck your eye like a shiny diamond, or evoked an emotion you couldn't quite put your finger on from a band you had never even listened to previously. This book has it all - a shot of The Rolling Stones looking like Choir boys on the cover for We Were Falling In Love, to the debonair Frank Sinatra's A Swingin' Affair, to the stark plain-as-you see-'em stripped down Talking Heads' Love - Building on Fire, to the haunting cover for Scarling's Band Aid Covers The Bullet Hole. s Five Hundred 45s is a wonderful time capsule of a book that I simply fell into, gazing at and reminiscing for hours. Spencer Drate and Judith Salavetz are Award-Winning Creative Directors,Designers,Authors,Curators,Media Writers,Art Reps and Packagers specializing in music design,branding and 21 pop-culture books.Mr. Drate was a 4 time grammy judge (1989-1992) on the music packaging committee , co-designed a Grammy Award nominated Album Package (1979) "Talking Heads-Fear of Music" and authored the first visual history book on the 7" Record Sleeve "45 RPM" in 2002.They have music designed for 12 in The Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame and they both have combined to design for famous musicians such as U2,Lou Reed,The Velvet Underground,Leonard Cohen,John Lennon,The Beach Boys,Billy Squier,Big Daddy Kane,Paul McCartney,Anthrax,Ramones,Talking Heads,The Pretenders,Joan Jett and Bon Jovi.Some Some of Their recent popular pop-culture book titles of their 21 books are "SWAG-Rock Posters of the 90's","Pure Animation","The Art of the Modern Movie Poster," "VFX Artistry","Creating Comics","FIVE HUNDRED 45s" and they have been profiled and interviewed in major media and books.They have won many design awards. Their famous music design work has been showcased in many venues such as at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC in the "Looking at Music-Side 2" Show-2009,The Brooklyn Museum in the "Who Shot Rock n' Roll" Show-2010 ,The Cooper Hewitt Museum,  in the "Mixed Messages" Show-1996 and "Punk/Post Punk Graphics Show" at The Steve Kasher Gallery,NYCin 2011. They are Artist Representatives for Joseph Arthur and Xany Rudoff.